Halloween Die-ary: September 24, 2018

It was cold enough to merit a sweater and a coat, the smell of woodburning stoves permeated the block, neighbors were putting up Halloween and Fall decorations. We had to go somewhere after work. Anywhere. We couldn’t just stay inside when that kind of magic was happening out there.

So we took off to a farm. Just to wander the piles of giant pumpkins and see the sunflower beds and apple trees. Lull Farm in Hollis is the one we went to. This farm has some kind of work program with Jamaica, so its staff is mostly made of Jamaicans, who drive the tractors loaded with pumpkins and fill the apple bins. My favorite photo in the little farm shop there is of a Jamaican man balancing two sizable pumpkins on his head.

Being surrounded by pumpkin actually put me in a moment of mental crisis. Could I buy pumpkins now? Would they rot before late October? When is the optimal time to buy pumpkins? The ones I saw tonight were amazing, with long, thick black stems and perfect shapes. These were unpicked-over piles of pumpkins.

From there, we went to the grocery store to grab some dinner (and some more Downeast Pumpkin Blend cider), where we saw just as many pumpkins as at the farm, even if most of them were fake. Meanwhile, my eldest turned my I'M WITH CREEPY shirt into a game, trying to stay on the opposite side of me from where the skeletal hand was pointing the whole time we were in public.

Then it was back home, where we watched Halloween specials on YouTube with the kids and then finished Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel from yesterday. The movie got a bit contrived and over the top by the end but had some good moments. Like my wife observed, both movies did a great job of making you feel trapped in that hotel. Also that the basement in the hotel reminded us a lot of the basement in our old house.

Incidentally, you might have seen the image I posted on the socials of my wife hiding her eyes during the movie. The story is even better than the image.

From my perspective, it was a pretty simple moment. I picked up my phone, launched the camera with a double-click of the button at the bottom, and then took a photo of her cowering in her “pregnancy chair.”

But my wife got a much different experience.

See, what I forgot is that I was actually casting the movie from my phone to the TV by mirroring the devices since they were both Samsung. Basically whatever was on my phone screen appeared on the TV screen.

So what Lindsey saw was a particularly tense scene in the movie involving a bloody demon clown in a basement, when suddenly that found footage on the TV cut to what looked like live found footage of herself in that moment…from my phone focusing on her for the photo.

It’s a frightening, maybe horrifying, idea, even to me in hindsight. So what's going on behind her fingers is a lot more soul-terror than what it might at first seem.

Also, you’re welcome, Lindsey. Some of us go our entire season looking to be scared like that.