Soodapod is extruded into this universe from a dimension of purest fear. It's beautiful

in its own alien way, but what's to come will unsettle you.

The 2021 Halloween Parade by Alistair Stewart The parade is back this year, socially

distanced with masks and vaccinations mandatory of course, but as you settle down with the

churros that part of you thought you might never get to eat again, it feels normal.

Not the same, nothing will ever be the same, but this feels like tonight, like here, that's

okay.

And you normal is nothing to be scared of. That's what the parade is for.

The cowboys with no faces are first this year. Men with bone white paint and matte black

hats. Men whose eyes are filled with the combination of terror and rage that raises your

hackles, your hind brain warning you to stay as far away as possible. Each is on horseback,

each wants you to think he is in charge. The Mexican couple has focused gun strong, their

native American colleagues and the international forces behind them, but the lie to that

posture. They're a ragged bunch, not a uniform or common weapon between them, most aren't

soldiers for all that they pretend. Each has that other look in that eye though, the

one that says this is it, that the line has been drawn and absolutely nothing will be

allowed to cross. A seething, frothing, rancid, horror, tightly corraled.

The kids that follow fit right in, surrounded by a cloud of adults, time periods merging,

faces shared between the past, the present and antiquity. The nightmares that flicker

at the edge of their vision, their milkman, the skull mask, others, they never quite

resolve, never quite feel contained the way the cowboys are, but they're not free either.

And the kids never let them out of their sight. They also never see the man walking behind

...