Imagine a small elementary school. Imagine its tiny stage. It’s dark. Soft spiderwebby stuff hangs down. Lights glow and flash. There’s a severed hand over there. A small doll sits up, a beam illuminating its melancholy face. On the table is a cauldron of brains, better known as spaghetti. Organ music fills the space. Ten human beings stand or lie or hide behind the curtain, in various states of distress. Nine are young, one is old. All are grotesque.

Do you get the idea?

We have a manager – “Tammy”, a Grade 6 student. She orchestrates our visitors, who range from age 6 to 12, plus some hesitant adults. They are ushered into our home in groups of two or three. If it’s a Grade 1 child, we mostly laugh rather than scare. For the 12-year-olds, however, it’s full on terrorizing.

We played our roles for an hour-and-a-half. I cackled, moaned and invited folks in for dinner. A glob of spaghetti dripped from my right hand. Green stuff adorned my left.

Oh my God, we had fun! Our victims hopefully are having lovely, terrorless evenings as an entry to soft sleep. But they’ll remember their excursion into the Twilight Zone.

You are travelling through another dimension
a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind
A journey into a wondrous land
whose boundaries are that of imagination

Thanks for coming with me to the wild country
Sleep well