It was Halloween night. The Halloween of two thousand and fourteen. I was eight years old at the time. I was a pale, sickly little boy with long, raven hair. I weighed just under eighty pounds and was a shrimp when compared to the other boys my age. I was also astmatic and prone to coughing fits that lasted for several minutes. That Halloween still comes back to haunt me from time to time. 

My uncle Sidney was born on Halloween, and always celebrated his birthday by throwing a massive Halloween Party on the family farm in Sharbrough's Landing. All of the planters of the Delta were to  gather at his farm to celebrate both the holiday and the birth of the man they  often considered to be their leader.  My Father, adorned and loved his older brother, and so each Halloween, my mother, my older sister, and I would be loaded up in the family's car and driven to the farm.

In my dreams I can still remember those events. I also remember that one Halloween because it was around the time that I started going under the name 'Hailey'. Let me explain, for my eighth birthday I had been given a handheld and a copy of the newest Pokemon game, Pokemon Alpha Sapphire. For the first time I was allowed to choose the gender of the character I was playing. I tried at first to play as a boy, but that seemed off. So I deleted that save file and started another one, this time I decided to play as a girl. A girl named 'Hailey' I did so in secret of course.

My Father was already a bit disappointed in the way I was turning out, though he never said so aloud. He often threatened or promised to send me to Chamberlain-Hunt Academy, a private boarding school that was located in Port Gibson, Chamberlain-Hunt was a military style boarding school. And was Presbyterian in nature. You see I'd been named Casper to honor his great, great, grandfather who had been a highly decorated infantry officer in the Second World War. And as far as he was concerned I'd not lived up to that name. 

There is not a shadow of doubt in my mind that if my father had seen me playing a girl in a video-game, he hated video-games and thought they turned men into sissies and he blamed all of society ills on them. He would have taken that hand-held gift from my mothers older brother and tossed it into Ross R Barnett Reservoir. Once that was done he would have wasted no time on making good on his promise to enroll me in Chamberlain-Hunt Military Academy, before I could blink an eye, I would have been put on a train bound for Port Gibson. Which despite its name is not a port. Though it was close to a river.

Anyway it was Halloween night, and it was unusually cold on that night. Autumn's in Mississippi are a mixed bag of nuts. Sometimes it's freezing cold on Halloween night, other times it's warm, very warm. I've seen Christmas where people would run around in short sleeves and shorts, and I've seen the rare fabled 'White Christmas' where the whole world seems to be covered in snow. Now that Halloween stands out because it was cold, andc cold enough for there to be frost on the ground.

Now, it being Halloween, I'd decided to dress up, at the time I'd fallen in love with a popular Saturday morning kid's show called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic my dad of course hated the fact I wanted the show, but like most things I was into, including reading, video-games, and writing poetry he seemed to merely tolerated it.

Anyway that Halloween it was cold, really cold, like there was a thin sheet of ice on the pond and frost on the ground cold. Anyway I'd decided to dress up as one of the characters from the cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The one I'd decided to dress up as was the main character, a purple unicorn named Twilight Sparkle.

The costume consisted of purple leggings, a purple tutu, and a purple shirt. And a purple tail pinned to the back of the tutu and at last a hair band that had ears and a unicorn horn. I loved that costume, simple yes, but it somehow reflected who I was inside. My dad hated the costume. I'm sure he would have wanted me to go as Superman, Batman, or The Incredible Hulk. Something more manly you know. But mom held his anger at bay saying it was just a costume after all.

Anyway, like I said it was cold that night and cold, northern wind was blowing across the barren fields, one could see bits of ice in the breath of Boreas that blew across that flat, delta land. It was the kind of wind that turns your blood to ice and makes you shiver. The wind cut me like a sharp knife. I remember a dozen roaring bonfires had been built around the farm that night. The men, gathered around these bonfires, and dranked bourbon straight from the bottle and boosted about the women they fucked, the number of deer they killed, last years harvest, should they plant winter wheat or rye grass, and how one of them should run for congress and bring some much needed help to The Delta. 

The women, gathered inside a warm, brick house that was called 'The Baker House' there inside, drinking spiked cider they talked about the men they fucked, the short coming of the harvest, who's daughter had been crowned homecoming queen and who was expected to marry come spring and who was pregnat in the village.

The children, I included, tended to drift from one group to another. It being Halloween, massive pails of candy were laying about. The good kind of candy mind you, Reese peanut butter cups in the shapes of pumpkins, bats and full moons, full size Snicker candy bars, full size Twix candy bars. And many more.

