1969 Pumpkin Memories, A Saturday Centus

Well we have made it to week# 22 of Jenny Matlock’s Saturday Centus, that really short, short story writing exercise where 100 words are all you get to create stories based upon a supplied prompt.  This week, instead of a prompt, Jenny has supplied us a photo of a field of pumpkins from which to base our 100 word stories.  

While I like the challenge of using a photo as inspiration, I’m so used to Jenny giving a sentence or phrase to get the ball rolling that this week’s challenge seemed at once scary and hard.  (And no, I refuse to say “That’s what she said,” you fans of “The Office.”  Not going to happen.)

Follow along on Jenny’s blog, off on my tangent, and see where other writers take this week’s assignment, or if you are inclined, submit one of your own stories this week!  It’s absolutely free and it just might make you famous and turn yours into a household name like it did for Bernie Epstein and Freida Krum. 

Now, while some see a field of pumpkins and think “Oh, it’s a field of pumpkins,” I prefer to take a less obvious approach.  When I look at this photo I don’t see pumpkins, but rather what they represent to me.

Maybe you too see a field of blood-soaked decapitated heads screaming various ignorant and prejudiced right-wing rants and insane Tea Party rhetoric in the rain while the music from “Riverdance” plays in the background, and maybe not.   It’s all open to interpretation, right?

Don’t feel bad or that something is seriously wrong with you if you don’t.  I’m sure you still have many very nice qualities.

For a lot of people pumpkins represent Halloween, one of my favorite holidays of the year.  With October 31^st right around the corner, the search for the right pumpkin is on for many pumpkin carvers out there determined to outperform last year’s efforts.  So off to the pumpkin fields they go, looking for one with just the right qualities to make that perfect jack o’ lantern.

Some prefer the short round ones, others the tall skinny ones.  Some search out those pocked with ugly scars to help create that fearsome visage that inspires terror in the eyes of the young trick-or-treaters. 

But no matter what shape or how intricate their carvings are, I have a plan to create the most horrifically scary pumpkin ever.  It may even cause children, and even some adults, to become physically ill. 

This year I’m going to skip the pumpkin autopsy that so many of us divorced people seemingly take too much pleasure in.

(What?  You mean I’m the only one?) 

I’m going to take my pumpkin and add some long black hair, make-up, fake boobs and lashes along with a poofy hair bump and voila!  It’s that orange-skinned, foul-mouthed, drunken troll from the “Jersey Shore” whom we all know as Snooki! 

I only hope they don’t get sick on my pumpkin.  But if they do, the realism will truly be uncanny.

Anyway, here is the little story that I came up with for this week based upon the above photo.  I have entitled it: 

1969 Pumpkin Memories

Halloween was a magical time when I was 7 years old.  My friend Simon and I looked forward to it every year.

“Mom, Simon wants to get a white pumpkin this year.” 

“No,” she replied.

“But mom, Simon really wants one.”

“No.  Tell Simon they only have orange ones.”

“Well can you at least get one for each of us?”

“How about this, Tommy…since Simon is your invisible friend, maybe he would like his own invisible pumpkin.”

This totally made sense to me.

“Well, can it be a white pumpkin?”

“Sure, why not!”

My mom was cool like that.

Don't call us short stories, 

we're just textually-challenged.

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