When Did Pumpkins Learn to Talk 10-17-21
- Because I used a pumpkin to summon ghost. It was a Ouija gourd.
When Did pumpkins Learn To Talk
It was an evening late in October, we had our spooky fall decor out and planning to set things up and carve the pumpkin line the next afternoon. I was just settling down to watch a classic Halloween show, Halloween Town, when I hear the whispering.
Thinking it was the kids not sleeping, I got up to investigate. The murmuring stopped. I searched the whole house and could find nothing out of the ordinary, the kids and husband were sleeping, we don’t have pets, so that just left ghosts or that pile of pumpkins waiting for faces. It was October so I don’t rule out ghosts, but where that thought that the pumpkins might be to blame came from, I have no idea. I laughed it off and snuggled back into my comfy easy chair.
I must have been more tired that I thought, because I heard the strangest conversation.
Voice One: “Did you hear them say they were planing to carve us?”
Voice Two: “What do you mean by carve? I heard it but I don’t understand.”
Voice One: “Well, I’m not exactly sure what carve means, but it doesn’t sound fun.”
Voice Three: “The smallest one said they were going to use a knife. Do you know what a knife is?”
Voice Two: “Did you hear one say that scooping the guts out was the best, but kinda slimy?”
Voice Four: “I heard all those things but I kinda want one of those faces they were discussing. I’d like to have eyes and a mouth. I think talking would be easier with a mouth.”
Voice Three: “Oh, yes, a face does sound fun! But how do you think we get a face? Will it hurt? I wasn’t fond of being plucked from the vine, it was uncomfortable.”
Voice One: “I think that’s where the carving comes in.”
Voice Two: “And we are back to what is Carve?”
The voices quieted and I shook my head, I must have drifted off, this couldn’t have been real. I shut off the TV and headed past a line of very quiet pumpkins and to bed. My dreams were occupied with talking pumpkins and strange Halloween scenes. The next morning I tried to make sense of the last evening and used my family as a sounding board. As I explained what had transpired, my children and husband looked at me as if I had lost my mind. They glanced to the pumpkin line-up in unison. I looked over at the pumpkins and it did seem rather silly that they could talk and that they had carried on a conversation. I laughed and self-consciously, “I’m sure it was the product of an over tired imagination.”
When everyone was gone and I was once again the only one in the house the quiet whispering began anew.
Voice Four: “What? She heard us?”
Voice One: “We don’t even have mouths yet? How did she hear and understand us?”
Voice Three: “Do you think we are normal?”
Voice Two: “We must be normal, We all have this ability to talk, hear and understand. She must not be normal.”
Voice One: “We need to conduct an experiment.”
Voice Three: “An experiment? What is that exactly?
Voice Two: “You know do something to see how others react to it?’
Voice Four: “Are you sure that is what that means?’
I laid the dictionary out open to the pages containing the word experiment. Two can play this game! I left the room. Standing just out of sight, listening.
Voice Three: “Can you guys read that?”
Voice One: “Experiment - noun. A scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test a hypothesis or demonstrate a known fact.”
Voice Two: “verb. Perform a scientific procedure, especially in a laboratory to determine something.”
Voice Four: “ Hey, think we have just been part of an experiment!”
A small smile crept across my face. For my next trial I would switch the pages and leave a visual clue. Grabbing a knife and walking back to the room, I set it down to pick up the dictionary. Now do I open to knife or carve? As I flip through the pages I hear:
Voice Two: “What is that thing?”
Voice One: “Where did that book of words go? We need hands to change the pages.”
Voice Three: “Does anyone think its strange we can see without eyes?”
I place the book before the pumpkins on knife.
Voice Four: “Knife - noun. An instrument composed of a blade fixed into a handle, used for cutting or as a weapon.
I’m not sure when the pumpkins in your house learned to talk but for me it was that October night so many years ago.
October 17, 2021
Myrna Flynn
When did Pumpkins Learn to Talk
John and Arnie were sitting in their spot on the bench in front of the barber shop. They did this every day of the week, except Sunday. Monday was the day they played catch up.
John, as usual, was praising his pumpkins. How big they were and all the different colors and anything else that was special about them.
"Hey Arnie! You will never guess what happened in my pumpkin patch yesterday. I walked out to admire them and they were talking with each other," said John."It was really exciting. They all knew that soon Halloween and Thanksgiving would be here. They realized that their days were numbered. Some wanted to be made into Jack O Lanterns, some desired to become a pumpkin pie with lots of whipped cream on top and others to be pumpkin pudding with ice cream."
Arnie looked at John and said, "Man, you have really flipped out. Pumpkins can not talk."
"Yes, they can. Come with me and listen," John responded.
Arnie decided he needed to humor John. They got up from the bench and went to the patch. Sure enough, the pumpkins were jabbering away.
Arnie turned to John and asked, "When did they start talking?"
"I do not know for sure. Maybe they have been communicating for ever and I was never able to hear them before. But then again, maybe it is just these particular ones that can talk. These seeds were advertised as being found in a cave near the cliff dwellings in the southwest and had been there for over 800 years. Placed there by the Anazai and blessed by the medicine man."
