I Don't Want Candy

When I was growing up, one of the best things I liked most about Halloween was being to get all the candy that I could never get at home.  As I have mentioned before, I had a very overprotective mother.  So much so, that she only let me trick-or-treat at the homes of relatives.  She wouldn't even let me go to most of our neighbors.  What she really didn't like was for me to eat hard candies.  She was afraid I would choke on them, even up to when I was seven or so.  Unfortunately for me, that was the type of candy that I liked best.  It was mostly because they were fruit flavored, as opposed to chocolate, which took me years to really get used to.  Don't get me wrong, I liked chocolate back then, only when it was a plain bar with no extras.  Especially not nuts, really hate them.  Anyway, I preferred fruit flavors.  At best, my mother would allow the occasional lollipop, but only because of the stick.  Halloween would be the only time I could get other favorites.  The only other type of candy I really liked back then were Jelly Belly jelly beans, which really weren't a Halloween type of candy.  Whenever I would go out, I would try to get a bag, especially when I could get to choose my own mix of flavors.  After I got too old for trick-or-treating, whole new types of candy became available. I remember when Skittles first came out.  I could enjoy them everyday, almost.  Then came the late '80s Gummi Bear craze.  I really got into that for a few years.  As I got older, though, my tastes began to change and I slowly stopped liking candy so much.  Part of it was being stuck with almost a full bag of Halloween candy, year after year, when fewer kids showed up.  Another was my push into exercise.  I had to watch out for extra calories, you know.  Even at my current address, which gets a lot more kids, I still have a little extra candy leftover each Halloween.  This is because I try to save a least a few pieces back of my few favorites.  Nowadays, it is mostly bubblegum.  For the rest of the year, I barely even look at candy.  I must admit, there was one type of candy I could eat by the box, or two.  However, it wasn't for Halloween; it was for Easter.  There was this one brand of chocolate covered marshmallow egg that I literally couldn't get enough of.  I think it was called Luden's, but it has been decades since I have seen it anywhere, so I might be mistaken.  For some reason, I just loved the stuff.  It was only carried by one or two stores locally, and both went out of business decades ago.  It had only been a few years since I have tried looking for it again, but to no avail.  No other marshmallow egg  has ever compared to it.  I just wish I knew what became of it.  Still, there was no better candy.

The Price

The Price

by Toby Hall Weingarten

Bring me your dead,

And they will live forever.

Bring me your poor, the impoverished, those who go without

And they will know riches yet undreamt of.

Every need fulfilled, every desire sated.

There shall be nothing that can't be had;

Nothing that could ever be wanted, forbidden.

Bring my your dead,

And they will live forever.

Bring me your weak, the powerless, those trampled upon

And they will be as the might of legends past.

Ancient mountains break, raging rivers turn.

The earth could crack like an eggshell,

All done swiftly, as if by command.

Bring me your dead,

And they will live forever.

Bring me your forgotten, the nameless, those passed by

And they will be known across the land.

Hearts will melt, minds will bend.

They speak the same name, in one voice

Never even caring, or knowing, just why.

Bring me your dead,

And they will live forever.

Bring me these poor, weak, forgotten souls,

Countless hordes that don't even matter,

And these dead shall stay dead.

Yet they can still be of use to me.

I gain much from the poor,

Using their work to further my own.

A great fortune awaits me.

I gather strength from the weak,

Growing my power, bit by bit.

A great force forms in me.

I take the names of the forgotten,

Adding them to my own.

A great future centers around me.

And these dead will merge, a part of me,

As I become wealthy, and powerful, and famous.

I will finally feel alive, if only for a second.

The hunger will return, the emptiness inside,

But I can wait, for I know I will feed again.

For you see, as a ghoul, I will 'live' forever.

Would you like to join me?

All you have to do

Is bring me your dead.

 

Being Afraid, Very Afraid

I don't readily get truly scared.  While I admit to be a little fearful at times, I am rarely truly terrified.  In the most extreme of moments, I am usually quite calm and reserved.  For instance, I have driven over a curvy mountain road, covered with over an inch of ice and snow, at night, with a Chevy Impala, on two separate occasions. (Actually, the first time may have been in an  Olds Alero, but that is beside the point.)  I was collected enough to make it through, without much worry, even though I had never really had driven in such bad conditions before.  I have been truly terrified, at least once.  I was about four or five years old, and we had gone to a great-aunt's house on Sunday afternoon, like we regularly did most of the year.  We would pick up a Sunday newspaper, and sometimes I would get a little gift or two.  During the fall, these gifts were usually bags of pawpaws picked from the tree in her yard or in the surrounding hillsides.  This day, though, she wanted to meet me in one of her back rooms to give me something.  When I went in through the door, something jumped out from behind a wall and startled me.  I quickly ran to get my mother to ask for help.  She went in before me, and I followed a few seconds later.  As soon as I went through the door, two somethings jumped out from behind the wall, with my mother nowhere to be seen.  I started yelling at the top of my lungs, calling for my mother.  After a few seconds, she and my great-aunt pulled off the masks they were wearing.  For some reason, my great-aunt thought it would be fun to show off the Long John Silver's pirate masks she had gotten for me by scaring me, and my mother had gone along with it.  [As an aside, Long John Silver's was, and still is, my most favorite fast-food restaurant.  For over a decade, it would be about the only place I would eat out at.]  When they showed me that they were just masks, I tried to show that  I was okay with everything,  but I wasn't.  One of the masks had a tiny trickle of spit on it that somewhat disgusted me.  I was also still very scared about the whole event.  My mother should never had put on that mask.  I didn't realize it at the time, but I was changed.  I used to be so outgoing, I would walk right up to complete strangers and ask them about what was going on.  After that time, I found it hard to talk to even people I had known for long periods of time.  How could I trust someone, if my own mother tried to sow mistrust by scaring me?  I would need to be around someone for weeks, or longer, sometimes before I would feel  comfortable enough to open up.  For me, if I could talk to you about anything, especially if it was soon after meeting, it was a sign of greatest regard.  I used to be so outgoing, but it would only peek its head out occasionally, when I felt the safest.  I had harbored the idea of becoming an entertainer/performer; I knew that a had some talents for it.  I still have some of those ambitions, even though most time for that has passed,save in my ongoing fascination in becoming a professional writer.  Still, I wonder what would have happened if I had never gotten so afraid.