The Pumpkin Carver Did It

October 31, 2022 / animar64 / Leave a comment

Hamish was three months old for his first Halloween and at three months he tried to run off with his first pumpkin. It outweighed him by 10 pounds, but that didn’t deter him. By the time I realized what was going on his pumpkin looked like an over used pin cushion and his little puppy teeth were coated with pumpkin skin.

Since then for the last eight years Hamish always gets to his pumpkin and I have become an expert in pumpkin repair and preservation.

This year as per his custom Hamish got a fang into his pumpkin and I patched it and it sat on a shelf for two weeks waiting to be carved.

Yesterday got home from work, I turned the radio on, I got my knives and sharpie pens out, I went and took the pumpkin off the shelf on my porch and I dropped it.

On my first day at work in the Funeral Home I was having trouble with the gurney and the Funeral Director who was training me told me if I let a body hit the floor the head was going to splat- I thought about that when Hamish’s pumpkin hit the deck.

I also toyed with the idea of not carving a pumkin and I thought that if anyone asked- and they would- I could just say Hamish killed it and it was too late to get another one.

But in the end, there was no way I was going to blame Hamish for bashing the back of his pumpkin’s head in. I’ve done some low things in my life but blame my dog for an attempted murder that I committed ? I couldn’t do that to him.

Hamish Macbeth October 31, 2022

So I opened the pumkin up, cleaned it out carved it and reinforced the face with poultry skewers and dental floss.

Then I put it in the freezer over night and took it out before the Trick orTreaters showed up.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure if the freezer was going to do much but it did firm the mushy parts up. But I only did that out of habit. And in case you’re curious that X on the front of the pumpkin’s face isn’t a nose, I put little pieces of hard plastic in there to hold the front of the fcae in place becauuse the sides weren’t stable.

Not a pretty sight:

My screaming pumpkin

Hamish knows what I did and he was not amused.

Hamish Macbeth
Halloween 2022

Every Halloween

October 26, 2022October 26, 2022 / animar64 / 2 Comments

Inspired By ” The Writer’s 10 Halloween Writing Prompt- Tunnel Vision

We all have little rituals.

Some of us buy fancy expensive underwear and chocolates to hand out for Valentines Day. Some of us eat Waffles on Sunday. Some of us get tattoos every time we pop out another child.

My ritual is a special one and I look forward to performing it every Halloween.

On Halloween I kill you, sometimes I do it more then once because, darn it-it feels good.

I guess this is the part where I mention that you turn up in various stages of decay in the stories I write- sometimes you are already dead and the part you get is that of a rotting corpse. Other times you get done in by a Devil or a psychopath.

Once I baked you in a pie.

It was yummy, I mean the story was yummy. It was funny too. And well written, if that counts for anything.

For the curious, you worked your way into this special ritual because when I told you my nephew had died from a terminal illness- that you knew about because I told you about it when we learned seven years before that at the age of 14 he would probably be dead by the time he was in his early 20’s,

you sent me this message

That was all you said about my nephew’s death. I wouldn’t have wished his death on anyone, not even you. But to be honest sometimes I do. Yeah. Honestly. Sometimes I do.

So let me take away the mystery, let me erase any doubts, let me make myself perfectly clear. In August when I start setting up my blog for Halloween and the body count racks up around here, I just want you to know, so that there is no question about it that in that pile of ink stained corpses is you.

For the record, I toss in a few more people into that pile- people who betrayed my trust, were mean to my dogs, you know who you are ( wink wink ). But you my dear and special friend I kill you every Halloween, sometimes more then once because-

unlike you my Soul might be dark but it is not empty.