Scary Dark

Darkness itself is not as scary as that time in late afternoon in the fall when people see the gathering clouds, the dimming light, when pedestrians walk faster and drivers hunch upon the wheel as though it were a restraining bar on a roller coaster, willing their vehicle to speed up.
Shop owners stand nervously by their windows watching the last touches of day slowly disappearing. The wind blows up, street lights escape their prisons, pets of all types move closer to their owners. The homeless know the transition means temperatures will drop, streets will empty. Families wait tensely for bread winners to return home. TV news anchors look serious. Librarians keep busy to avoid images of grey blanketed blocks.
The electric avenues are shutting down, with only fast food cubbyholes and gas stations remaining. I run from the laundry, tugging two bursting bags of steaming clothes, needing to make my front door before the sun has completely abandoned us and shuffling gangs claim the streets as their own.
Stray cats observe all this scurrying without blinking, while humans shiver in the gloaming.
Doctors let the phone ring. You don't want to know who is making house calls during this scary period of transition.

Scary Masterpiece

My home, Hudson County, is a scary masterpiece. It is sneaky scary because some parts, like Secaucus, are quiet and suburban in nature. You let your guard down.
But more often a resident will hear loud arguments, punctuated by screams at ungodly hours. Violent disputes over parking spaces. Pushing in line, elbowing at bus stops, empty homes, dark warehouses, steep cliffs bordering the Hudson River, itself a scary masterpiece.
Cops? Cops may be the scariest thing in this county. And Halloween in Hudson causes even longtime residents to double lock their doors. Youth gangs containing bitter adults are everywhere. Do not look strangers directly in the face. Stay to the curb, walk fast, head down. The Joker would scare no one here.
Last month a floating body was found in a local lake. Scary? Hell, no. One more parking space for the rest of us.