Hallows Eve Story
I was once told a scary story about one Halloween
When nightmares jumped alive and crept between
Autumn months, concealed undercover of a dark monster-lit evening
Never admitting to the trick of emitting, just telling us they’re treating
Screeching “This is FINE” through ghostly yells and screams,
I once heard a scary story about Halloween.
The holiday was ostensibly for kids, to enjoy with free candy
Sugar-high fed from door-to-door strangers almost nonsensically
At first, the weeks ahead started getting casually called Spooky Season
But even at that time, as the world got scarier than any holiday, with carbon reasons
So now Halloween’s year round, not one season, or one night
Filled with ancestral horror haunting our every decision in fright
I once dressed up for the holiday, but now’s time to take masks off
My brother once filled our foyer with horrors, but outside’s haunted enough
There’s nothing scarier or more creeping nightmarish than our climate crisis
Because whatever else you’ll suggest, a hotter world underlines it
And once you know, you never find any day that doesn’t seem like Halloween
So you join-in telling the scary story of our every hallowed eve.
Return of Climate Ghost Stories
Happy hallowhatever week. Sharing a couple climate ghost stories this week… because when else does it make as much thematic sense? Well, besides all of the time. Invoking Bowie —
On the other hand, what I like my music to do to me is awaken the ghosts inside of me. Not the demons, you understand, but the ghosts. — David Bowie
For the back catalog of ghost stories I shared this summer, head here:
These are written as hymn lyrics — so they’re intended to flow like an old children’s book rhyme— that either come from the pov of a specific individual or spin out a climate crisis mythos from a classic horror trope.