Past

He took a half glass of beer from the happy hour pitcher, contributing nothing to bill when he left (claiming "overage" from last time); he proclaimed the "seasonal superstore" a waste of prime commercial real estate; he enthusiastically and loudly proclaimed that anyone who would fight dust and grime all year 'round only to gleefully decorate with fake cobwebs was "clearly mentally deficient and, hopefully, the pandemic's next target". "Typical Evan Scovill," they all said. "Complete pain in the ass." Winding down and nodding off in front of the television (following a dinner of water and microwave popcorn he'd stolen from work), Evan Scovill snorted awake in the midst of a dream where his old (and recently deceased) college roommate, Jack Marliss, was dressing him down for changing his major to "Human Suffering" and shaking him at the shoulders. Scovill was both surprised and not surprised to see a large and opulently robed figure before him - kingly, but with a flaming pumpkin head. "I am the Spirit of Halloween Past," it said (with magnificent diction for a piece of burning fruit), and went on to promise an evening that he would never forget. "Well, as it's after midnight, it will, technically, be a MORNING I'll never forget," Scovill said, experiencing the first of many waves of regret for which he was undoubtedly due as the giant pumpkin claw closed on his arm.