Carving Out Pumpkins


There is a place called the pumpkin diner. Here the pumpkins go and sit at the counter or in booths and order oven-roasted pumpkin or pumpkin pie, or pumpkin ice cream topped with pumpkin seeds.

They can't eat it but most enjoy it nevertheless. There are a few saddened that their friends and neighbors have been made into such delicious treats but they come to the diner anyway. They believe that this is the compensation for life.

There are other options, such as staying home, but many cannot fathom this and insist on dining at the pumpkin diner. The ones who do stay home are ostracized, called disloyal and traitorous, unpumpkinlike. There have been known smashings, but no one claims the guilt or heroism.

When it's time to leave, the pumpkins on the stools roll off and inevitably chip pieces of themselves on the hard floor. Some have managed to break into smithereens and gush soggy pulp, the tiny seeds clinging in terror to the strands holding them together, inches from the green linoleum, where the hulls lay, lifeless. All the other pumpkins turn away.

When all the pumpkins have left and are heading for home, the broken rinds and flesh and pulp are cleaned up and mixed with cinnamon and sugar and nutmeg and eggs and milk. Turning these casualties into something all-American, something appetizing, something sweet.


-Me.