In case you missed it the first time around, here's the Spot Halloween sunday from last year.
The Feed Me logo on the bag is a bit of autobiography. I once lived in a cabin for a few seasons, summer and fall, on the shore of a pond. No neighbors. One night I woke to hear someone whispering "feed...me..." outside my window. It was three in the morning. My cabin didn't have running water or electricity and the kitchen was a card table with an ice cooler. I wasn't set up for hosting. I fumbled with the kerosene lamp by my cot. I knew I had to be dreaming, or waking up from a dream. But after you stare at a black window for a few minutes and the someone or something -- let's call it the SOS -- is still asking to be fed, and the hands you're wringing are clearly flesh and blood, not dream smoke, you realize that you're awake, and SOS is hungry.
I don't believe in monsters and ghosts and things that go bump in the night -- unless it's a groggy walk to the bathroom -- but my brain has other ideas. It's why I read fantasy. Books indulge my imagination, while providing the reassurance of reality in my hands. I'm a fan of science and rationality, until the lights go out. Then my enthusiasm dims. It's a minor battle that wars in my skull. I know something can't be real. I know there's an explanation. But can I put a lid on my gibbering long enough to find out?
On that particular night, I listened to the SOS asking to be fed -- imagine a voice low enough to fit a grave, and slow enough to suggest it's crawling out of one -- and I listened with a keenness I rarely felt in a classroom. I listened as if finding the right answer would determine my final grade on earth.
And after a few long minutes, I heard...
Feed......meee.......
Feeeeed.....meeeeeeee.....
feeeeeeeeee........beeeeeeeeee.....
feeeeeeeeeeeee....beeeeeeeeeeeee...
The SOS was a frog chorus from the pond.
When Spot and Buddy imagine and dread ill-tempered mud monsters and headless snowmen, I'm right there beside them.
