* * * * *
                                        
                               The Halloween Tree
                                        
> There must have been a thousand pumpkins on this tree, hung high and on
> every branch. A thousand smiles. A thousand grimaces. And twice-times-a-
> thousand glares and winks and blinks and leerings of fresh-cut eyes. 
> 
> And as the boys watched, a new thing happened. 
> 
> The pumpkins began to come alive. 
> 
> One by one, starting at the bottom of the Tree and the nearest pumpkins,
> candles took fire within the raw interiors. This one and then that and this
> and then still another, and on up and around, three pumpkins here, seven
> pumpkins still higher, a dozen clustered beyond, a hundred, five hundred, a
> thousand pumpkins lit their candles, which is to say brightened up their
> faces, showed fire in their square or round or curiously slanted eyes.
> Flame guttered in their toothed mouths. Sparks leaped out their ripe-cut
> ears. 
> 
> Halloween. 
> 
> Sly does it. Tiptoe catspaws. Slide and creep. 
> 
> But why? What for? How? Who? When! Where did it all begin? 
> 
> “You don't know, do you?” asks Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud climbing out
> of the pile of leaves under the Halloween Tree. “You don't really know!” 
> 
> “Well,” answers Tom the Skeleton, “er—no.” 
> 
> Was it— 
> 
> In Egypt four thousand years ago, on the anniversary of the big death of
> the sun? 
> 
> Or a million years before that, by the night fires of the cavemen? 
> 
> Or in Druid Britain at the Ssssswooommmm of Samhain's scythe? 
> 
> Or among the witches, all across Europe—multitudes of hags, crones,
> magicians, demons, devils? 
> 
> Or high above Paris, where strange creatures froze to stone and lit the
> gargoyles of Notre Dame? 
> 
> Or in Mexico, in cemeteries full of candlelight and tiny candy people on El
> Dia de los Muertos—the Day of the Dead? 
> 
> Or where? 
> 

The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury 




Email author at sean@conman.org

.