A Pumpkins' Halloween Read online

  A Pumpkins’ Halloween

  Mark Kasniak

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  A PUMPKINS’ HALLOWEEN

  It was just before dusk when the old woman lit the first of five candles being careful to place it firmly in the center of the carved out pumpkin turning the round gourd into a jack-o’-lantern. The late October night’s air was crisp and with a slight breeze causing the skin on the frail woman’s forearms to rise into gooseflesh. She rubbed her arms, wishing she would’ve remembered to put on a sweater before heading outside to light the pumpkins.

  From where the old woman stood on the porch, weak gales pushed dry brittle leaves across the front yard of her old, comfortable home as by now almost all the trees throughout the neighborhood had given up their leaves, their branches barren. With their new-found nakedness, they waved their liberated skeleton to and fro in a ghoulish manner.

  The candle she had lit flickered brightly at times, weakly at others, as it struggled to sustain itself. And as the flame took deeper hold on the wick, the paraffin wax that made up the candle began melting into hot, thick drips that gave off the sweet smell of cinnamon. With the torch now securely sheltered inside the gourd, its heat quickly grew vertical only to begin burning the flesh at the very top of the pumpkin’s cap, adding an aroma of freshly baked pumpkin pie which then mixed with the cinnamon of the candle’s powerful scent.

  The old woman had just lit the second candle when her husband peered out from the doorway, then ambling out onto the front porch saying, “Why do you even bother with that nonsense? Every year with this stuff... Do you enjoy punishing yourself or something? Come back inside. We'll turn out the lights and forget all about this stupid holiday.”

  The old woman breathed a heavy sigh and went about her business of lighting each of the jack-o’-lanterns, ignoring her husband’s demur, and blocking his criticisms out of her mind.

  After the fifth and final gleaming face was aglow, the old woman then went back into her home where she gathered her sweater just as the streetlamps came to life sending their yellow iridescent light out into the darkening world.

  The casting of the dim, mellow illumination created eerie shadows on the roadway that impressionable young minds would soon come to think may surely be hiding a troll, goblin, ghosts, vampires, all kinds of frightening ghouls, and of course dreaded kidnappers. All of these monsters would definitely be lurking tonight, the one night of the year when the impossible, the unthinkable, became probable. The day the dead were supposedly believed allowed to come back and walk among the living—Halloween night.

  “Ayah,” one of the jack-o’-lantern yawned as if awakening from a deep slumber. “Yuk, is that cinnamon I taste?” he complained. “Oh, I hate cinnamon. Why do I always get stuck with cinnamon?”

  “Is that you, Murray?” asked another one of the pumpkins.

  “Yes, Ally. It’s me.”

  “Stuck with cinnamon again, are you?” she giggled. “Oh, how you always hated cinnamon.”

  “Third year in a row… I swear she does it on purpose just to irritate me,” Murray whined while doing his best to ameliorate the bad taste now stuck in his mouth by sucking in large gulps of the cold autumn air. With the influx of oxygen, his candle's flame twitched and burned even brighter, hotter, causing his head to fill even more with the pungent odor of freshly ground cinnamon sticks.

  “Well, I got sour apple this year,” Ally said while a warm glow emerged from deep within her core. It then shimmered outwardly making her carefully carved out eyes twinkle. “Oh, how I love the smell of it,” she said. “I wish it could last for the entire year,” she then added as the soft light helped to contour the corners of her smile perfectly, which only made her look even more mirthful than she already was, and she was very mirthful.

  “What are you guys talking about?” another voice called out. “You didn't start without me, did you?”

  “Henry, is that you?” asked Ally.

  “Yes, it is I,” replied Henry.

  “Hello, Henry,” Murray said with a touch of sourness in his voice.

  “Oh my, Murray, I didn't recognize you, not with all those bumps and warts covering your face like that,” Henry snickered back in a playfully sarcastic tone. “I guess, she picked the perfect one out for you this year. It fits your personality like a glove, cranky and wretched.”

