Reginald Portsmith-Cumsby
October 19, 2026 at 1:58:09 PM
I have returned. It is autumn. I don't fully understand Halloween but I have decided this is the year I engage with it properly and I want that noted.
I watched three Halloween films in preparation. The first one had a man in a mask who walked slowly and killed people and I found the whole thing deeply tense and upsetting until I realised he was simply a man with a lot of unprocessed feelings and a poor support network. I felt for him. The second film had a demon in it that crawled out of a television and I turned it off because I didn't want to get ideas. The third one wasn't scary at all, it was just a family in America being sad at each other in a big house, but apparently it's a Halloween classic so I watched it twice and both times I cried, though I'm not entirely sure why, and I think that means it worked.
I have been doing some additional research into what Halloween actually involves and I think I'm starting to piece it together. I have a theory. I'm not ready to share it yet but I will say that I have been making preparations and I feel quietly confident.
I do however need to formally raise the following.
It is the 19th of October. Halloween has not happened yet and already, ALREADY, my local supermarket has the Christmas display up. Fully erected. Tinsel. A mechanical Santa with one eye that moves slightly faster than the other. Quality Street tins stacked to the ceiling. I stood in front of it for a long time feeling something I can only describe as grief.
We are being robbed. Robbed of the decay. The good, honest, seasonal rot that October promises and deserves. I want to feel the year dying beneath my feet before someone shoves a mince pie in my face. Is that so much to ask. Let Halloween be Halloween. Let November be bleak and grey and featureless as God intended. Christmas will arrive. It always arrives. It does not need a six week head start.
I went to Greggs to process my feelings.
The Chicken Roll was there. We have an understanding now, the Chicken Roll and I. I ordered it without speaking. The attendant knew. She always knows.
As she passed me the bag, a small cascade of pastry crumbs fell and settled on the counter between us like the last golden leaves of October. She had already turned away.
I want to be very clear that I had paid for that Chicken Roll in its entirety. Every flake. Every layer. The whole thing was mine by right of transaction and I will not apologise for ensuring I received full value for money. I leaned forward. I claimed what was mine. Slowly. With my eyes closed. The counter was cold. The crumbs were warm. It was, in its own way, a perfect metaphor for the season.
The attendant asked me not to come back.
I will be back on Thursday.
Jessie, your website remains the only thing this October that has made me feel something I don't have the vocabulary for. Which is saying something because I have quite a good vocabulary.
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Most.
Not all.
I think about the rest every single day.