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The 2015 Halloween Parade

by Alasdair Stuart

 

The parade looks different this year.

There are floats, there are always floats, but they’re interspersed with individuals. People who either bring the audience’s attention or simply refuse to allow it to be anywhere else.

The first as always, is the woman in the suit and gloves and as always, she’s smiling.

No one can quite remember where she came from. There’s just a hint of motion and she’s there, smiling, patient, polite, never breaking eye contact… with anyone.

Behind her comes the Impala, not as crowded this year, but the two brothers are still there. The cassette deck is still blasting ACDC and the backseat is filled. Just never quite with the same person.

The redheaded woman is there sometimes. So is the female sheriff, so is the trucker capped older man.

Then there’s the small immaculately tailored chap who smells of brimstone.

He always seems to be there.

Behind them, walking comes the father, a huge bear of a man who you sense used to be huger with grey hair, a beard and such a weight of sadness to him.

He carries a hatchet in one hand, and his other vast paw is wrapped around that of his daughter. She’s dressed like he is: Utilitarian, practical, but there is something in her eyes, something off about her pallid skin, something hungry, just below the surface – for now.

Behind them comes the first actual float and it’s a gag one. It’s a good gag one too: Two living rooms obviously meant to be the same room in different decades. One is decorated in 1980’s housing development beige, and is spacious and so, so old. The other is smaller, brighter, and somehow more artificial.

It’s not just the decor either, but the sense of unease the float gives you. The modern one that feels like a ghost train ride. The 1980’s one, that feels like it’s working out where you live.

Behind them come The Exorcists and what a bunch they are. Two look like steampunk Mormon evangelists all big dials and old clunky VHS video cameras. Another, dressed like a priest and wearing a hat but you notice without a dog collar walks next to them and smiles to himself. Kids. The young and old priests next to him both look haunted, but he catches their eye, and he winks and despite himself the younger priest smiles. The younger priest looks away and smiles wider when a woman breaks from the two groups of para-psychologists behind them.

Those guys, they’re busy arguing about the float in front, but she, without making eye contact closes her hand in that of the Man in the Hat and they both relax.

Neither tries to show it. Both fail.

Behind them come to have the ugliest cars you have ever seen. Magnificently ugly in fact, positively heroically ugly: one is an honest to god hearse painted white with what might be a nuclear reactor on top.

The other is a station wagon, and yes, it has the wooden panels. Again, white and again, there’s something on top that looks pretty fissile.

That one’s being driven by an irrationally handsome young man who somehow manages to still look gawky.

The hearse is being driven by a tall lanky chap with glasses.

He’s slightly translucent, but he’s there… You suspect he always will be.

Behind the two cars are seven people in similar overalls. They’re all carrying bulky backpacks with what seems to be a weapon attached to them and they are all bickering: four women, three guys and all of them are going at it hell for leather. One woman in particular is launching this just heroic fount of stream of consciousness profanity at one of the guys who seems to be trying to tell her about his cable TV show. None of them are quiet. None of them are polite and they are all giving absolutely no ground. They’re also all – you notice -having fun.

Maybe more fun than the blonde magician.

He’s behind them this year, and there’s two versions of him. One is precise and well drawn. The other is an elegantly wasted shambling wreck. Both are ridiculously good looking and in between bantering with each other and, well, it sure looks like flirting. They’re chatting to the people on either side. of them. One is a cheerful well-dressed man in his 20s who looks to be carrying a wooden stake. On the other side is a short blonde woman and her slightly taller, somewhat more rock’n’roll friend. The blonde, not sure what to make of the magician. Rock’n’roll? Well she likes him – both of him.

Unobserved by all of them, but clear to you. A hooded figure, crouches on a roof and watches them go past. He knows the magician but you suspect the magician doesn’t know him. Yet.

On the roof behind him: A taller older man in a great cloak stares down.

He’s lost everything. Even his name, but not the coat that goes with it.

Behind them come the oddest group yet. Five teens head down and buried in their phones. They flip between windows and apps with ease, carrying on conversations digitally despite being maybe three feet apart. You’re reminded of an old, charmingly outdated term OER UB SEDAI: Thumb Tribe: those who live by their phones. You’re still thinking of that when the 6^th teen, the one you didn’t notice at first, the one clothed in darkness and rage draws level with you.

She makes eye contact puts a finger to her lips and motions: shhh

Then she touches the back of one of the teenagers.

You look away knowing they can’t.

Behind them come another group of bickering teens, but these are just odd. They’re tied together by something – gossamer knots of trauma and obligation – that you can see but you suspect they can’t. One, in particular, a clown on his T shirt and a strange look in his eye draws your attention: That kid’s planning something and you suspect he might not be the only one.

Finally, there are the survivors. The final girls and the lucky nerd, the comic relief and the sheriff who knows everything, other than how to get directly involved. They’re led by another tall imposing woman in a suit but this one has agency, energy, life.

The director drags your attention to her. This woman demands it and you give it readily.

Behind her group of focused angry powerful young women come the runners – THOUSANDS of them.

Their gear is battered, their faces are bloody and not one looks like another. You see a doctor with a flashlight taped to her shoulder, a man with a head wound, another carrying a hockey stick with what looks like a battery attached to it.

Behind them comes a communications guy. You can tell that because of the ridiculous backpack he’s carrying and the old Bakelite phone he has to one ear.

His voice is light and gentle. He’s funny. He digresses an awful lot. But you notice, he always, ALWAYS comes back on point.

Next to him, a line of other runners, men, women, young, old.

All of them have numbers on their chests.

You notice a remarkable amount of fives.

You also notice none of them look especially fit and, none of them care. Each one is ready to build something better in their bodies and their world. Take down a zombie, clear a building, grab some supplies, get home, do it again.

A new world built on a million tiny victories.

A new world built on sweat, effort, dirt and bravery.

They won’t all come home. They all know that. They all run anyway.

The other floats and groups? They’ve been applauded, but this lot and the odd surprise group of boffins at their centre? This lot get the one and only standing ovation. They all smile they all bow, most blush, a lot giggle… and then at 100 a million different speeds they run off. There is after all, work to be done.

The last one left is the com tech who, as the parade passes you by yells a reminder out to… at least one of the runners, turns, bows, and grins.

Then runs after them, nagging them to come home safe.

Just as we all should.

Happy Halloween everyone from all of us here at PseudoPod.