Crazy Halloween Costume Shop

The sign above the store read, Crazy Halloween Costume Shop.  The sign on the door read, You have to be crazy to come in here, so I went in.

The clerk looked like Santa Claus.  He had a mischievious twinkle in his eyes. I discounted it at my peril.  I shouldn’t have.

I looked around.  The shop was empty, not a costume in sight.  I turned to talk to the old man, but at my turning he disappeared.  I thought, “What the hell?”  Then I noticed the walls.  They were translucent, with images appearing and disappearing.  I was about to leave when I heard the lock on the door slam shut, then everything went black.

I woke up back on the sidewalk outside the shop, surrounded by dead people I knew, knew like fiction characters in a novel.  They were laughing, joking, and for whatever reason, I felt a kinship, and we hugged.  Then they disappeared and I was alone, wondering again, what the hell just happened?  Then I heard the lock on the door of the Crazy Halloween Costume Shop slide open, and Santa Claus walked out and said, “Did you enjoy your costume?”

“I’m not sure,” I said.

He laughed, and said, “When you know, come back.  There are plenty of costumes to choose from.  Then he walked back into his shop, and I swear I heard, “Ho, Ho, Ho.”
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When you put on a human cloak you enter a different dimension, forget who you are, think you are the cloak, experience the cloak’s attributes, and the only way home is when the cloak gets killed or wears out.