A Pumpkin's Choice

Oddly shaped, with my bottom half in the dirt, I was grown on a vine in an orchard. Since my growth, I have dreamt of my purpose during Halloween. I was there when the smaller, more attractive pumpkins were plucked from the orchard and driven off in a truck to the local markets. How lovely they must feel, being so wanted and turned into delicious treats for everyone to enjoy. Not all of us are so lucky. 

I grew bigger, stronger, and heavier with the season. Surely this will make me a more suitable choice, once the others arrive to pick. I watch as dozens, maybe hundreds of people walk through the pasture. After what feels like an eternity, I am noticed. 

“Do you think this one has a lot of seeds?” the woman says, clutching her purse and stumbling toward me in heels too pointy for the landscape.

A man follows with a cane in hand and knocks on my side. 

“The skin is too thick, and it doesn’t sound hollow enough. I reckon this pumpkin won’t have many seeds at all. Besides, it is much too big. I doubt I could lift it,” he says as he rolls me onto my face, my backside now facing the sun. 

“What about this one?” The woman inquires, knocking on the skin of my sibling just a few feet over. 

“Sounds plenty hollow to me, and such a bright color means it's healthy,” the man confirms with a nod. 

My sibling was lifted away to a destiny of enjoyment and celebration. My bottom, ugly, dirty side now facing the audience, I lose some hope of being picked.

As time goes on, I hear the same words echo to me. Too big, too heavy, too thick, too ugly. All the while, the farmer strolls through the field nightly. Carefully selecting those of us who have given up hope and begun to rot, taking us to our final resting place. The forest or the pasture where we will be eaten by animals. Never appreciated, never acknowledged, and never used. But I resist; Hallows' Eve is growing closer, and I refuse to lose hope. 

It is now the day before Hallows' Eve, and I would weep if I had eyes. I have yet to be chosen, and I have all but given up hope of having my time in the spotlight. As three pm arrives, two hours before the orchard closes, I see a single family with a wheelbarrow. Two parents and a little girl, no older than four. I know they will not pick me, so I do not pay them any attention.

Then, suddenly, the little girl squeals with delight. 

“Daddy, daddy! Look at its strange bumps!” She says as she runs her little sausage fingers over my skin.

“Yes, it's a very strange-looking pumpkin indeed. Are you sure this is the one you want?” The mother says.

“Yes! It’s perfect!” She says, and I feel the father's strong hands lift me into the wheelbarrow with a hefty grunt as my vine is snipped away.

When I arrive at their decorated home, I see no knives and no scrapers. I feel myself grow a bit disappointed, wondering if I will receive a face or exist as a simple porch decoration until the holiday ends. If not eaten, we all end up rotting in some way or another, but rotting in someone's backyard is not much different than rotting in the forest. But then, the little girl pulls out a marker, and I feel its felt tip drag along my face as she colors in my eyes, my nose, and my mouth. Suddenly, I am wearing a big, happy, colored face as I sit on the front porch, overwhelmed with joy.