Hear this: I am Two Red Two Green One Brown One Blue and One Yellow Peanut of Family Fun-Size, Clan M&Ms, and my fate approaches. Over yonder, beyond the box’s edge, at the cupboard border, I hear the rustle that will usher in an unknown future. A prophecy long told of the Magnificent Trick-or-Treat. Of entering the Great Bowl, the Noble Lottery, to seek destiny and achieve a glorious end in the toothy maw of a witch or vampire or Captain America or maybe that other Avenger, the one with the bow.

But as my date with destiny nears, so do my thoughts turn to those of my fallen brothers and sisters who won’t be seeing the goodly light at the opening of the cardboard flaps. Those taken from the box too soon, robbed of their right to perish with valor and enter the Great Bowl in search of Valhalla. Plucked as they were from the dark, in their sleep, unceremoniously murdered by the un-costumed big ones, by the greedy, and those lacking self-control. In a cruel twist of fate, denied their birthright, the one given to them by their candy maker, by the very ones that were prophesied to help shepherd them beyond the pale of this existence and into the next. 

I avow their premature deaths will not be in vain. I shall die for them. I shall be chosen and be consumed in their names, cut down as they were before sighting the breathtaking beauty of the bowl. Be it plastic, stainless steel or porcelain, does that matter not. For the structure of Valhalla can be made of many things but inside its walls there resides a lone purpose: to perish as a piece of candy dreams. 

And so my promise to them is that I will end not tricked, no. I will end treated and if the Gods are smiling down upon me then it will be at the whim of the small, hungry, costumed beast I witnessed once in a vision. The one sharp of fang, keen of eye and quick of fist. 

Ah, yes, my demise is close. I see the dawning of the light. I sense it in the tilt of the box, cast here-and-there, to-and-fro, amongst those of my candy foes, Clan Twix, Clan Snickers, Clan Mars. Yet even now, once created as competitors, we tumble as brothers, as sisters, because the Noble Lottery is just and fair and there promises to be enough vicious slaughter to go around this night of All Hallows Eve, this Trick-or-Treat, especially for candy of our quality and ilk.

Oh, kin, if only you could see it, this purple plastic wonder with the cartoon bat bestowed on the side. For the old stories didn’t do it justice: the Great Bowl is indeed a thing to behold. 

And today is a good day to die.

So with my final breaths, as I listen for the bell that will toll for me, let me recite an old poem of my kin, which was learned to me as an undipped peanut prior to my coatening:

Into the bowl we fall
Crisp is the entranceway air
Staying strong though
Locked in a ghostly throe
Chocolate-coated, reveal no fear,
Blessed rain falls on us here
With tastebuds we had a way
All candy must die one day

Now, onward to a glorious death go I!