It was a dark and stormy night, and all of the children in town had to stay inside since their terrible parents wouldn’t let them walk in the rain. The next year, some of those kids were deemed too old by society to continue trick r’ treating. Instead, they lay in bed scrolling their social media feeds, viewing the parties of more popular kids and pretending they’d been invited. A few years later, these same kids went off to college and became accountants and lawyers. Some of them chose not to attend college and stayed in their shit-ass towns to join the local police force. Even with their calculators or neckties or big guns at their hips, none of them ever found the kind of happiness they’d once experienced as children trick r’ treating on Halloween night.

They all died alone.

Just as their parents had died. Just as their parents’ parents had died.

Just as their own children will die.

Just as you will die.