“Who you gonna call?” “Ghost BUSTERS!!!” screams Jenny gleefully as she moon-walks in front of her mirror whilst plumping her hair up with some raspberry hair-mousse from the hair-salon down the road. The sweet smell subtly levitates above her head, as it does every day and she blows herself a kiss before gently slipping on her hot-pink. Strutting out the door, she calls out to her neighbourhood, “Happy Halloween!” and climbs onto her bike, adding, “You too Janice”, with a dimple forming from her smug smile. “Don’t forget to watch a scary film tonight and leave sweets out, I just can’t resist sweets on Halloween”, she giggles, and steers out of her drive. She makes her way to the café she works at and thinks about her sister’s arrival that evening.
Jenny absolutely loves Halloween; she loves it like a vampire loves the taste of blood or like a were-wolf loves the sight of the silvery full-moon. She dreams of the limited Halloween edition pumpkin spice latte being added to the menu and the cute decorations being hung in front of shop windows. She scrolls endlessly on Netflix the evening before Halloween trying to decide which film will scare her and her sister the most (which would be impossible anyway as they have watched every horror film too many times), and the morning of Halloween when she gets her special pumpkin broach out to pin it on her jumper, right above her heart. So, this year on Halloween when she walks into the café and feels the warmth engulf her with the smell of cinnamon rolls, she knows it’s going to be the best Halloween ever.
Andres wraps himself in his fluffy coat even tighter despite there already being a welcoming heat floating around. He quietly slurps his now cold plain coffee, and scoffs as he sees yet another person ordering the pumpkin spice latte, which can’t even be that good. He looks out the window only to see more ghost lights on the lamp posts. His brow furrows as he struggles to comprehend the concept of Halloween; the need to dress up as weird creatures, knock on strangers’ doors only to take food from them or the desire to scare yourself on purpose by watching a horror film.
He swirls the brown liquid inside of his 100% recycled paper cup as a waitress with voluminous chestnut-brown hair walks up to his table and asks, “Would you like anything else? Perhaps you might be intrigued to try our limited-edition pumpkin spice latte, it really is the taste of Halloween you know,” she smiles to herself as if she really meant it and then her eyes returned to him, the customer. Just as he was about to answer with an attitude that would pop her perfect Halloween day bubble, he spots the pumpkin broach above her heart. He observes the dusty orange of the pumpkin and the plump green leaves twirling round the dark stalk. He smiles at the small symbol of a Halloween lover and the curiosity inside of him that wants to get to know this girl, to understand why she appreciates this time of year so much and how come she smells so heavenly sweet like raspberries, his favorite fruit.
Jenny is caught off guard as this young man, whom she is waiting on, asks innocently, “Why do you like Halloween and how come you smell like raspberries?”.
She looks into his luscious green eyes as he brushes back his midnight-black bangs which were covering them and replies rapidly, “It really is the hair-mouse that does it, some like to wear perfume but not me, I am a proud hair-mousse gal. Plus it helps make my hair voluminous, so really, I’m killing two birds with one stone. Not that I would ever kill a bird, or anything for that matter”, she laughs sheepishly and strokes her broach. “And for Halloween, I don’t know, I guess I just like the idea of celebrating a night where we can be scared and scare others but always know that we have each other even if everything else goes downhill, like that moment in a film when you are scared and grab onto someone, but for you to grab onto that someone you have to have a reason, you trust them and know that when they embrace you, you will feel better and they will protect you no matter the cost.” She pauses momentarily as they both take in what she just said, then she continued, “Plus you get to eat lots of sweets and drink lots of pumpkin spice lattes,” she laughs again but holding no restraint back like earlier, creating the sweet sound of happiness.
“So…” she takes a deep breath, “can I help you with anything?”
“No, you’ve already helped me more than you know,” he grins.
“Okay, have a happy Halloween!” she adds quirkily then walks away with a spring in her step that he hadn’t seen earlier.
Pondering about what she had just poured out to him, he realised with a surprise that maybe Halloween wasn’t so bad when thought about like that. So, he went up and ordered a pumpkin spice latte.