Ostrich Weekly Forecast: Oct 28

Our weather man gave me a heart attack this morning, after he'd filled his coffee cup, polished off his crystal ball, and sat down at his scrying desk to make the forecast. As he peered through the aethers of time, he was quickly seized by a state of gobsmacked confusion. I felt an electric horror, to see him with his breath held, eyes darting, lips repeating a silent intonation, "What the pho, what the pho, what the pho."

"What is it?" I asked urgently. "What do you see?"

"What the pho," he mouthed again.

"Disaster?" I said. "Terrorism? What? Use your words, man."

"I don't understand," he whispered. "It's like everyone's been replaced. Not everyone. Young people, mostly. All the children, but the parents are on drugs, smiling like it's lovely that their children have been switched with—monsters—demons and vampires, witches and mummies, so many little Elon Musks, with tiny cardboard cybertrucks."

"As in—Halloween?" I suggested.

"Hallowhat?" he said.

It can be tough, but also pretty funny, working with a colleague who grew up at a wizard's boarding school. Still, he did offer a forecast, if a slightly obvious one:

It's a good week for trying on an alter ego.

In real life, more than twenty years ago, I went to a Halloween party dressed as Tommy Tommerino, a wildly extroverted version of myself in the mode of John Travolta, who's extremely confident, and not at all afraid of dancing in public. Upon arrival I announced to the whole party, nearly all strangers, that I'd be putting on a disco performance at the end of the evening, which occurred as promised, and featured moves that I, as my normal self, could never have attempted nor survived. A trace of Tommy Tommerino has followed me to the present, and is partly responsible for my audacity to write strange articles every week, and to keep hitting send.

If there's a mask you'd like to try on, or one you'd like to take off, the dressing room is open.