We really didn't think anything unusual was happening that Halloween until we say jack-o'-lanterns taking to the air and flying off. That's what it looked like at first, you know, since we could actually see the jack-o'-lanterns because of the light inside. Except for the electric ones, of course--those got the cord pulled out of them first and were generally dropped to smash in the street a minute later when the carriers realized what they’d grabbed. We live in a more crowded, urban area of town, so there weren't that many pumpkins outside to grab--nobody likes cleaning up smashed pumpkin, you know! But there were enough. Enough that a couple of the news choppers out doing some sort of novelty eye-in-the-sky Halloween thing got a few really good video feeds of the flying jack-o'-lanterns. enough that we realized that something really, really freaking weird was going on. Then the eyewitness reports started to come in (and believe me, by that time we had flipped on the local news to see if anybody had an explanation about why this was happening), and we were informed that a swarm of unusually large bats were behind the jack-o'-lantern thefts. Still just something worth laughing about and remembering to tell people about--


Inspiration: LJ's Halloween theme, with bats carrying off jack-o'-lanterns.
Story potential: High.
Notes: Forgot jack-o'-lantern was hyphenated. Huh. Also, ritual magic invoking the essence of Halloween! Bumping this one from medium potential to high simply because of the holiday connection.

It just didn't feel like a holiday until the saints heads were hauled out and rested on their ceremonial spears. The ones with a little dried flesh still attached got dusted; the ones that were only bone got polished. Some extra padding was required to keep the skulls in place, of course, but a little of the green sponge kept for flower-arranging did the trick. One winter, her mother had used the green sponge to arrange flowers *in* the skulls, but that had generally been viewed as a lapse of good taste not to be repeated. One shouldn't mess with tradition. And so, just as the skulls were neatly arranged and the boughs of holly hung, the messengers were sent out in search of new saints. They hadn't found one in 10 years, of course, and the last one had been snatched up by the Gonnagles before their messenger even made it back to the hall.


Inspiration: Thinking of holiday decorations.
Story Potential: Low.
Notes: This is an entertaining bit, but the story doesn't have legs (just skulls).

She did not like to share. Now. Not yet. It wasn't that she was selfish, but she saw the future and knew the end of her story, and she knew that it would require her to share far more than she wanted. So for now she huddled over her toys and her food and her love, trying to keep it all for herself until it came the time when she wouldn't be able to not share. She told her prophecies easily and for free, most of them--only the way of her death did she keep to herself. She was thoughtful about it, though. She didn't know exactly when it would happen, but she knew she'd be neither a child nor an old woman. She switched to eating only vegetables and was extremely careful with her health. They would find no worms between their teeth, no infections to spread to cuts in the fingers that would butcher her. It--

Inspiration: Thinking about Christmas, and what Christmas is really about. Sharing.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: Might be a flash story. I don't think it needs to be spun out far.