Notes From a Small Pond: Terror is in the interpretation

If things were normal, the acrid aftertaste of pumpkin spice lattes and commentary about busting out the flannel and lamenting the coming of snow would suffice for things to scan (as opposed to read) while listening to the clock ticking away the seconds of your life, and maybe a sigh or two about the Once Again Lame Vikings and their Glee-Club Quarterback demonstrating about as much competitive angst as Snow White - but, what the hell can one expect for $86 million - if things were normal, all those, and a hundred clichés more, would do the trick of inching us through and away from September and into the orange clutches of October, soon to be the strangling silver-fish gray of November.

But things aren't normal. Let's talk terror.

The terror of observing the mental health of sequestered, aging parents, already on the ragged cusp of reality, senility's icy grip, constricting.

The terror of feeling one's job ebbing downward, bills flowing the opposite direction, LinkedIn like a Pacific Ocean of equally vast potential and emptiness.

The slow-dawning terror of recognition that the way life has become is the way life will be, except for the novelty and people to blame.

The shuddering terror of recognizing your face in the mirror as someone you thought you'd never be, except became and are anyway, surprising like a nightmare jack-in-the box, come alive and chasing.

The terror of admitting that Depressed may be only the root of it, and Covid just the trigger, not the bullet or the gun.

Anyway, it's Halloween pretty soon and places in Cloquet and the rest of Carlton County, like everywhere, house the haunting. 'Tis the season to unearth it, all that dark ju-ju. Drag it out into the light of the midnight, yellow moon.

I've got a couple Real Ghost Stories of my own. Haunted houses. Apparitions. Blood-froze voices beneath the bed.

I would love to hear yours. And everyone else's.

Parnell Thill is a Cloquet-based author and marketing executive. His book "Killing the Devil and Other Excellent Tricks" is available at killingthedevil.com.

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Share your scariest supernatural tale

Send us your real Carlton County ghost stoy. Haunted/haunting houses. Unexplainable phenomena. Things you can't forget despite trying. Looking for local. No Amityville Horror up in here. We know there's stuff here. We know you know it, too.

So tell.

The rules are simple: Keep it short if you can, 600 words is good. Email to [email protected] or drop off at the Pine Knot News office at 122 Avenue C, Cloquet MN 55720. Photos or illustrations welcome. Must be submitted by noon Friday, Oct. 23 so we can choose our favorites for the following week's paper. Include name and phone number for questions.