It was a dark and stormy night in Sylvania...

August 28, 2020 social media post...

It was a dark and stormy night

in Sylvania. ______ (Your Name Here)

sat at her kitchen computer desk, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling

then there in her newsfeed an image appeared,

familiar yet oddly unfamiliar, a town she thought

she knew, and yet it was not quite her own-

______( Your Name Here) made slow circles with her mouse,

the cursor dancing circles around the “Follow” button.

Should she, or shouldn’t she...

Suddenly the doorbell rang,

out of tune, though, as lightning flashed, thunder crashed,

and the electricity sizzled out

just as the ringing neared its end.

______ (Your Name Here) went to the front door,

hesitated, then flung it open to the storm.

Only the steady drizzle of rain met her eyes, now slanting sideways with suspicion.

______ (Your Name Here) closed the door, turned the latch,

and made her way back through the now-darkened house,

pushing shut the hall closet door along the way, after first

picking up in the skeleton wreath and grinning jack-o’-Lantern,

and tucking them back into the decorations box

that had somehow fallen from the closet shelf

and spilled out into the hallway.

(Wait, had that been there when she had just passed by?)

Then the electricity surged, the house came back to life,

and ______ (Your Name Here) shrugged the moment off as she settled into her comfy chair for some evening TV in the family room.

Completely forgotten was the computer,

the newsfeed scrolling

and “Haunted Sylvania,”

a Facebook page that

______ (Your Name Here)

was somehow

mysteriously

now "Following."