Now that the school year was underway and Oscar was very much back to his typical routine. Which meant that he'd been awake since 5:00 AM for his morning run before getting ready for work. Fall and Halloween had exploded all over town and while he wasn't one for celebrating with costumes and revelry, Oscar loved looking at all the decorations and events around town. Not that he ever went to them because he was strictly in bed by a decent hour. This morning, his cats wouldn't leave him alone in the kitchen and he opted to leave early to grab a smoothie, rather than try to wrangle them out of the kitchen to make his own organic one. He'd found that his cats were near impossible to wrangle. "This one is called Frankenstein's Monster," he said, setting the green smoothie down in front of him.

The spread on the table is full of bundles of dried corn and striped gourds as well as glossy butternut squash with mini pumpkins no larger than the palm of his hand arranged in neat rows. One of the community garden’s last hauls of the season.

“Good morning,” he greets some passerby with a warm smile. “Looking for some decorations, or fall-themed dinner ingredients? Butternut squash stew is perfect for this time of year.” He picks up one of the speckled gourds. “All grown by the community garden, no chemicals, just our hands in dirt.”

Milo adjusts the cuff of his sweat, rolled to his elbows, his fingers brushing off some flour from the cider donut he’s already taken a bite out of. The farmer’s market is full today, filled with the scent of cinnamon and baked apples and crisp air.

October might be all ghouls and mask, chaos Milo prefers to sidestep, but the harvest and slow falling apart of the world is what he focuses on.

He turns back to the stall it’s with the intention to grab another jar of local honey when he feels someone brush past him and knock his shoulder that causes him to drop the partially eaten donut. Milo steps back and mildly says, “So long to that."

where: utp (let's go on a big bold beautiful journey)

"What's your honest opinion on costume repeating?" Ty asks with a raised eyebrow as he clarifies his parameters, "And don't give me diplomacy. You see someone rock up to Sharky's in the same spooky fit they've been turning out in for three years running. What's your first unfiltered thought?"

location: utp

Fletcher navigates the seasonal aisle, his half-full shopping basket hanging from his left arm while he reaches for a glow-in-the-dark skeleton out of the row of plastic pumpkins before tossing it into the basket. His mission is simple – Oliver made it very clear he wants his Halloween party to be the ‘coolest one ever’, but a fog machine is out of his budget, and Fletcher is still leaning toward the table cloths with the cartoon ghosts over the ones with blood-splatter print.

He looks at the nearest shopper to catch their attention to say, “My kiddo wants a ‘cool and fun’ Halloween party, but I don’t want to be sending the other kids home with nightmares. How do I find a happy middle?“

"I need some expertise. Or just an opinion, really." He turned, holding two pumpkins in each arm, one a tiger stripe and the other a khaki — two odd, but rather neat-looking pumpkins, "... Which one should I go with?" He smiled, "It's for a modest household of one looking to spruce up their balcony."