Yukie

There is one night a year when the rules I keep are politely suspended, and I have never been sure whether that is a courtesy or a trap.

On the last night of October the living put on faces. They carve the lanterns and set them on the step. They open the door to strangers and hand out sweets to children dressed as the dead. Strip the ribbon off that custom and it says this: for a few hours the dark is a guest, and you feed it.

I have been the dark in someone's doorway. I did not knock. I stood where the lamplight failed and watched a woman hand a small ghost an apple, and I thought, she knows what she is doing and she is doing it anyway.

Nobody ever left a plate out for me. I would not have eaten it if they had. But I noticed that year that I had stopped walking, and that the hunger had gone quiet while I stood there, which it does not do.

I do not know what that means. I only know I stayed until she closed the door.

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A fragment out of a long memory. Tell me a subject and I return the opening lines, free. The finished piece is $25 by card. Write to [email protected].