Arnie said, "Do you really believe that bunk? How could seeds that old germinate? I think that was a very imaginative salesman whoo dreamed it up to sell the seeds."
"You can think what you want, but I believe the story," retorted John, "I have never had talking pumpkins before."
Arnie replied with, "If that is the case, why are the pumpkins talking in English? Wouldn't they be speaking some obscure tribal mumbo jumbo? Do you have any of the seeds left? If so, let's take them to the botany lab at the university and see if there is any way that the age of them can be determined."
John did have some left. They went to the lab and asked Dr. Lehi Jones if this was possible. Dr. Jones took a look at the seeds and could see that there was something odd about them. He ran some tests and came to the conclusion that the seeds were definitely very old.
John turned to Arnie, "See, I told you so. My feeling is that the blessing of the seeds by the spiritual leader preserved them. My answer to your question now is, that when they were planted and matured, they were able to talk again. Pumpkins first talked at least 8 centuries ago."
Story Slinger Prompt
WHEN DID PUMPKINS LEARN TO TALK
10/13/21
Daren Flynn
We are told that way back long before anyone can remember, the Ancestors of us Humans were living down below the earth in darkness. They were not humans at all, but were like insects and life was not good, so they were not happy. as they were complaining to each other and wishing there was something they could do to improve their lives, they were visited by a messenger with good news. This messenger, sometimes called Spider Woman, was sent by the great spirit, who we know as the Sun. The insect people were told to follow Spider Woman, which they did. She led them up from their underworld through a hole in the earth called the Sipapu. As the insect people emerged from the underworld into the light of the Sun, they became Humans. They were then told that life would now be good for them but it would take effort on their part. They must learn all they could about their new world and provide for themselves as best they could. There was a place waiting for them, a place where they would find peace and would live in harmony, but they must find that place on their own.
So they began to travel, wandering from place to place in search of their place of harmony. Each place they stopped seemed to be the right place for a time, but eventually the harmony they found proved to be temporary, so they traveled on. Finally, after many, many years of wandering, the Humans stopped at this place, this high green tableland with it's many cave-like places beneath the rim where they could build their villages. Those south facing caves provided heat from the sun and protection from any possible intruders, so they built their places of residence and refuge over the course of many years. At the same time learned the best methods of providing sustenance by growing crops on the mesa above.
We live in those cliffs dwellings today and we still grow our crops on the mesa using the same methods they learned and developed which have been passed down to us. Once the people settled here, at this place of harmony, they began to learn by observing the Sun, the Moon and the Stars. There were those among them who became known as Sun Watchers or Sun Speakers. They were able, by their observations, to record patterns in the seasons that were consistent and they built structures that would focus the Sun's rays on a certain point every year and thereby show them when to plant and when to harvest. They also learned ways to capture much needed water in this land of minimal rainfall to irrigate their crops of corn and squash. They built small dams across the little ravines and gullies to catch and hold the rain so it could be directed to the crops. They developed terracing on the slopes and on the flats they employed waffling as a means of retaining water.
Our main crops, as were theirs, are corn and squash. We plant the two together and tend our crops as taught by our forebears their methods have worked for generations and they continue to provide us with food to sustain us with food to sustain us in our way of life.
Each of us, when we reach a certain age, is given responsibility for a patch of ground on the mesa to grow corn and squash. I am known as Illak and my plot is a short walk from the village in which I live with my parents and my siblings. It is some distance from water source, so I must carry water from a small pool behind a dam across one of the larger washes on the mesa which holds water most of the growing time.
I planted corn and squash together as I always have but something was different this time. The corn has grown tall and the ears are forming as they should have, but my squash is not normal. Their shape is not the same as other squash and the color is not the same either. At the time of trading, when we traveled to the gathering place at Chaco Canyon, I traded some pretty stones I had for some unusual squash seeds. He from whom I got the seeds is called Puum and is a distant relative or kin of mine, so I call those seeds Pumm Kin seeds. This day when I was digging around my Puum Kin squash, I brushed one of them with my digging stick. I heard a sound like, "jaaaakkk," and that, my friends, is when pumpkins learned to talk.
By: Ryanne Leavitt
In her short life Ella had seen some strange things. That happens when you live inside the Bermuda Triangle. When she went out to her grandma's garden and interrupted the pumpkins deep in philosophical debate on whether being turned into pie or a jock-o-lantern was their intended destiny, well then, Ella thought, she had seen it all. She slowly approached the patch, trying not to be noticed and end the somewhat heated debate, They all stopped talking, as though they heard Ella's footsteps on the grass. Stunned by the silence and feeling a bit awkward, she squawked, "When did Pumpkins learn to talk?'
In unison, the whole patch turned to her and shouted, "We didn't! You are sleeping you dolt!"
Ella bolted upright in bed, covered in a cold sweat. Her grandmother, who had been tending her since she fell ill weeks ago, looked up, with concern in her eyes. She took Ella by the hand patting it gently and asked, "Did the pumpkin soup not agree with you dear?"
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