A pumpkin's story

The patch is quiet today. No marauding kids trampling all over my vines. Nice and peaceful. Yesterday was dreadful. Owner had a buy one - get one free sale on all of us. Fat boy next to me disappeared, then fat girl on the other side got grabbed. I was the only one left out of all us that grew up together.

I felt sad today as I thought about this. All the little squash blossoms that grew into big orange globes that now are being murdered in someone’s garage. And for what? To be a decoration for a few weeks? Is that what life is all about?

I spoke with some friends just the other day. They were pretty vague about their feelings.

“So, what you’re telling me is that you have no opinion on this whole carving us up for one night a year? You don’t find that bizarre?”

George the mammoth yellow next to me, his abnormal growth due to a spillage of Miracle-Gro early on, sputtered and stammered. “Uh, well, you know. It’s always been this way. Who am I to stop tradition? I just, you know, hope, um, well, you know, that I’m entered into the ‘Great Pumpkin’ contest this year. Carving me up, well, you know, that’ll come I’m sure. So what?”

“Yes, indeedy, it’ll get to be so much fun! I cannot wait for this year! All the kids! I hope they choose me first!” Mister Perfect Sphere will be chosen first. They all choose his type.

No one cares for us misshapen, warty guys. We linger in the patch long past the halloween time. Then we start to get mushy around the middle, then the birds come, then it’s all over. We’re doomed. Time to say goodbye, I sigh.

“At least we won’t have to endure the knife and then the torch,” whispered little green. He got a late start. The last frost in June stunted his growth, poor guy. “I hope I get a little color. I hate being the only green in the patch.”

“Take heart, little one. At least your skin is smooth as silk. Not covered in lumps and bumps. And you’ll turn yellow, just like the sun. It’ll happen. These days of bright sun and blue skies will turn you in no time,” reassured the white wart-covered beauty that lay to the west of me. “Now me, I’m doomed to stay this pale shade. And be covered in these horrid warts. Some experiment the farmer tried this year. He wanted to see if the kids would buy ‘witch pumpkins’. Ha! The joke’s on him. Here I still stay, no one wants a white warty pumpkin.”

Suddenly I felt a rumble, a deep thrumming under my vine. Then it became a sound, and the rumble got stronger. A large green tractor appeared, coming our way. What? Is it that time already? The tractor got larger and larger. The rumbling deeper, the sound louder, the dirt flew.
Gone…


W/C 500