The Things They Carried

Every October 31, little boys and girls run through the streets dressed as those they look up to. Every October 31, the doorbell rings and shrieks of laughter and fear fill the air. Every October 31, parents watch as their children take off with their friends for the first time. Every October 31, a circus makes its way to town. Wrappers and pumpkins are sprawled all in the way, kids race from house to house, teens use the masks of their costumes to their advantage, all as a part of a master plan called Halloween. The children that run rampant through the night carry their bags filled with candy. These same children do not know that their parents will take most of it after they have gone to bed. The children carry excitement and they carry fear. The fear of these children is different from the fear it becomes as adulthood proceeds to creep around the corner. Parents go with their children on Halloween because they fear their children may not come home. Children ask their parents to go with them on Halloween because they fear their bag might get too heavy for them to carry. These children, they are shielded from the world. They carry innocence. They carry imagination. With them, these children carry the future. What they make of it is up to them. But as the world starts to dim, as all of a sudden the children are no longer scared of monsters under their beds but now fear man more than anything, these children carry nostalgia. The things they carry shape who they are. And maybe next October 31, these children will have outgrown their innocence. They will no longer carry bags of candy, but instead will carry burdens on their shoulders that are far too heavy. And maybe they will make way for a new generation of little boys and girls to play in the street and fear ghosts instead of man. Maybe next October 31, Halloween will just be Halloween. Maybe these children will hide in the shadows, fearful of what happens in the light. Maybe next October 31st, Halloween will lose its meaning. Because now these children understand: the scariest things in the world are not mystical - they are real, and they are here.