A Halloween story: Pumpkin metamorphosis



Last year I told you how--having completely forgotten about Halloween --I was caught off-guard by two witches who came to visit me while I was sitting in my hot tub. It was an embarrassing faux pas, as I had nothing to offer, not even a pumpkin. So this year I bought my pumpkin early, and with the help of my resident grandchildren made a stunning jack-o'-lantern that we proudly displayed on the porch.

To celebrate this achievement, my granddaughter, Hannah, wrote one of her minimalist stories about this pumpkin. In her story he gets visited by a ghost, a bat and a skeleton, in that order. They all want to play with him, but the poor pumpkin says he can't because he doesn't have any feet or arms to play with. "Too bad," the visitors say and they trot off to do their own selfish thing. (Things like that often happen in Hannah's stories; creatures act in a very take-it-or-leave-it kind of way, like wearied parents. I don't know why that is, but I sometimes worry.) Anyway, the pumpkin sits there on the porch for a spell and then a man comes out, picks him up and takes him inside. The end. I think the ending is a cop-out, but Hannah says the pumpkin likes it that way, because he is getting bored.

All of this happened last week. Yesterday I was sitting in my hot tub, prepared, waiting for the witches to appear again, especially the young, pretty one with the silvery laugh. But nothing happened, no rustling in the dead leaves, no mocking seductive voice, no silvery laugh, nothing. I had almost given up for the day, when all of a sudden the younger witch's boyfriend, Mephistopheles--Stophy to his friends--materialized next to my tub. "Oh it's you again," I said, "I'd hoped you'd bring your friend."

"Sorry buddy, " he said, "She's not coming. She doesn't want to waste her time on a pumpkin like you whose limbs are about to fall off. Take a look at yourself sometime, you're wasting fast amigo." And then, in a flash, he was gone.

Filled with a terrible foreboding, I got out of the tub and went to the porch. Sure enough, my beautiful pumpkin was wilting in the unseasonable October heat. His eyes had turned black, his teeth had fallen out, and yellow-orange essence dribbled out of his mouth. Looking at him, I had this strange Dorian Gray feeling that somehow the pumpkin and I were one. To prevent further decay, I decided on the freezer as a good storage place. I don't know how long I can stay inside though. It's cold in here. And very dark.

At Random - Adrian Korpel