Halloween

It wasn't until I was on my late afternoon walk that I remembered it was Halloween. The usually quiet streets of suburbia was crawling with Trick-or-Treaters dressed as witches and ghouls, some wearing the traditional 'Scream' mask and one seemingly out of place Australian yobbo.
Seeing them carrying their plastic Jack-o-lantern pails full of their winnings reminded me of how my brother and I spent Halloween when we were young. We were the only children in our street so in the early years we took our neighbours by surprise. Not having chocolate or lollies in their pantries, they instead gave us gold coins to spent on ourselves at the corner store.
Most years that followed however, they planned our Halloween ritual into their grocery shop. The 90 year old lady across the street once told my mother to be sure we kids stopped by her house so she could give us each a block of chocolate she had waiting by the door.
We were never without a costume either. One year my brother wanted to go as a ghost, and the only sheet we could find not made into a bed was brown. Mum wouldn't let us cut eye holes in it so we stuck some on with sticky tape and I had to lead M by the arm as he couldn't see where he was going. When our cattle dog wanted to come along, I renamed him 'Sirius Black' from Harry Potter in an attempt to win him some candy.
So this evening as I was arriving home from my walk, I found a gaggle of dressed up children in my street. Knowing that my roommate The Bear had bought mini chocolate bars in case, I invited them up the path to our house. They chorused 'Trick-or-Treat' as we came though the gate and the door was opened by a glowing smile and a bowl full of chocolate. LV, the cat, attempted a prison break before I caught him and added another element of excitement to the four kids standing on my door mat. At that moment I realised the picture I had laughed at this morning was in fact, a reality: