Life After Death: The Shocking True Story of a Innocent Man on Death Row

and at a loss. My favorite holiday, Halloween, came and went. That year I didn’t feel the sense of excitement and possibility that the season usually exuded. It didn’t make me happy. Normally Halloween was like Christmas for me. I would anticipate it for weeks, decorating myself and the house, as well as strolling around the neighborhood, admiring everyone else’s decorations. Nothing lifts my spirit like a scarecrow in the front yard.
    There was a magickal crispness in the air that matched the fallen leaves underfoot. One of the things I always loved most was sitting on the porch and breathing the scent in the air as I handed out candy. I always thought it was more fun to hand it out than to collect it. That year, however, not even that appeased me.
    A few days after Halloween, I was at Jason’s house. He sat on the couch, staring dully at the television as I milled around in the kitchen. An old school box sitting on the table caught my eye. It was the sort that elementary school kids kept their crayons, glue, and pencils in. It appeared to be well used and was missing its top. Inside was a large quantity of pumpkin seeds that the family matriarch had deposited when carving the jack-o’-lantern. “What are these for?” I called out, picking up a handful and letting them run through my fingers and back into the box like gold coins. He looked over, shrugged, and went back to watching television. I put a handful into the pocket of my jacket.
    I stayed up late into the night, lying on the couch and eyeing the canister that contained all of Deanna’s letters. It was a form of self-torture. I felt the need to do
something
, to take some form of decisive action. I knew it was the only way to begin reclaiming my life and enter a new stage of development and growth. I was tired of the stagnation.
    Making up my mind, I got off the couch, grabbed the letters, and went into the bathroom. Using a cigarette lighter I lit each letter one by one and let it burn all the way down to my fingertips before dropping it in the sink. I went through the entire collection, consigning the past to a funeral pyre. The entire bathroom was filled with smoke by the time I was finished, and my eyes were bloodshot. It didn’t bring the sense of relief I thought it would. Still, I had committed myself to a course of action and would follow it to completion.
    I collected all the ashes from the sink and put them back into the canister. I sat with that can of ashes and waited for the sun to rise. When the first rays of light touched the world I started my trip. I walked back to that spot between the hills where we had spent the spring day that now seemed to have been an eternity ago. Autumn was now in full sway; the grass was no longer green. Everything was brown, more like stalks than foliage. The sky was dark gray, warning that rain was on the way. The wind whipped my hair around my face, and the trench coat I was wearing made a sound like the sail on a pirate ship as it flapped behind me.
    Using the lid of the canister I began to churn up the earth on the spot that would have been beneath us that day. I was on my hands and knees, digging in the rich soil and sprinkling pumpkin seeds like some demented creature in an ancient children’s tale. When I finished, I sprinkled the ashes of the love letters over the seeds, then covered it all up with dirt. I knew it was awfully late in the year to be planting anything, but I was hoping for a miracle. Pumpkins are pretty hearty and can withstand frost.
    I don’t know if they grew or not because I never returned to the spot. I left the empty canister there and walked away. I was tempted to go back a couple of years later, just to see what the scene looked like. I fantasized that pumpkins would still be growing there, the descendants of the ones I had planted and fed with ash. Perhaps they still are, decades later. The thought pleases me. It would be a mark I left on the world that the winds of time had not worn away. Perhaps when you sit down to carve a jack-o’-lantern this year, or are enjoying a piece of pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving dinner, it’ll be with one of my magick pumpkins that has made its way to your table. I’ll be part of the festivities by proxy.
    My life seemed to have no point. I went on living because that’s what my body was used to doing. I drifted from one day to the next, not really caring about anything. I began sleeping with someone else just because she was