My little hamlet has a safety-inspired tradition each fall: we bring our children in full Halloween regalia to the Village – the center of the town’s small shops and cafes. After stopping by the Elementary school to photograph my grandson in costume with his and other classes, I grabbed a cup of coffee from Peets and went for a tour of the most ghastly and adorable the Village had to offer.
The streams of children flowed between the banks of the sidewalk and the storefronts, gulping proffered treats into bags of all shapes and sizes. I delighted in seeing a 2-year old bunny with buck-toothed headpiece. I snapped smartphone pictures of bumble bee infants and superhero boys, of lovely witches and zombie mothers. But the favorite scene of all eluded my camera: a dainty, red ladybug with black-spotted wings, reaching up on tippy-toes, searching a handheld box for just the right choice, the favored treat to add to her collection – or perhaps to devour on the spot in hedonistic relish. Such keen attention would be the envy of any teacher.
The surging line pressed the tiny girl, but she held a few moments more before grasping a reward — some delicacy I could not see. Before my camera came to life, the youthful river had swept her along, a vanishing blur of red with black dots, swallowed up by monkeys, ballerinas and the myriad monsters of a ghoulish fantasy, which itself would soon disappear into a haze of sugar and discarded wrappers and leaves scattered by an invisible, autumn wind.