At pub trivia night, your team comes in third despite the beer and side conversations between the host’s questions about current events and literature and sports.
One of the discussions you have is about work and students and remediation because you are, the majority anyway, community college teachers before most other identities–especially since none of you, though you are middle-age) are parents.
One of the other exchanges is around the age one graduates from trick-or-treating. You know your mother would tell the group that you’d still be out in the dark ringing doorbells despite her best advice. And, you wouldn’t deny this instinct. However, now you are mostly satisfied to reward those who’ve transformed themselves–like paper into features–with a full-size candy bar.
As you wait in your catrina mask, you reminisce your own careful transformations through childhood: gypsy, clown, Sacajawea, Elvira, poet, professor.
