Happy Halloween
Happy Halloween
„Guys, I have to go home“, Peter says and looks nervously on his wrist watch. “It’s nearly eight o’clock.”
“Just one last house”, James begs, his mouth full of sweets. He points at the big, dark house at the end of the street where actually no-one dares to go.
Peter’s eyes become big and he shakes his head appalled. “Not there! This house is haunted.”
“So what? It’s Halloween. Don’t be such a wimp”, Lucie pipes up and folds her arms.
“But the woman living there allegedly eats children for breakfast”, Peter says desperate and looks as if he would start crying in a moment. Lucie asks herself in secrete who actually is the girl in the group.
“But it’s evening. We would have time until tomorrow morning to spilt if she kidnapped us”, James answers grinning.
“Alright, let’s go”, Lucie decides. She and James take Peter in their middle and walk along the street towards the big, spooky house. The nearer they get, the more Peter is shivering but also James and Lucie do not feel that brave anymore when they enter the land. The garden is a mess and the lawn should be mowed. The wall color is peeled off and one can clearly see the old wood beneath. On the veranda was a single jack-o’-lantern with a creepy face graved.
Lucie presses the bell button expectantly. The three friends wait for a moment but nothing happens.
“Nobody’s here. We better leave”, Peter says assuaged and wants to turn around but Lucie holds him.
“Look, the door is open”, James whispers excited and stands inside the house one second later.
They go along a dark corridor and see a small light at the end of it. Apparently, there is someone inside. They creep there on tiptoe and peek into the room. A woman with unkempt here sits on a rocking chair, which rocks back and forth squeakily.
James harrumphs and says extra loud: “Trick or treat!”
Slowly the woman turns around. Her nose is vast and askew and has a big wart on top. Her eyes blaze dangerously and she grins which shows her yellow teeth.
“Trick”, she fizzes.
James, Peter, and Lucie scream as loud as they can and sprint out of the house. They have never gone there again.
Good Girl
I have always been a good girl. I used to belong to that kind of children the adults said about: “Your daughter is such a lovely girl. I wish my son was a bit like her. You have raised her so well.”
In school, I only got very good marks, I was a diligent student, I was athletic and I could play three musical instruments. But I had no friends. The other kids called me a nerd. I only suck up to the teachers, they said. They are just envy, my parents said.
Now, I am studying medicine. I am the best of my age group. Nobody is able to hold a candle to me. The professors promise me a gorgeous future as a doctor. But I still do not have any friends. Most of the other students of my age group forgo me. Sometimes, the relationship to them is big enough to do small talk, then they talk with me about the weather or a lecture, but that is all. I always recognize that they actually do not feel like talking to me because they mostly say they have no time and have to go to the library or have to catch a bus. I know that this is not the truth.
Only one single person was interested in me. I met him in my first semester on the university. He studied psychology and wanted to make friends with me. He did not care for the fact that I was always the best anywhere. He was not envy, he simply liked me. He invited me to a coffee and we told each other many things. I felt in love quite fast and so did he. We became a couple and the others looked at us disapprovingly but we did not care. Finally, I found someone who liked me the way I was. We met for lunch in the canteen everyday and in the evening, we went to the cinema or theater, attended concerts or stayed at home and cooked together. I was the happiest person in the world. Until, one day, he told me we could not be a couple anymore because he did not love me. I was devastated. I could not understand what he told me. He said he would be sorry and he would like to stay friends with me. He never wanted to lose me, he said. I did not believe him. If this had been the truth, we would still be a couple. After all, he was just like all the others that forwent and avoided me as if I had a bad disease. As if I was a bad disease.
I sit on the ground next to his dead body. The potassium cyanide has taken effect nearly immediately. He said he felt strange and few seconds later he fell over and was dead. Now he is lying there, his eyes half opened. Spittle drops from his mouth.
A single tear rolls over my cheek although I know he has deserved it. In contrast to all the others, he made me believe he loved me just to hurt me afterwards. I did not expect anything positive from all the others but from him. He had disappointed me profoundly. That is why I had to kill him. Evil people should not live in this world, my parents always said. Eventually, I was a good girl.
Home
It was one of those summer days when life seems to be perfect. The summer holidays had just begun and even the nights were so warm that one wanted to sleep outside where one could watch the stars and listen to the crickets’ chirr.
Our house stood in a row of one family houses with beautiful backyards at a small street which was only travelled on by the residents. Everyone knew everyone. If someone had to sneeze some houses away in the backyard, it happened that someone from another land yelled “Bless you!” Then, my parents giggled and said “Typical of a village”.
That one summer day I spent again with my two best friends Fiona and Ophelia. We had already met in the forenoon to bathe in the lake. Well, actually, it was rather a pond than a real lake and people were not allowed to bathe there but everyone from our village went there to bathe anyway. My friends and I always went there by bike. The wannabe swimming lake was in the middle of the forest and on our way there we had to pass trees and meadows and hope that no car crossed our way because the street was really narrow. Additionally, we had to cycle uphill nearly all the time so that we always groaned like mad. The more pleasant the cool water was when we finally arrived at the lake. The return fare was in exchange very refreshing because we hardly had to pedal and could enjoy the contrary wind. Thereby, we talked and laughed the whole way.
At home, I spent my time washing off the sand and eating something. After that I set off to Fiona where we wanted to meet. Therefore, I had to walk along our little street and turn left and there was her house. It only took me five minutes.
I passed the door of the white fence and walked around the house to the backyard. Ophelia was already there. She and Fiona sat in front of the little tent in the grass and drank coke.
I went over to them and dropped into the grass, too. Immediately, we continued our talk from the afternoon and chatted and laughed far into the night. What we were talking about? Everything. The school, boys, the holidays, our families, everything. Eventually, we had to crawl into the tent because our bottoms got wet from the grass and the darkness gave us the creeps although there was absolutely nothing to be afraid of. There were only the house of Fiona’s family where the lights still burned, the big cherry trees in the backyard, the ripple of the fountain, the chirr of the crickets, and the flickering light of our torch lights. We even did not know what we were afraid of.
In the tent, we sprawled on our sleeping bags and breathed in the typical smell of old tents. Our talks had just fallen silent and we were falling asleep when I felt a prickle on my arm. I grabbed my torch light, switched it on and saw a huge spider with long legs which crawled cosily along my forearm. I screamed my head off and Fiona and Ophelia screamed, too. I fell out of the tent whereupon I nearly broke it down and shook off the spider. When my friends realized why I screamed they just laughed. After all, there was nothing to be afraid of in our perfect little village.
