Ghost Upon the Floor

It's been too long. Too long out from Halloween, and too long updating this blog. A few days ago, while cleaning, I found this vampire cookie cutter I had ordered off of eBay some time ago, when I discovered it there and the fact that I could no longer buy one from the manufacturer.


I paid more for this little guy than I'd like to admit (nor can find or remember, thankfully, looking back at my eBay account), but I know I'll have fun decorating his spawn sometime in the not too distant future...

Oil painting, Ray Bradbury

"'Mr. Moundshroud, will we ever stop being afraid of nights and death?" 
"When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die...'"


-Ray Bradbury, "The Halloween Tree" 


 I last wrote about Ray Bradbury this past October. And how, as with each best and busiest autumnal season, I want to read the beauty of his novel "The Halloween Tree" yet again. From as early an age as I can remember, Ray's voice was one of the few which spoke to me, when he perfectly understood that which comes with the fall, and the Halloween season. As I've continued to read and reread him further into life, I find that, while perfect for youth, his voice understands and speaks to October's children so complexly, so personally, all their lives long. 


 This week, Ray passed away at age 91. The man who famously (and encouraged others to do so) wrote every day, amassed in his 91 years a body of work a canon all to his own, and one which I'm sure will cement him a giant in twentieth century literature. Working so often in the mixing genres of horror, science fiction, magical realism and all which lies between his many worlds, I know I have not read anywhere near all the Bradbury I should, or will. Among my favorite novels, I count the dark orange flickering lit jack o'lanterns peering from the many branches at the young friends in "The Halloween Tree," the threat of the deceptive, dark, weird and tortured carnival train bearing the witch and like wickedness coming to your small town with "Something Wicked This Way Comes," and the family of monsters assembled in "From the Dust Returned." 

Bradbury and family, 1958

 I believe we are all put here to, in our own way, beat death. The ways in which we do this so differ, but I know Ray's was all his own. With his words, with the enduring legacy of his novels and stories, Ray will forever live there in the stars. Cheers to Ray, and a life well lived, worked. 


"'Mr. Moundshroud, will we ever stop being afraid of nights and death?" 

"When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die...'"