This is the first of a series of stories about the holidays and quarantine/coronavirus. We all wish it’ll be gone by the next big day, but we should shelve these stories under “fantasy” to be safe. You can read all the stories in this series at this link. Enjoy!
Covid-Ween
by Kelsey Hontz
If we’re still squirreled away in quarantine when Halloween rolls around, I predict a riot.
You will see a great clattering of skeletons xylophoning down the street, pursued by a gathering of ghouls. Behind them will skitter spiders and suits; leading the great group will be lascivious bunnies, puffball tales pinned to lingerie, and among them will be exactly no regrets.
It’s a whisper that picks up momentum by the day, that this glorious Saturday Halloween cannot be canceled, that it’s a price too hefty to pay for public safety. The memes are more abundant than unwanted Charleston Chews in a pillowcase candy bag. Take away our St. Patrick’s Days, our Fourths of July, even our springtime birthdays, but don’t you dare come for
our pumpkins. It’s my right as a human being to hang cobwebs where there were none before, to stick my face in the same backwash water as the other apple-bobbers, to drink cinnamon whiskey and pass out on the orange-blanketed couch next to five other strangers.
We’ve thus far sent some of our strongest warriors to battle Mistress Corona— our doctors, nurses, and other medical staff who don their makeshift personal protective equipment and labor day in and day out, driving themselves to the point of exhaustion, superheroes in all but the capes. But if this lasts until Halloween, Mistress Corona will face an even fiercer foe—doctors and nurses still, but this time, sexy ones. And they will be angry.
So try to cancel Halloween, virus, and you will find that your challengers are more defiant than ever before, with eyes rimmed in purple and red, ears heavy with dangling blood crystals, fingers sticky from the reluctant eating of candy corn—you are unprepared to face their wrath. Who could have predicted that October 31 st would be the final straw? Who can possibly prevent this coming game of Sick or Treat?
Since last she appeared on the Weird Christmas Podcast, Kelsey’s flash fiction has been published in Meow Meow Pow Pow and her poetry was picked up for Indie Blu(e), Duck Lake Books, Claw & Blossom, and Deep Wild! She still tries her best to write stories that she can never share with her grandparents. Stay safe out there, everybody!
weirdchristmas.com 