  “Yes, well… we can't all be smiling little princesses like Ally here. Believing that the world is full of cookie making elves and unicorns with rainbows shooting out their bums.”

  “Henry, did you overhear that Murray got stuck with cinnamon yet again?” Ally said, giggling at the notion for a second time.

  “Why yes, I did,” Henry quipped. “Third year in a row, isn't it, Murray? That's wonderfully fantastic! You having always hated cinnamon, and getting stuck with it again… well, couldn’t have happened to a bigger jerk.”

  “You know, Henry,” Murray responded with derision now in his voice. “You should consider yourself lucky I don't have arms, or I would berate you like I used to. Do you remember, Henry, how I would beat you senseless just for the fun of it?”

  “Yes, well, all in the past now, isn't it?”

  Ally asked, “Henry, what kind of candle was you given this year?”

  “Oh, I do believe it is banana or some other type of tropical plantain.”

  “Oh, how wonderful,” Ally said, beaming cheerfully. “I remember how we would always have a banana packed in our lunches each day. They were so good. Oh, how I do miss them. You know who used to love them? April. Oh, how she used to beg us all for ours. I swear, she would've sold her soul to you if you had a banana to give her.”

  “Yes, well, April has been always a rather rambunctious child,” stated Henry, “always taking everything to the extremes.” He then asked, “Speaking of April, is she here yet?”

  In Henry’s current position, he was unable to see April as he sat placed on just slightly enough of an angle to make it difficult for him to even get a glimpse of who might be in line right next to him.

  “Yes, Henry, I'm here,” April answered for herself.

  “Oh, April,” Ally rejoiced upon hearing she was there with them, and her flame, then flickered giving off a wavering light which made her look as if her eyes were darting back and forth. “Have you been with us long? We were just talking about you.”

  “I've been here, but for only a few minutes,” April responded. “I hadn't realized my candle was lit until just now, but I have been here long enough to hear that Murray got stuck with cinnamon again. Couldn’t have happened to a bigger prick.”

  “That's what I said!” Henry proclaimed enthusiastically.

  “All right, all right, already,” Murray huffed. “If you two don’t knock it off and stop calling me a male phallic, I'm going to blow out both of your candles and be done with the two of you for another year.”

  “Okay, okay, calm down Murray,” April put forth.

  Ally asked, “April, was Tilly with you?”

  “Yiim ear,” Tilly then responded in her small elfin-like voice, her speech having been slurred on account of the old woman having carved her face upside down.

  “Oh, Tilly!” Ally cried. “Are you all right?” She then tried desperately to control her laughter. “You sound positively drunk. Are you going to talk that way all night?”

  “Aye opope n-not. B-But th-years n-not mutch Ay-an-doo.”

  “Well, you sound positively silly,” April quipped while also cracking a giggle. “But then again, you were always the silly one, weren’t you? I suppose tha
t’s why she carved you out that way.”

  “mmyeehbe,” Tilly responded.

  Ally asked, “What type of candle did you get this year, Tilly?”

  “Ay tink wawamelun,” Tilly stammered.

  “All right, all right now!” shouted Murray grumpily. “Ally, that's enough with the candles. You’re obsessed with the candles.”

  “Oh, shut it, Murray!” Ally snapped back. “You just got your panties in a bunch because you got cinnamon again.”

  “Ah-ha,” Tilly giggled. “Ats tree ears inn ah r-oh.”

  “Ats tree ears inn ah roh,” Murray repeated mocking Tilly. “At least, I don't sound like I've got a mouthful of marbles. Are we going to have to listen to her talk like this all night? I won’t be able to bear it.”

  “Ay’mm oohing ma bess,” Tilly answered.

  “WHAT?” Murray demanded.

  “She says, she’s doing her best, Murray,” April said coming to Tilly’s aid. “Now leave her alone.”

