Inanimate Objects
After driving for hours, the truck appears to have come to a stop. I am packed tightly into a huge cardboard box in the back. It is pitch black and deadly quiet in here, with no fresh air to speak of. Or I may be holding my breath.
The door rolls up slowly and my heart pounds a little less violently as some light and air reach me. But the box is suddenly jerked out of the back, dropped on the ground and dragged across a gravel lot before being tossed on a table. I am shaken to my core, achy and not sure what to expect next.
Hands reach into the box and start lifting out other pumpkins, one after another. Eventually, they get to me. We are displayed on cascading bales of hay. At the stand across from us, there are piles of carrots, a kaleidoscope of peppers and mounds of greens that also seem to be freshly ripped from the earth.
When the sun rises, there is a steady increase in foot traffic. People stop and scrutinize us. They put their hands all over me, turning me this way and that, saying I’m too big or too small, too fat or too thin, rejecting me time and again. But then, a man picks me up, pays the sullen farmer’s daughter and puts me in a wagon with a little blonde-haired boy, who wraps his legs companionably around me and rests his hands on my head.
We smoothly roll along the sidewalk, the boy and I, until reaching an iron gate that opens into a tiny front yard. The man lifts me and the boy out of the wagon, holding me in the crook of one arm and guiding the boy with his other hand. We ascend a staircase into a lovely old house, navigating a narrow hallway before I am deposited, with a thud, on the kitchen table.
But the kitchen is softly lit and warm, pleasantly so. It smells like chocolate chip cookies are baking. The radio is playing classical music at a low volume. I hear the cheerful voice of a woman and the excited squeal of a young girl coming hurriedly toward me. The woman looks at me and pats me encouragingly, proclaiming that I am a very handsome pumpkin and will do just fine. She directs the girl to get newspapers and spread them over the table then places me squarely in the middle.
Pains shoots through me as the woman pierces the crown of my head with a knife, surgically cutting out the brain stem and the circle of skin surrounding it. As the girl squeals some more and the boy looks on, perplexed, the mother scoops out my brains, dumping them in a heap on the newspapers. I feel like a shadow, disconnected from myself.
The woman goes to work on my face. She carves two large, expressive holes for eyes, making me look like I’ve been taken by surprise, which I have been. A quick slash and I have a mouth. She stands back and appraises me then retrieves a plastic candle that she inserts inside my empty shell. She asks her husband for a screwdriver and, when he hands it to her, punches a hole in the small of my back with it then threads the electrical cord of the candle through the hole. Her knuckles bruise my insides as she maneuvers the candle to where she wants it.
The mother places me in front of the window on a cold, marble table. (The children long ago lost interest). At first, I am happy when the candle is plugged in, warming me. But the warmth starts putting me to sleep. Or maybe it is my brain having been disconnected. Or my soul leaving. I wonder what is next for me.
