It's Halloween night and the downtown streets are almost silent except for the ragged breath

of a few dead leaves, the wind dragging their bodies across the cement into their final

resting place.

To think about how strange it is on this night, on this millennial Christmas, that there

are no clowns stabbing at the air with plastic butcher knives, no last minute vampires, chewing

on plastic fangs, sucking back spit, audibly, and no Disney princesses or Marvel movie heroes

soaking at their parents' sides.

The porch lights are all out this year.

It seems once and for all.

No one wants poisoned candy and no one wants to be wrongfully accused of poisoning candy.

So you keep walking.

Here, the techno boom of the Halloween nightlife, smoke machines carrying the smell of chlorine

and stale beer onto the sidewalks.

You know that inside, breath fogs the 80s glasses of 100 shirtless, jeffery, dormers.

You know that every single person inside every single one of these clubs is dressed like

jeffery, dormer.

But this Halloween, you don't want to black out and then wake up beside yet another

jeffery, dormer.

As you approach the last corner of the main drag, all but ready to return home, ready to

declare that Halloween just isn't what it used to be, you see something.

One solemn neon sign, buzzing, flashing on and off.

You can barely even tell if this bar is open at all.

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