Despite living through the most terrifying period of social unrest and political uncertainty in her own lifetime, Hayley Russo has announced on social media that she is sad Halloween is canceled.
“I could deal with losing Easter, and I won’t care if we don’t get Thanksgiving, but Halloween is my favorite holiday,” says Russo. “I guess I’ll just have to try and get into the spirit without any official festivities.”
Getting into the spirit of dread, fear, and abject horror should prove no issue for a citizen of a country in the throes of extreme voter suppression and an increasingly violent militarized police force on its slide into full-fledged fascism.
“I think I’ll do a horror movie marathon counting down to Halloween,” says Russo, who apparently needs a different reason to not be able to sleep at night. “Maybe my boyfriend will finally watch 28 Days Later with me.”
Russo’s desire to introduce more terror into her life is confounding to most of those who know her.
“I don’t know how anyone could be wanting Halloween right now: the most chaotic and frightening of holidays,” says a close friend, Nia Wright. “All I want to do this last day of October is to stay inside and get high enough that I can watch early 2000s rom-coms without thinking too much about gender politics.”
“I guess for Hayley, getting scared in celebration of Halloween is her own form of escapism,” Wright adds. “But why you would want to replace fear with a different type of fear is a mystery to me. I do support her plan to buy bags of mini candy, though.”
But for Russo, who is living through a deadly, ill-handled global pandemic just like the rest of us, there’s no substitute for a traditional Hallow’s Eve.
“Bring on the ghosts and the witches and the bats!” Russo says. “Well, maybe not the bats.”
“Halloween forever!” Russo adds.
It just might be!
