SHORT ANIMATION     HISTORY OF HALLOWEEN     

It is Halloween night in New Orleans, and fallen leaves dance along the ground to the smooth jazz rhythms heard on almost every block.  Tonight those mellow tones are mixed with the screams and cackles of front yard animatronics, as streets bustle with sexy black kitties, mummies, astronauts, and headless French aristocrats.  Children bound up and down the steps of the dim jack-o-lantern-lit historic houses frantically hunting for candy.  The leaves meander onto a quieter, darker block, the jazz fading away leaving only the rattling of chains on the air.  They continue up the street’s curb and through the old wrought iron fence of an aboveground cemetery.  It is much darker here, the only light coming from the moon and the occasional streetlight.  The cemetery is a motley collection of white and grey sarcophagi with vines and ivies climbing up the sides.  Small simple crypts pepper the grounds, each with its own iron gate, green and oxidized from exposure.  The leaves finally settle, delivering us before two particular sarcophagi.  They are parallel, facing the street, and older than the rest, chipped and pocked and each with a great crack in the lid.  

    The only audible sounds are the breeze and the now seldom werewolf howl.  We hear a dry cough then a sustained yawn followed by a chattering sound, all muffled.  A portion of one of the two lids slowly grinds open.  A shriveled, decomposing hand laboriously rises from the opening and grips the sarcophagus’ side.  “Rot,” dry, leathery, and dressed in a worn and dusty suit, pulls himself up to a sitting position.  He stretches his neck, which creaks and emits dust.  He grabs a handful of debris from down at his side and shakily throws it at his neighbor, like an elderly person throwing a baseball.  He barks, “you alive?”  “Barely,” followed by a chattering sound is heard from the other sarcophagus.  Its lid grinds open and a fleshless hand belonging to “Ribs” pulls the rest of his dirty-white skeleton to a sitting position.  His teeth chatter periodically.  They look like old men relaxing in bathtubs.  

    Rot and Ribs rise every Halloween to discuss its history and commentate on the present day holiday they witness before them.  They reminisce about “the old days,” and how the Celts of Ireland believed that on October 31st, the boundary between the living and the dead did not exist, and it was feared that the dead would rise and cause sickness and crop damage.  (The dead can “cause mischief” to be more appropriate for children.)  In order to appease them, offerings were made in the hope that one’s home and property would be unmolested.  Today, treats are “offered” to costumed “spirits” in representation.  Ribs comments, “I can’t eat like that anymore.  Goes right through me” (chatter chatter).  “Body’s not the same anymore, pal,” Rot observes.  “Pot.  Meet kettle,” Ribs retorts.  “I’ve still got it…mostly,” Rot boasts.  

    Rot and Ribs survey the neighborhood.  “I don’t think these jack-o-lanterns can hold a candle to ours,” Rot exclaims.  “Still have yours?”  Each produce their own jack-o-lantern from down at their sides, long-rotted green and black carved pumpkins covered in candle wax.  They proudly display them on the sarcophagi lids.  “Gourd-geous,” Rot says.  “Ha!  Good One!” Ribs guffaws, forcing a rib to split.  They recount the tale of Stingy Jack, a drunk, thieving farmer who lured the Devil into a tree and trapped him there by carving a cross in the bark.  Jack would only free the Devil if he promised never to steal his soul for hell.  Once Jack died, his soul was not good enough for heaven and the devil kept his promise.  Cursed to walk the earth’s night in search of a resting place, Jack’s soul is taunted by the Devil and given a mere ember with which to see.  Jack carves a turnip to hold the ember.  (Jack can be selfish and unkind and trick a spirit, to be more appropriate for children.  The spirit can “punish” his wrongdoing by making him walk the dark earth forever). 

    Rot and Ribs sit back, contented with unchanged tradition.  They say goodnight to another Halloween.  As the sarcophagi lids slowly close, Ribs asks, “By the way, have you lost weight?”  Rot answers, “I’m lucky.  It just falls off.”