The older teenagers tended to police us children, they also guided us through the woods that lay north of the Farm. The woods were supposed to be haunted by various demons and other supernatural creatures, as we were shepherding around the woods, stories of the supernatural would fill our heads and soon we were turning our heads at every little noise. I remember those stories were filled with some fearsome creatures of the supernatural such as the Rougarou, that was claimed to haunt the woods around the Landing, or the dreaded Wendigo.

Those who were more bolder, would often follow one of the older teens down to the river bank, there they would be loaded up in aluminum bass boats and sent down river for a tour of the 'Haunted Swamp'. All of those were a test of courage, a test that I shied away.

Instead, I huddled around one of the roaring bonfires and played with a plastic pony figurine I'd brought from Dollar General a few days ago with some pocket change. I had just finished brushing out the pony's tail when from behind me came a boy that was twice my size, he was surrounded by four of his chorts local Landing boys that did not like somebody new being on their turf. I don't remember what transpired next, only I caught a fist to the mouth and my toy went into a roaring bonfire. The orange and yellow flames quickly turned the plastic figurine into nothing more than a pool of melted plastic. 

The boy's name was Georgie Stoner, he told me so.. Of course I cried, but I had nobody to turn to, my dad was roaring drunk at the time and was sitting in awl as some of the other guys told stories of the bear hunt they had been on. I could hear one of the men boasting that his son had just killed his first deer, killing your first deer was something of a rite of passage in the Delta. A rite of passage I've never completed. It was one of those things that separated the men from the boys. And so I kept my tears to myself.

Something changed that night though. I don't want to say that Hailey died that night, I'll say she went to sleep. She remained dormant for the next eight years. After that night I sold my Pokemon game, the one with the Hailey save file, and brought a football game. I joined our local boy scout troop and somehow I rose through the ranks if you will. I reached the rank of Scout First Class before I decided to drop out. I even joined my school's JROTC program. JROTC stands for Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps. 

I lasted about one year before dropping. I think that when Hailey awoke  from her eight year sleep. Anyway, here I am now, sitting in a Lavender colored room, sleeping in a pink canopy bed, wearing a silken nightie instead a pair of ill fitting sweat pants and a oversized t shirt, and my now shoulder length raven black hair styled back and parted down middle with each half being pulled into two braid pigtails. 

I've been Hailey for only two and a half weeks, but it seems like I've been her forever. Now as I sit here, watching the first rays of dawn peek over the top of the pecan and magnolia trees in the backyard. I wonder if dad sending me here was not the hand of some god of being beyond my understanding. I wonder if the sudden change of my uncle's heart was not due to some god or other goddess acting on my behalf. As I sit here, sipping the first cup of morning coffee, waiting for the rest of the house to wake up. Knowing that in a short few hours, I would squeeze myself into a pink dress, and walk half a block to the house of Walker and Lavender Stoner, who's son eight years ago punched me in the mouth and tossed my toy into a roaring bonfire.

Who's son I'm also madly in love with, whom I lust after, and who's mother is honoring me by throwing an ice cream social in my honor. I wonder if all of this is just a weird fever dream or if this is my life. I also wonder what tomorrow will bring, and the day after that. I have a lot of heavy thinking to do between now and then.

Part of me wants to just pack my bags though, and catch the morning train out of this village. Part of me wants to stay here and keep being Haiely, and another part wants me to walk down to the river. Tie a piece of metal around my leg and jump into the water and see what awaits me on the other side. Am I afraid of living the rest of my life as a woman? I'm afraid that when the moment of truth comes the only boy I've loved will reject me? Or am I afraid of living until old age comes and claims my soul. 

These are thoughts and demons I will have to struggle with in the coming hours, days, months. And yet I know that at any moment, I can end it, at any time I can walk down the bank, tie an old piece of metal around my ankle, and without giving it a moment's thought I can jump into the water. Thirty seconds later, I would slip under the brown surface of the water and then, I'm sure I would meet my creature. I would either find heaven or hell. Or neither. And right now that is the only thing keeping me sane.

Maybe I should talk to somebody. But one thing is for sure, when I climbed down from that train, I was not expecting to become Haiely again, nor was I expecting to fall in love with a childhood bully, nor was I expecting to make the splash I'd made here, in this rural village. So much has happened so fast, that I've found myself utterly lost. Anyway, it's time to finish my cup of coffee, shower, and get ready to meet the morning.