On a Friday evening I was laying on my sofa, totally exhausted from a very hectic week and with a beginning of a cold, dreaming of an early night. Instead I had committed to go to Aspria Halloween party at Jeux d’Hiver. Commitments are commitments…

There was a short waiting line and only a couple of people were allowed to enter together at times. Once our turn came, we found ourselves in a dark little room with sinister sounds coming from different directions. Next thing a ghostly creature was creeping in our legs. We cried and laughed, and I fast made my way behind the curtain separating us from the club.

It was all very Halloween. People with painted faces, masks, wigs and scary items were walking around.

In one of the rooms four make up artists were taking care of turning the decent by presumption Aspria members and their supposedly decent friends into chthonic, fatalistic and other impressive beings.

While I was waiting for my transformation, I felt I could faint. I was so tired.

“No blood on my face”, I told the artist who happened to be a tango dancer I had seen many times in Brussels milongas. “Something fatal?” “This would do”. As she was working on it, the tiredness was melting, as if the bright colours were erasing the effect of the intense days. As a result a renewed “me” came up – mischievous and cheerful. The cold had disappeared as well. And the witch time started.

We got our drinks, a treat by Aspria, mingled with people, danced and posed for funny pictures alone and with strangers. It was a festive celebration – not of Halloween which was still to come – but of the little devils, wizards, ghosts and witches inside us.