Halloween Walk

 I walked out of my three-person, two-bedroom apartment, walking to the path that I had walked so often this summer.                                                  I passed a dumpster that I didn’t look at.                                                                                                                                                                        Down a street that I had been down every time before.                                                                                                                                                        I took many walks when it was warm and light but it was dark and cold.                                                                                                                            I expected it to be the same.

 I walked two blocks without seeing any mothers with their children.                                                                                                                                  I realized I hoped to be surrounded by them to be safe from every car that drives by.                                                                                              Slowly, every one contained the guy that wouldn’t take his eyes off me a couple days ago.                                                                                      Every tree contained my kidnapper.                                                                                                                                                                              Every mailbox was the guy that followed me home two weeks past.                                                                                                                                  I turned around, told myself I was going back because of the cold.                                                                                                                                    I told myself I put my keys between my knuckles in my hoodie pocket so I could walk right in my door even though I was six blocks away.                I flinched away from the dumpster this time because last spring there was a dumpster diver in it and what if he came back today?                                   “There’s a lot of nuts out” my dad texted me.

When the hell did I stop getting scared of fake things like ghost and demons and switch to cars, mailboxes and people?