Photo by **Alexandro David** from **Pexels**

Arkansas, USA

May 2003

It’s springtime at the College. The time when we throw perfectly good items off the roof into a big ass dumpster. Freshman year of college is over and everything that can’t fit into the cars our parents bought for us must be chucked. The local Arkansans, “townies” we call them, can’t believe the rampant waste they’re witnessing. We throw perfectly good furniture and household items, three floors down and into a dumpster. Stuff lands with a loud clang and we laugh like howling idiots. The townies wait until we’re in between loads to dig through the rubble of our privileged existence. Perfectly good stuff, thrown away like a hacky dad joke.

We take a little break from throwing stuff out. The Xbox has been turned on and we’ll be distracted for a few good hours. With classes over and finals completed, we’ve only got a day to clear out this rat trap of a dorm room and leave town for the summer. There’s lots of cleaning to do, but we’ll take our neglectful time and half ass our way out of there. The closets are still stuffed with unwashed laundry, the walls covered in the posters of bands we’ll forget about in a few years, and nailed into the center of the dorm room door is a torn wrapper which used to contain Mrs. Fields brand Oatmeal Raisin Cookies with Walnuts.

October 2002

Way back in the second month of our freshman year we went out for Halloween, to a haunted corn maze called Slaughtered at Sundown. The advertisement claimed the maze was so disturbing that visitors would experience diagnosable panic attacks by the end or your money back.

On the long drive out to the maze we stopped for gas and I had a hankering for cookies. As far as gas station cookies go, Mrs. Fields are solidly above average. I ate one not caring about my deathly nut allergy.

Doctors had told me to avoid nuts and carry an epinephrine shot.

I did not listen.

Never mind that walnuts are the universe’s unique key to untether my soul from my body. Consequences be damned, I kind of wanted a snack.

If you think about it, Halloween really is a tacky holiday. It’s a middle finger to the fragility of life, a joke in poor taste about someone else’s trauma.

Gravestones in the front yard, ghosts hanging from your porch, walking door to door dressed as an axe murderer. Making a scary corn maze, where real people might actually have been slaughtered in this rural Arkansas location.

Other cultures warn us not to make light of the dead, to let well enough alone. But the reality of death seems so unreal, the limitedness of youth so unending. Perhaps the horror of these haunted places is us trying to shock ourselves into believing in death again.

***

Be that as it may, death demands respect.

Imagine being slaughtered at sundown by a walnut. What a lame ass way to go. At the age of eighteen, there will be no other accomplishments to define my life. After a few years the tale of the college student who died in the corn maze will become just another word of mouth marketing ploy for these farmers turned professional Halloweeners. People will jokingly tell each other “Some poor kid was literally scared to death!”

When we first entered the maze I already noticed a burning in my throat. “It’s not a big deal”, I told myself. We’re making our way through and having a great time. Goblins, ghouls, and caricatures of men with mental illness jump out of the stalks, screaming, brandishing chainsaws. What a thrill to feel your heart beating from the violence.

A corn maze is unlike a haunted house. In this outdoor labyrinth part of the thrill is you have to actually find your way out. Which is a problem when having a severe allergic reaction because the longer I’m in here, the more difficult it is to breathe. My entire body feels like it’s on fire and in the dimly lit rows I see my arms and hands breaking out in hives. As I struggle to breathe the ghosts of the corn perform their task of scaring us shitless. In the confusion of it all I become truly lost, unable to find the exit.

Panic sets it. My friends are rushing me through the corridors to find the exit. Knocking down corn rows and using unpermitted passageways, we make it out. When I step into the light of the parking lot, my bloated face and swollen-shut eyes cause a nearby girl to exclaim, “What a great mask!”

My roommate drives a hundred miles an hour down the freeway towards the nearest emergency room. The journey takes over an hour and I feel like I’m slipping away. It’s getting very hard to breathe. I call my mom thinking this will be our last conversation.

Perhaps my memory of this phone call is faded. She knew I’d be fine. In her telling, there are other far scarier times when she thought she’d lose me. Like on a “mission trip” to Honduras when I got heat stroke digging a latrine. What a way to go, digging a latrine for the Hondurans. I can see the locals talking about it now, rolling their eyes. “Gringos…” they say to each other; no other explanation being needed. But that’s still better than a walnut. At least with the latrine I would have been a martyr, the patron saint of taking a dump. “He died on a mission trip,” they’d say.

***

I’m telling you, this walnut incident really felt like the end. I was deeply confused, life had never told me ‘no’ before. However, there’s a peace as well, an inevitability to the moment. I could almost see that dim, calming light at the end of the tunnel. I think to myself: this is was it feels like to die and it’s not so bad.

That day was not my day though. We arrived safely at the ER and I received the most blissful injection of something anti-histaminic. My whole body relaxes. They take me back to our rat trap of a dorm room for a wonderful night’s sleep. My roommate nails the cookie wrapper to the door.

“This can remind us of our mortality,” he says.

The next day life feels like a party I wasn’t necessarily invited to. How strange to expect death, but to go on living. I take deep breaths and think deep thoughts. Quietness settles into the morning and there’s an obligation to reprioritize. Life slows down and seems paper thin but precious. I carry my epinephrine shot and avoid cookies for a while.

The cookie wrapper fades so quickly nailed to that door. We go in and out hundreds of times and it soon becomes invisible. It’s a mere exaggeration, a story with no punchline. The year goes by. The door opens and closes. We have classes and outings and fun. New youthful stupidities are planned. New unmitigated risks undertaken. A party that never ends.

May 2003

Xbox session completed, we barely finish the clean-up in time. We throw it all away, the unwashed clothes and posters and books. They’re trash. Besides, there’ll be plenty more when we come back in the fall. New terrifying movies will come out. New ways to scare ourselves shitless. Enough horror to fill a Honduran latrine.

The room is stinky, so we open the windows to air it out. We head downstairs, get in the car and drive home. Now the room is empty. Light hits the empty back wall and the door left ajar, where the faded face of Mrs. Fields and her Walnuts flit in the breeze.