  The old woman suddenly came back out on the porch with a large bowl filled with candy: miniature Snickers bars, M&M's, Butterfingers, Twizzlers, and Mounds could be seen all mixed throughout. She then set the bowl on the porch railing where the jack-o’-lanterns sat holding their silence until she went back inside the house.

  “Mounds bars… Yuk!” Murray grumbled. “They still make those?”

  “I rather like them,” Ally said.

  “Ay ikem tuu,” Tilly agreed.

  “I thought I told you to be quiet, Tilly,” Murray chided.

  “Oh, knock it off, Murray,” April then rebuked him, as she tried sticking up for Tilly again. “You don't need to act so mean to her. You were always so mean to her.”

  Henry added, “Why don't we just start the stories?”

  “How can we get on with the stories, you twit?” berated Murray. “They’re not even any trick-or-treaters yet.”

  “You don't have to always show how nasty you are, Murray,” Ally said, clearly having also become irritated by Murray's boorishness.

  “You don't always—,” Murray began.

  “Shut up, shut up, they're coming back,” April said, interrupting Murray after she saw that the old man and the old woman was exiting the house and coming out on the porch. As they neared, the old man could still clearly be heard continuing on with his tirade about the old woman's insistence on celebrating the holiday.

  “Why do you even bother with all this?” the old man griped in a frustrated voice. “Everything you put up, you’re going to have to take back down and put away again. All that work for nothing. And, all these kids will be coming here onto our property. You know one of them will surely trip and fall over their own two feet, and then we’ll be facing a lawsuit. You know I'm right. That's all these people do nowadays, sue each other over everything, even when it’s their own brats fault for not being able to walk properly.”

  “Oh, will you knock it off already?” the old woman said, shaking her head at the old man. “That's all you ever do anymore is piss and moan. It’s only one day a year and I like to see the children all dressed up in their costumes. They’re so cute, the little ones.”

  Ally laughed a little when she heard the old woman giving it to the old man. She then uttered, “Go get'em, that old grump,” in a whisper low enough so that the old couple wouldn’t be able to hear her.

  “Shut up, you moron,” Murray mumbled under his breath. “You’re going to get us caught, and then will have to leave.”

  The jack-o’-lanterns quieted. They turned their attention to the end of the yard, not far from the street where the old man struggled to get his old legs up a step stool. He had the stool placed haphazardly atop an immense tree root that shot out of a mammoth maple. Once standing precariously atop the highest step while holding onto one of the tree’s branches with a frail hand, the old woman handed him a cartoonish looking bat that hung from a string.

  The bat had bright green googly eyes and a playfully wide smile. When the old man turned it on by flicking a switch hidden on its bottom, the bat began shaking vigorously, giving off a little dance as it dangled from its thread. As the bat cavorted, it could be heard emanating a spooky “wooooo,” meant to scare little children into the spirit of the holiday.

  “Oh, look,” proclaimed the old woman. “I think I see a few of the children coming down the street already. It looks like they’re already starting.”

  “I don't want them on my property,” the old man groaned as he got down from the stool somewhat wobbly. “I just know one of them is going to hurt themselves on that crack in the driveway, and they'll walk right through the flower beds to get to the next house instead of walking around the yard and using the sidewalk like they're supposed to do.”

  “Oh, all right then, you old fart!” the old woman snipped at the old man dismissively. “Now, you go and get a couple of chairs from the garage and we'll sit at the end of the driveway then. We can pass out the candy from there.”

  “We'll pass out the candy?” objected the old man. “Why do I have to stay out here, passing out candy? It’s cold out.”

  The old woman just gave her husband a dour look. With it, the old man then acceded to her wishes, letting out a labored shrug before heading off to the garage to retrieve the lawn chairs she had asked for. He as well then decided upon procuring a blanket large enough for the two of them.

  Soon, it wasn't long until the first of the children made their way down the street, slowly edging up to the old couple’s house. The sounds of their young voices shouting trick-or-treat quickly beginning to fill the cool autumn air.

