Happy Halloween From KassDays

 

 

Kass's Cursed Cursor

In the dim glow of his laptop screen, Kass hunched over his cluttered desk in the heart of his cozy Okotoks home. It was Halloween night, 2025, and the air outside hummed with the distant shrieks of costumed revellers and the rustle of wind-tossed leaves. But Kass, king of the daily dispatch, wasn't chasing candy or carving pumpkins. No, he was live-blogging the spookiest "day" of the year for KassDays, his beloved Blogger bastion where every mundane moment got mythologized into a post worthy of a scroll-through. "Trick or treat? Tonight, it's all treat," he typed furiously, his fingers dancing like caffeinated spiders. "Pumpkin spice lattes by day, ghost stories by night. Who's with me? #KassHalloween #DaysOfTheDead." He paused, smirking at his reflection in the black mirror of his monitor—stubbled jaw shadowed with skeletal chic, courtesy of a $2 drugstore kit. Kass prided himself on turning the ordinary into the obsessive. Calendars were his catnip; he'd once dedicated an entire week to "National Widget Awareness Month." But Halloween? This was his Super Bowl. A flicker. Just a glitch in the Wi-Fi, he told himself, as the cursor blinked erratically, like a Morse code message from a poltergeist. He refreshed the page. Nothing. "Blogger, you fickle beast," he muttered, sipping his third mug of chamomile laced with whiskey. "Don't you dare blue-screen on me now." Outside, the city pulsed with faux frights: a werewolf howled from the fire escape across the street, and fog machines belched misty veils over stoops piled high with plastic skeletons. Kass leaned back, scrolling his drafts. One post teased a "Haunted Habit Tracker"—a spreadsheet for logging scares. Another was half-finished: "Top 10 Ways Halloween Proves Time is a Trickster." He chuckled. Time was his nemesis, always slipping through his fingers like candy corn in a toddler's fist. If only he could pin it down, blog it into submission. Then, the whisper. Not from the street, but from inside—a soft, digital sigh, like static on an old radio. His screen rippled, words untyping themselves in reverse. "Kass... why do you chase the days?" The cursor hovered, innocent as ever, but the question lingered in the text box, unbidden. He froze, heart thumping like a bass drop at a rave. "Okay, voice-to-text hack? Cute, Alexa, but I'm offline." He jabbed the delete key. Gone. Just a draft glitch. Probably his cat, Mr. Chronos, walking across the keyboard again. But Mr. Chronos was curled on the windowsill, batting at a moth that looked suspiciously like a tiny hourglass. Emboldened by whiskey-warmth, Kass dove back in. "Folks, ever feel like the calendar's gaslighting you? Like October 31st is just a pop-up ad for regret?" He hit publish, watching the post bloom online—likes trickling in from his 247 faithful followers. A comment pinged: Love this, Kass! But dude, your clock's wrong. It's already November 1st here. He blinked. His wall clock read 10:58 PM. Impossible. The room grew colder, the laptop fan whirring like labored breaths. Another flicker. This time, the screen filled with his words, but not his. "I am the Day That Devours. You log me, but I log you. Tick... tock... delete." The cursor slashed through his bio: KassDays: Celebrating Every Moment Before It Vanishes. It reformed as: KassDays: Every Moment Has Vanished. Panic clawed up his spine. He slammed the laptop shut, but the glow seeped through the cracks, painting eldritch shadows on the walls—clocks melting like Dali's nightmares, calendars curling at the edges like burning paper. "This isn't funny, universe!" he yelped, fumbling for his phone. No signal. Of course. Halloween's favourite prank: isolation. A knock at the door. Sharp, insistent. Trick-or-treaters? At this hour? He cracked it open, peeking into the hallway lit by a single flickering bulb. Empty. But propped against the frame was a single treat bag, bulging with... candy corn? No—a crumpled Blogger printout, dated tomorrow. November 1st. His own handwriting scrawled across it: Kass, stop chasing. The days chase you. Or else. He snatched it inside, barricading the door with a chair that felt too light, too unreal. Back at his desk, the laptop had reopened itself. One new draft, titled "The Last Post." It began: "Dear readers, tonight I learned Halloween isn't about costumes. It's about unmasking. The real monster? My addiction to archiving every second, as if logging it makes time mine. But time's a thief in a sheet, and it's been pickpocketing me all along." Kass's hands trembled as he read on. The post detailed his life in reverse: the forgotten birthday he'd blogged through tears, the lover who'd ghosted mid-"Relationship Retrospective," the dreams deferred for "Daily Dose" deadlines. It ended with a photo—not one he'd taken, but one of him, older, grayer, staring out from a nursing home window, clutching a faded laptop. Caption: KassDays: Epilogue. The end of the scroll. He hit delete. The screen went black. Silence. Then, a soft ping—his phone, signal restored. Notifications flooded in: comments on his Halloween post, hearts and emojis raining down. Slay, Kass! This is peak spooky-chic! The clock ticked to 11:59. Midnight. Relief washed over him like cheap eggnog. Just a hack, a dream, a whiskey hallucination. He laughed, shaky but genuine, and fired off a quick addendum: "P.S. Beware the Cursor of Doom. It's out there, folks—lurking in your drafts, mocking your mortality. But hey, at least it's got better prose than mine. #KassGetsHacked #HalloweenHorrors." As he hit publish, the room warmed. Mr. Chronos purred, leaping onto his lap. Outside, the howls faded into honks and sirens—the city shrugging off its annual dress-up. Kass closed his eyes, exhaling. Tomorrow was another day to dissect, another post to polish. But in the corner of his eye, the cursor blinked once more. Waiting. Ever patient. For the next tick. FYI: Grok wrote this Halloween article for me so that all could enjoy a good Halloween Tale.