Before I begin, I'd like to reveal to you a bit of background that will help you understand this story. You see I always identified with Linus in the Halloween special. All Linus ever wanted was to get a great big pumpkin for Halloween. All I want is someone to tell me I'm a good boy. All the other kids laughed at Linus. They called him a "silly billy" and a "shithead". Every year I plotted my revenge for poor Linus. Why couldn't those kids do like the other kids in the 60s, and play in old refrigerators? That was how my dad died*.
I was never the most popular kid. When I fell down a well, Lassie went to get lunch. As a baby, I was passed around as an emetic. Sometimes baby birds die when I walk past a nest.
One day in late October, I was being chased by a group of townspeople (as usual). They were shouting "freak!" and "scallywag!" and one of them threw a pitchfork and it missed me and hit an old man in the heart and he died.
Then I turned round a corner and saw that they were making jack o'lanterns out of pumpkins. There, in the middle of it all, was the greatest, biggest pumpkin I had ever seen, more like a pumpKING. I asked the boy who was scooping out the insides of the pumpkin, "quickly! Let me climb inside the pumpkin! I shall give you gold". Then I dove into the pumpkin and I hid inside while the mob passed me by.
Up inside that warm soft pumpkin I crawled and nestled, until I fell asleep. I curled up in the pumpkin, warm and safe from the outside world, with its deadlines and wild animals and piers morgan. I fell into a deep, deep sleep, sleep, sleep, for hours after hours after hours.
I went to sleep bathed in an orangey glow, but I awoke in total darkness. The pumpkin was still, and a faint breeze blew in from the eyeholes and mouth. Outside it was night. Suddenly the pumpkin's sides started contracting, and I was pushed slowly, head first, into the world.
I flopped onto the front steps of a stranger's house. The pumpkin that had birthed me sat there wheezing like a squeezebox. As I looked up I was carried away by two pumpkin doctors in white coats and stethoscopes. They took me to an incubator, where I was tubed. Looking around, I saw dozens of other people incubated too. Then I saw the pumpkin doctors come and carry one away - a great big dinner lady from my primary school. The pumpkins took her out to a spot behind the building and planted her. THIS WAS WHERE PUMPKINS CAME FROM!!!!!
"Oh no", I said, looking all around me to escape. What would Linus do, I wondered? No, snap out of it; Linus is a child. I'm a great big manchild. When the pumpkins came, I would make my move. I would pick them up and punt them. I was so happy with my plan. Then trick or treaters came running down the road, dancing and prancing with their costumes. One of them was Charlie Brown.
With a sheer effort of will, I leapt from my incubator. Summoning all my wits and guile, I screamed at the nearest pumpkin doctor, his attention buried deep in a chart. "HEY FUCKSO THEY'RE OVER THERE", I yelled, and legged it into the night. The sounds of children screaming rang in my ears and I laughed manically as I fled like a coward through the night.
*I'll tell you the story another time. It's even better than this one.
One day in late October, I was being chased by a group of townspeople (as usual). They were shouting "freak!" and "scallywag!" and one of them threw a pitchfork and it missed me and hit an old man in the heart and he died.
Then I turned round a corner and saw that they were making jack o'lanterns out of pumpkins. There, in the middle of it all, was the greatest, biggest pumpkin I had ever seen, more like a pumpKING. I asked the boy who was scooping out the insides of the pumpkin, "quickly! Let me climb inside the pumpkin! I shall give you gold". Then I dove into the pumpkin and I hid inside while the mob passed me by.
Up inside that warm soft pumpkin I crawled and nestled, until I fell asleep. I curled up in the pumpkin, warm and safe from the outside world, with its deadlines and wild animals and piers morgan. I fell into a deep, deep sleep, sleep, sleep, for hours after hours after hours.
I went to sleep bathed in an orangey glow, but I awoke in total darkness. The pumpkin was still, and a faint breeze blew in from the eyeholes and mouth. Outside it was night. Suddenly the pumpkin's sides started contracting, and I was pushed slowly, head first, into the world.
I flopped onto the front steps of a stranger's house. The pumpkin that had birthed me sat there wheezing like a squeezebox. As I looked up I was carried away by two pumpkin doctors in white coats and stethoscopes. They took me to an incubator, where I was tubed. Looking around, I saw dozens of other people incubated too. Then I saw the pumpkin doctors come and carry one away - a great big dinner lady from my primary school. The pumpkins took her out to a spot behind the building and planted her. THIS WAS WHERE PUMPKINS CAME FROM!!!!!
"Oh no", I said, looking all around me to escape. What would Linus do, I wondered? No, snap out of it; Linus is a child. I'm a great big manchild. When the pumpkins came, I would make my move. I would pick them up and punt them. I was so happy with my plan. Then trick or treaters came running down the road, dancing and prancing with their costumes. One of them was Charlie Brown.
With a sheer effort of will, I leapt from my incubator. Summoning all my wits and guile, I screamed at the nearest pumpkin doctor, his attention buried deep in a chart. "HEY FUCKSO THEY'RE OVER THERE", I yelled, and legged it into the night. The sounds of children screaming rang in my ears and I laughed manically as I fled like a coward through the night.
*I'll tell you the story another time. It's even better than this one.
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