Trick or Treat

“Hello?”

“Trick or treat!”

“Who . . . Who is this?”

“Heh, heh, how quickly we forget!”

“Your . . . voice does sound . . . a little familiar.”

“Well I should hope so!  After all, we were together for a lot of years.”

“Jack?  It can’t be!  You’re dead!”

“Only to the physical world, sweetheart!  Heh, heh, I now have the freedom of the universe!”

“But, why are you calling me?  We split years ago!”

“I just called to tell you, ‘Happy Anniversary!’ “

“Halloween?  This isn’t our anniversary!”

“Of course it is!  October 31st, Halloween!”

“Well, granted I got tricked when we got married, but it wasn’t Halloween!”

“You got the best treat you ever had, baby, and it was Halloween!”

“Not hardly!  We were married on October 30th, Jack, not the 31st.”

“I should know what date we got married, and I say it was Halloween!”

“How typical of you, Jack!  You always did insist on being right, regardless of the facts.  And you never would listen to reason.  Remember, that’s one of the main reasons we split?”

“Yeah!  It’s always all my fault, isn’t it?  And you would take absolutely no responsibility for any of it. How long did I beg you to come back and make it work?  But you wouldn’t listen.”

“I tried for years to talk to you, to try and get you to see my side of things.  And did you listen?  Not at all!  You’d just throw a tantrum and walk away.”

“I walked away?  You were the one who left, not me!”

“You left me no choice.”

“Well, heh, heh, you can’t walk away from me now!  I can find you wherever you try to hide.”

“So now you intend to keep harassing me from beyond the grave?  How cowardly is that?”

“Heh, heh, such bravado!  We’ll just see who the coward is now!  Just try to get away from me!”

“No, Jack, that’s not the way it’s going to work.  Not this time.  I was weak back then; I let you manipulate me into doing whatever you wanted.  No more, Jack.  I’m strong now, Jack, and I refuse to allow you to bug me anymore.”

“So, the barriers are up, huh?  You really think you can prevent me from contacting you.  How naïve!”

“Think what you will, but you’ll never again be able to get through.  Goodbye, Jack . . . forever.”

Word Count: 404