Halloween returns, bringing back memories of trick or treating with children collecting candies, celebrating — celebrating perhaps to get over the fear of darkness, the unknown or perhaps, even the experience of global disasters ? The Bengali equivalent of Halloween — Bhoot Chaturdashi — was celebrated a day before Diwali. And as people do up ‘haunted homes and dress as witches, zombies and ghosts, I wonder, why do we celebrate such dark festivals and also enjoy them?
Perhaps, the answer is given in an essay by Candice Louisa Daquin that we have a gene that helps us enjoy such occasions… And then there is always the necessary adjunct of ghost stories and spooky rhymes that makes us feel ooky as our hearts beat and nervous snots of laughter explode from chests beating in anticipation…Wafting on borderless clouds that float mysteriously on Halloween nights, we invite you to visit a few spooks, ghosts, goblins, witches and spirits…
Poetry
It’s Halloween by Michael R Burch… Click here to read.
Horrific Humour by Rhys Hughes… Click here to read.
Prose
My Christmas Eve “Alone” : Erwin Coombs has a ghostly encounter at night. Is it real? Click here to read.
Flowers on the Doorstep :Shivani Shrivastav writes of an encounter with a mysterious creature in Almora. Click here to read.
A Curse: San Lin Tun gives us a macabre adventure with malicious spirits lurking in a jungle in Myanmar. Click here to read.
Pothos: Rakhi Pande gives us a macabre story set in Singapore that borders on the supernatural? Click here to read.
I Grew into a Flute: A Balochi Folktale involving the supernatural retold by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.
Borderless 