Hello, people. Since it is primarily the reason for the season, let me spin a tale of unadulterated terror. Yesterday, last night, every waking moment of the past day you had was fun, but to just state it as such would be a gross understatement. The previous day was the kind God blessed us with life for; the joy of being alive made your breath sweeter, your eyes brighter, and your feet happier. Yesterday, in short, was the near mythical perfect day. And after you thanked God for inexplicably bestowing you with the most incredible 24 hours of your life, you plopped onto your bed for perhaps the most relaxing piece of sleep ever experienced on this planet.

  Then you wake up. Your significant other gleefully calls and tells you of all the sex they have been having with others while separated from you (including that very moment). Afterwards, your parents call and inform you of how you are a horrific disappointment. Your friends curse you out when you call them looking for sympathy. When you head out to your car so you can drive and get some air, you find your windows busted out and your radio and CD player gone; the jackals even took the time to scrawl “Your CDs Suck!” on what is actually your favorite CD and left it hanging on the air freshener.

  You go file a police report, enduring the piercing, condemning stares of all your fellow road warriors. When you get to the police station, the cops put into words what you imagined the staring travelers saying: “Well, what did you expect? Look at the car you have. Look at the system you had in it. No one told you to get that.” It does not matter if it was a stellar system in an awful car or vice versa or some other combination; the bottom line according to the cops is that it is your own stupid fault. While heading towards your car you realize you can no longer see it, as in, it decided to drive itself off and leave you behind. You inform the cops of this and all they reply with is “My God, you’re a retard.”

  When you call one of your friends for a ride home, you get told for 20 minutes all the various things they have going on that is more important than helping your sorry tail out. Your parents agree to come get you but only after they call you a walking abortion.

While waiting for them outside the police station, a homeless individual approaches you. Obviously things had not been that great for this person; the scars from his life are written all over him. “Can you spare a dolla for me?” he asks, and this gives you some perspective. You do not feel like poplocking and doing the running man, but you realize that it could be a lot worse. You break out 10 bucks, give it to its new owner, and listen as he laughs in your face while spitting out, “Now go screw yourself.”

  Maybe you would have punched him, but you will never know since the unearthly stench of his breath causes you to vomit all over yourself which causes the man to back away from you in uncontrollable fits of laughter, lest he have himself a heart attack. The man is careful to avoid stumbling into someone walking past with several cleaning products that would be useful to you; never breaking stride, the person just stares at you, wondering how you sunk so low.

  Right then and there, you get on your knees and you cry out to God. You ask for help, you ask why is this happening, you ask for Him to touch your heart and then you hear His voice; you know this is actually happening because everyone is looking up at the sky where the voice came from. “You are truly pathetic,” He says, in a voice He might have modeled James Earl Jones’ off of. “And such a whiny little something, too. ‘Oh God, please help me, oh God, please help me.’ Can’t I go a day without hearing something from you. Goodness.”

  Since you are too weak to cry and your heart is the sorest it has ever been, all you can think to do is lay flat down and hope for some kind of peace whether it comes through death or whatever.

  I could go on but I think you know full well there is no happy ending in sight. So why bother with this at all? Well, besides pumping kids full of candy, Halloween is all about the good-natured or mean-spirited scare. I am just trying to bring a little gravity to the whole thing though it is a day late. See, to me, the idea of Halloween is quite silly since we have so many real life things to be terrified of. If you are good at rooting out themes, then you know that I was exploring what it could be like if we lost love. I am talking about all kinds of love whether it be parental, sibling, friendly, courtesy love of a stranger, or, of course, romantic. That terrifies me. I mean, imagine this: we are all full of hate and we are ready to lie, steal, kill and be consumed with self. Love is absent from our lives, which means God is ultimately nonexistent to us. God is Love. He is the very meaning of it, the composite of everything that equals up to love’s beauty. Sometimes when it seems that all is lost, we say that all we need is God with us; what if we could not even be granted that?

  I admitted that the idea of losing love scares me, but the only reason it does is because I myself have not been quite as loving as I could be. All of us are pretty much on a daily quest for love, no matter what kind, and as of late I’ve been sort of a failure on all fronts. There are so many reasons for this happening whether it is through things I do intentionally or not, but that is the bottom line. At any moment my life could be cut short and all my plans and intentions will be for naught if I do not mix in a little more affection for my fellow man. How scary is that? Especially when you factor in that I eventually do want a wife, kids, and maybe even a dog that I would continually bathe in anti-flea treatments. That makes it downright chilling for me.

  We all know what we can do, really what we have to do, but will we? I hope we can. And on that note, take care and God bless.

Contact Antonio at Amuse@b-now.com