Halloween Haunts: A Condemned Man, A Halloween Memory by Steve Rasnic Tem
Back then, for me, it was all about masks.
For Halloween, sure, but I’m also talking about day-to-day. This all started with the perception that people seldom said what they really felt about anything. I wasn’t sure why, but apparently there was something impolite about frankness, and politeness was something we took pretty seriously in my part of the South. The only person I knew whose face invariably expressed whatever passed through his head was the town’s developmentally disabled fellow who sat on a bench by the drugstore when he wasn’t out with his burlap sack collecting roadside treasures. Whether …
You all know my tale of woe. I am forced to live without the true spirit of Halloween because I live on the other side of the world. 🙁
Recently, I had the opportunity to go on a vacation with a group of friends. Five couples, and 2 of them had their daughters with them, ages 17 and 19, respectively. One day, while sitting on the beach, conversation turned to the topic of Halloween. I mentioned that “back in our day,” Halloween was very different. Sure, we went to parties, dressed in costumes, and as kids even got into our share of shenanigans on “Gate Night” or “Mischief Night.”
When I get writer’s block, I turn to one of my other creative tools, such as painting or illustration. Back in the fall of 2012, when my father was in the last months of his life, I was too worried to write. I spent hours drawing instead. That’s how I ended up illustrating a couple of short stories. It’s why I am now presenting at comic book and zine centered events like SF Zine Fest, in addition to writing events like ConVolution and BayCon. Not coincidentally, one of my characters, Charlotte Metaxas from Happiness and Other Diseases, is a …
