The main protaganist here made his first appearance in my writing late last year. He wasn’t my creation, I was just borrowing him. But Freddy rattled around my imagination for some weeks before I figured out what to do with him in what became “The man who killed Christmas”.
Then earlier this year I had him reappear at Easter in “Blood and chocolate and bunnies” to wipe the smirk off the Easter bunnies face. For a few months now the urge to have him visit Halloween has been gnawing away at the back of the head. Then two or three weeks ago the seed appeared for what is hear. It’s a completely different form to what I’d loosely had in mind and I’m still not convinced it works at all points. But it is what it is and this is how this seasonal nonsense landed on the page. As with some other pieces on this blog unused ideas lurk under the heading “Outtakes” at the end.
108. Halloween’s got soul. (24/10/2015).
Frank was it,
Frank was the essence,
The very definition,
Of what a monster was like,
But was the only one there,
With his head screwed on,
Humanities lone token,
In the whole of that night,
Frank had wanted left all alone,
To contemplate his extra time,
But his Fathers kin were blind,
To all that wasn’t their own,
So he acted like he belonged,
With the children of the night,
The callous and the soulless,
The evil, and the just plain undead,
But Frank feared most,
The sulky and sullen,
Green and red stripes,
With the hat on scarred head,
And steel fingers on right hand,
For they’d come in your dreams,
And they’d hack and they’d slash,
Both living and dead, If they slept,
What Frank didn’t know,
Was that Freddy was scared,
Of the monster with the soul,
This unlikely Angel of the butchers slab,
Almost as much, as he feared Drac’,
For Freddy, the classic bully,
With his jumper torn and baggy,
Liked his victims teenaged, and cowed.
© Jim Laing 2015.
Outtakes:
And Freddy feared Frank,
For the soul that he had,
And the strength in that soul,
Meant Frank was a child of the light,
This unlikely Angel of the butchers slab,
Walked with the dark ones,
Because his Fathers kin hated,
What they weren’t told to love,
For he was the only one there,
With clarity of purpose,
And the purity of soul,
To fight for a principle,
With courage and might,
That everyone else there that night,
Not only scorned but lacked,
And if they dreamt, spent their slumber cold and scared,
But mostly from the green and red stripes,
Who with their wide brimmed hat,
And their fingers of steel,
Made it quite clear,
Exactly how they feel,
That they should be the star of the show,
From the green and red stripes,
That sulked and slinked,
That sullenly made it clear,
The shiny fingers could do more than glow,
And if anyone here deserved to be,
The star of the show,
It was him.
