That was a very intriguing little piece, dialyn. I enjoyed those 496 words! I particularly liked your idea for Transom's cunning Halloween scavenging scheme. And you managed to set up Samhain's demise plausibly as well. Very clever. I know what you mean about editing. There comes a time when you lose patience with it! I remember that when I wrote the first draft of my story it came in at something like 700 words and I then spent ages pruning it down. But in retrospect I think this was a good discipline. I found it surprising how much I could cut without losing anything important and I suspect it actually improved the prose in many places by making it shorter and punchier.