Top Reasons to Have
Nightmares in October

Despite all fake blood and make-believe spooks, plus the prospect of wholesome fun at movies and parties, the only dread still linked to Halloween is the obscene bite U.S. retailers snack out of it. So, at the intersection of what’s left of a pagan ritual, and the irony of grownups dressed up as bloodsuckers, here’s our own fright list.
True, nothing to bury you alive, or squeeze your sphincter to the point of constipation. Just five anxiety-driving reasons to refill your meds, and toss and turn all night in bed. You know, the usual suspects: fears about the future, or the past, or the future turning into the past, and, of course, crawling creatures and robots.
Now, the ability of some to still be scared means that somehow they care. And not many of us carry the burden of giving anything two flying er schmucks about it. But for those who do, sorry about the cliché but be afraid, be very afraid. Thus, this abridged inventory for the sake of offering anyone a warning shot about what may lie ahead. Consider yourself warned.
It may serve other purposes as well. Feel free to design a costume based on it, shocking enough to impress jaded friends and floor that cute Michael Meyers who struck your fancy at last year’s parade. In the process, you may exorcise that nasty heartburn. Just add spark and pointed teeth and voilá: even bad news take a break, sometimes.

WE’RE IN THIS MATRIX, YOU SEE
Leave it to Wall Street to create new distractions, so while we get busy on social media, banksters subtract yet another dime from our future. But Bank of America Merrill Lynch may have broken new ground, even to seasoned con artists like, well, not us. It’s about the Matrix, you know?
In a note to clients, the bank that was found liable for mortgage fraud and paid in 2013 a $1.27 billion fine (in a government ruling since overturned), pompously warns that ‘It’s conceivable that (…) future civilizations could have decided to run a simulation of their ancestors,’ which means you, Keanu Reeves, and everyone else.
We’ve heard that before, of course, which makes one wonder, hey, where did I leave my wallet? For, while BoA, and every deranged preacher you never heard of, may be flashing their cards for our attention, about a future only they know about, it’s simply common sense to swoosh your cape and walk away, just in case.

THE EVIL THAT (MADEUP) MAN DO
You know that one: a lot of people are afraid of clowns, so why not start a crazy clown wave, with blurry video and threats to little children, just so we’re all on the same page? It’s on everywhere, and in the minds of publicity hounds, who’re smacking their heads, thinking, why haven’t I come up with such genius idea?
Hold on to your big shoes, Bozos, it’s all a fad. And the backlash is already apace, with mobs chasing down recovery pervs just because they’ve got the wrong shade of orange hair. Oh, sorry, that was a Trump rally. Nevertheless. Let’s keep an eye on those whose appearance is no cause for alarm, instead.
Or get rid of this paranoid mania, disseminated by not so clueless officials, that if you see something, you should tell on them to your local war weaponry-equipped Squad team, even if you have no proof of wrongdoing, or are out to get your poor Uncle Bob. That doesn’t mean your kids should like clowns again. Are you crazy? they’re creepy.

IT’S HAIRY, CRAWLS & CAN HEAR YOU
This is arguably the most frequent character in people’s nightmares, so it’s no wonder that every October there are some kind of unbearably frightening news about them. For if cats rule the Internet, spiders reign over everyone’s worst possible scenario. But until now, we were not supposed to shush in their presence too.
A new study found that spiders have an acute sense of hearing, and do hear you talking trash about them from across the room. So much for ears: they don’t have them. Still, you can hardly, if ever, hear them back. Until, of course, it’s too late, you’re covered with them, and… STOP!
They’re actually wonderfully creatures, crawling on this earth for some 380 million years. They nurture their young and occasionally eat their mates, but hey, who’ll miss them anyway? (more)
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Read Also:
* Happy Halloweeners
* Hallow Talk
* All Hallows Eve

As for hearing, and how they do it, it has to do with hairs, which adds another layer of… shush, shut up, did you hear that?

THEY’LL MAKE A ROBOT OUT OF YOU
Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has often voiced mistrust on our drive to develop Artificial Intelligence – and he should know it, since he’s been attached to a high-tech A.I. chair for years. (Maybe not; what if that chair turns against him?) Others see disturbing ethical implications about it. Apparently, Eugenia Kuyda hasn’t read neither memo.
Maybe was grief over the passing of close friend Roman Mazurenko. Or the message app software she’d been designing for years. The fact is that, when she combined both, she created an interactive program that emulates Mazurenko’s personality and gives, to his friends and acquaintances, the illusion that he somehow came back to life.
Horrified yet? Then think about our gadgets’ automated wonders, walking bots outfit with powerful, progressive, nano-computers, and encased with the ‘intelligent’ skin-like material being developed at many research centers, and what do you get? A toaster that looks like a person and can, in fact, kill you. Don’t bother to run.

THE LADY (ABUSER) IS A TRUMP
Now, suspending impartiality for a moment, some would say that many of the unnerving, nightmare-inducing factors mentioned above could be easily applied to the fifth item of this list (with no need to invoke the Fifth): well-placed distractions, terrifying orange hair, uncanny ability to crawl, even a merciless drone for a voice.
For, let’s face it: even if one believes that a reboot of President Obama’s policies, by a Hillary Clinton tenure, would doom us all, specially in Asia and Middle East, it’s unlike that we’d see her engaged in a shouting match with some psychopath foreign leader. But with Trump, there’s a clear possibility.
So, if the threat to deport 11 million people, build a multimillion border wall, and deny visas based on religion, however completely unfeasible such goals may be, or the release of some boorish, sexually-explicit tape, or claims of attempted rape, are not scary enough, we have some really good, really beautiful news for you.
Your president will make a huge, awesome speech on Nov. 8, and some sweet dreams will embrace you afterwards. No sleep for the rest of us, though; only the jumpy, unsettling fear of being ‘one of those people’ will embrace us. We’ll recoil, cover our eyes and ears, and simply wait a knock on our door, when they’ll come for our behinds.

(*) Originally published on Oct. 18, 2016. Too soon?