A HAlloween Tale.....The Mask And The Fear, page 1

This is a work of fiction. A product of imagination. Any resemblance drawn to anyone alive or dead is coincidental.

What is the difference between night and day? Nothing, if you ask at dusk or dawn.

Stu spends most of his time in a room shaded by sheets on two sides. There are no doors here. He is on the side of the room where the builder of the home died all those years ago. Suddenly and with an expensive project half done. Stu started the heavy drug/alcohol use when he was 15. That was 15 years ago. Born of uneducated parents, he repeats that cycle and is left to live it out unabated. Too weak to live, too scared to die. His family has tried in their own ineffective ways to turn that car around, but to no avail. It's a one way street with no brick wall at the end where there should be. So he spends most of his time getting high and masturbating to skin rags. Captain Jack meets the Juggalo Nation. Why? Because that's the best he can do and he shoots people down who try to wake him up. It's the fear.

Don't get it wrong. The family in his life are not upset about the fear and indecisiveness. It happens. Everyone goes through that phase. But this cat just won't let it go. He uses his family's sympathies to milk that behavior to keep skating through life on their dime. They let it happen because their lack of understanding about what he's all about and how he got there keeps them, on some level, afraid of Stu. We fear what we don't understand. Just ask Stu, he'll tell you all about it.

Again, all this where a man who was highly educated, respected by his peers and rarely slept because he was constantly working......passed away. Respect for the dead is lost in the fog of an uneducated life. When he does go out, it's with an attitude of bravado strengthened at times by booze. Liquid courage. All talk and no action. It compensates for the nights he spends alone writing down his deepest feelings of fear and inadequacy. People see the day and don't ask about the night. Few others are privy to the dusk and dawn here. They see it both as both sides come to life to play their part. Some lament for Stu.....others for the departed who gets figuratively pissed on most of the time, but still, nothing changes.

Every day is Halloween for this kid. The mask is always on. It's time to rip it off and show the sorrow for what it is. A pathetic caricature of life. Respect for the dead.....that's what Halloween is all about after all. The masks and costumes......they are to represent the dead we are giving respect to, not to hide fear. Stu puts on a mask of bravado to hide the dead that is him at night. What he has chosen to become. All the while laying down where that other man laid down to die. It's a cursed life that he doesn't even see. What happens when the dead inhabit the living while the living remain unaware?

What is the difference between death and life? Nothing, if you ask Stu.

Happy Halloween everyone.