The Season
Halloween season is the one time in all the year where you can stop pretending. So, it follows that it's the one time of the year where I let my ears loose, wash away all this Caucasian-toned body makeup, grab my cane and take a stroll through the old neighbourhood. By which I mean the Gay Quarter, naturally. We've gotten close to a few people close to the condo, but I'm not exactly willing to lay it all bare in front of them, just yet...
If you caught my previous in-fiction spiel on the date of my fortieth, then you know I escaped from a lab and pass for human thanks to the loving care of Walt and Sarah, but it doesn't exclude the fact that I tend to get antsy around Montreal's Animal Control specialists and anyone with a panel van and coveralls. Considering what I do for a living, you can imagine how I feel whenever I end up supervising calls to Metris and Mercedes G70 owners... What if what our business sold helped to sell to the City the exact van that ends up coming for me, loaded with tranq rifles and cartoon nets?! Luckily, our old neighbourhood is a little too urbane to be easily accessible to surface-dwelling rodents, so most pest-killers tend to make their way in from downstream. That means I should be safe.
And, well, for the most part, it works as advertised. If Walt or Sarah - or both - are around, I pass for a charming little animatronic critter in a shrunken-down and tailored suit, a nicely-contained eidolon of Chaos that smiles and nods as we pass by our old bakery and our favourite groceries - and that sometimes rips tightly-contained grins of badly-repressed terror out of the occasional sack of meat I'm not entirely sorry about having terrorized...
Call it a perk of the business. You show up to set up a dealership's IT stack and, well, if you pass for human, all you have to do is look mildly concerned when some unfortunately perceptive Sales rep points at you like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, swearing up and down that you're not human in front of his peers...
Well, Matthew, dear boy, I didn't want to be put on the spot like this, you see, but - putting your entire infrastructure at my mercy does make me just a tiny bit more than strictly human, doesn't it? Tell the fellow who comes by with Toner cartridge refills to be careful - god complexes don't flatter anyone.
And, well, sometimes you're out and about a few days before the local Inversion Festival, and you find someone who's not quite ready for the 24-hour switcheroo. Someone who looks at your mottled and flaring ears, your excessively numerous teeth and your still-polished manners and presentation, and who thinks they'll blow the lid on you...
Keep in mind, Matthew here is a placeholder - but there's a dozen people like him in any workplace or neighbourhood. Would-be Robert Olmsteads to your own little Innsmouth, hopeful ersatzes to George Gammell Angell who amusingly come forward as bastions of vacuous ignorance and bigotry - and the best way to sock one in their teeth is to show them how nothing they could ever do will ever get to you.
So, a joyous season to one and all. Air out your skeletons, the poor dears deserve some fresh air...