  The old woman and the old man settled in close to one another, snuggling under the blanket near the edge of the driveway as planned, the old woman with the bowl of candy in her lap.

  “It’s getting pretty dark, and it seems that there is a fair amount of trick-or-treaters out now, so why don't we begin?” suggested Murray. “Whose turn is it to go first anyway?”

  “Ay ink is myine,” Tilly answered.

  “No! No!” shouted Murray at the very thought of Tilly telling a tale. “I won't be able to take listening to you butcher a story the way you sound—No Way!”

  “Ura yierk,” Tilly countered.

  “Yes, well… too bad,” Murray rebuffed.

  “Why don't you go first this year, Henry?” asked April. “I've always liked your stories, they’re so interesting.”

  “Alright,” Henry accepted. Then his candle suddenly began burning brightly as if he had willed it to do so. It soon wafted a pungent scent of banana into the air that lingered. “Who will pick for me?”

  “I shall pick for you,” Murray replied answering for everyone. “Now let’s see…,” he then said as he gazed out into the yards and street at the different groups of trick-or-treaters going by. “Army guy, no… Cowboy, no… Bloody doctor, no… Vampire, no…”

  “Do the vampire!” April called out enthusiastically. “I would love to hear a story about a vampire.”

  “No… no…,” Murray dismissed. “It’s my pick, so I get to choose.”

  “Well, pick one already,” Ally said impatiently.

  “Yeaah!” Tilly concurred.

  “Okay, okay, already,” Murray said snickering. “Ahh… here we are, a princess, perfect for you, Henry.”

  “Ha, you don't think I can do a story about a princess, do ya?” Henry countered. “Well, be prepared to look foolish, Murray. Even more, than you already do.”

  Henry wasted no time going into his story.

  Her name is Erin, and her story doesn’t begin tonight. Her story actually began a week ago while she was sitting on her bed. It was her birthday, and she had just turned seven. She was busy going through the contents of an old shoe box, and she was crying. In her hand, she held a photograph of her and her mother. They were in their backyard next to a rose garden, and her mother had her arms around her, holding her tightly. Erin remembered every moment of that day. How the sunlight warmed her skin, the sweet smell of
honeysuckle in the air, the rhythmical buzzing of a humming bird’s wings that had flown into the yard only fleetingly right before her father had taken the picture. That day was two years ago now, and seventeen months before ovarian cancer had taken her mother.

  Erin wiped her eyes with the palms of her hands and then blotted them dry on her bed sheets. She then reached into the box, pulling out a dried up withered rose, careful to hold it delicately so none of its pedals broke off the stem. The rose had come from the rose garden in the backyard, picked personally by Erin herself to be placed on her mother’s casket at the funeral. Erin situated the flower on the bed next to the picture and then continued to pull more items from the box. There was a locket Erin’s mother had given her. And, Erin recalled at the time when her mother bequeathed it to her, she said that she was right around the same age Erin was then when her mother had given it to her. There was also a ticket stub from the time they went to the circus and the both of them had gotten their faces painted to make them look like a couple of clowns. And, at the bottom of the box was a ribbon Erin’s mother used to wear in her hair. It still smelled somewhat like her.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” Erin’s father said as he stood in the doorway, peering into the room. “What's the matter, why are you crying?” he asked in a soft voice, but then noticed the box and Erin’s picture of her with her mother that lay inside. He sat down next to her on the bed. “You really miss her, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Erin said, wiping her runny nose with the back of her hand. “It's not fair.”

  “I know, I know,” her father told her as he held her. “Hey, what do you say we go to the store and pick out your Halloween costume? You’ve always loved Halloween; it might make you feel better to get out of the house for a while.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Erin agreed as she finished wiping the tears away from her face, her spirits sounding as if they were picking up already.

  “Alright, sweetheart… but first, I need you to do something for daddy.”

  Erin's father then got up off the bed and began to unbuckle his belt.