The other night, I thought I'd kicked someone's head off. It was the day before Bonfire Night and strange sounds and lights filled the air. Suddenly I saw him!

A grinning demonic mask upon his face, it seemed to call to me from the darkness and I thought only of my own survival.

I was all cries and moans afterwards and fell down in the street. I put my hands in the mush that used to be his face. I rubbed it all over my face in a fit of despair. Such chasms I was swimming in, I think I saw the thorniest beasts of shadow crawling about me in exaltation.

It was then that I noticed the smell. Sweet and familiar, it stank of childhood. What fresh torture was this? A taste now flooded my tongue. I recognised a flavour not sensed since enjoying a particularly tart starter in a Cornish restaurant that was attempting to replicate Michelin standards.

Pumpkin! I stood slowly and staggered to the fallen figure. A small puffer jacket wrapped a somewhat disfigured body - loose and sagging like it was just a bag filled with socks. There was a cap next to the body, some money was in it.

Then I regarded it's legs. They weren't there. Just a pair of grey tracksuit bottoms led down to some scuffed trainers. Empty spaces, both. Two young boys flanked the hapless creature and stared at me in a mixture of fear and disbelief.

I screamed. "I've killed an amputee!" Then I ran off in the direction of the darkest street as fast as my legs would carry me.

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