On September 30th, 2020, the pumpkins and gourds of Cottonwood Farms’ pumpkin patch held a meeting to discuss their concerns for this fall season, and hired Earth Muffins reporter Boe Jiden to act as secretary to their assembly. This is what Boe recorded. 

Pumpking: Hear ye, hear ye, O pumpkins! I now proclaim this assembly to order! I come to ye grandiose gourds to prepare each and every stem of you for what is to come this dreary season. As our sister trees shed their leaves, and our brother grass wilts grey, we too, will change. Not by the beautiful hands of nature, no, but by the ruthless malice of these so called humans! Hark, those who grow us from the ground will be those who reap us from our roots, and take us to their patches, made from the stolen bodies of our sister trees. I was not chosen last season, but I watched my kind be turned into something-

Pumpkin Spice: -something gay! 

The patch shares a laugh.

Pumpking: Cut it out, Spice! Be respectful! You and all the others won’t be so jovial after I tell what is to come. 

Peter Pumpkin: Haha! Cum!

The patch laughs again.

Pumpking: Very funny! Cum! Lo! Let’s all laugh! Come on, let it out! Laugh again I say, make light of my words, I dare ye! Let me ask you something, Peter, will you laugh when these humans take a knife to your orange shell? When they rip out your insides? When you feel their hands deep inside you? No, no. I’m afraid it will be they legged creatures laughing, toying with your seeds like a panther with its prey, unable to hear your pathetic cries for mercy.

The patch is silent.

Pumpkin Spice: All right, old gourd! We get it, they cut us up. So what? I’ve been watching Fox News and they say once Joe Biden is elected we’ll be dead by taxes anyway. Who cares!

Pumpking: That’s a brave smile of yours, young Spice. Speaking of smiles, once they’re done with your innards, they’ll come for your shell! Hark! They will take their blade and carve out eyes like theirs, but more deviously, they’ll cut out a smile you can never shake! You will be made to their liking, with the eternal bane of a grin etched deeper than your soul!

Pre-Jack O’ Lantern: An eternal smile? Kind of like the joker? 

Pumpkin Spice: Dude, that movie is awesome. 

Peter Pumpkin: Nah, that movie sucks. It’s just about white male rage, white male rage!

Pre-Jack O’ Lantern: Shut up, Libtard! 

Professor Pumpkin: Actually, it’s about the system failing the common worker, and thus driving him to forever break free from the shackles of society in the only way his untreated mind knew how. Pumpkins of the word unite!

Pumpking: Silence! We can talk about the socioeconomic implications of The Joker later, but first, ye ole patch of mine, let’s agree that Joaquin Phoenix deserved that oscar! 

Peter Pumpkin: Wait! What about the lack of people of color represented for best actor?

The patch murmurs, divided.

Pumpking: Excellent point, Peter! The 2019 Oscars were a travesty! Ye ole patch of mine, uh, what were we discussing?

Penelope Pumpkin: Humans playing with our insides. Pumpking, will it hurt?

Pumpking: Hurt? Why, of course! But nothing compared to… 

Professor Pumpkin: My god! We’re doomed! Doomed!

The ground beneath the plants shakes with their anguished cries.

Penelope Pumpkin: Compared to what! What could be worse than that?

Pumpking: I… I dare not say. Ignorance is bliss.

Pumpkin Spice: Ignorance is gay!

Peter Pumpkin: What the hell is your problem? Shake off your prejudices, man. Love is love! 

Professor Pumpkin: Fellas, is it gay to get your pumpkin guts rearannged? 

Pre- Jack O’ Lantern: Well, when you say it like that…  

Penelope Pumpkin: Stop! Stop it, all of you! This patch is a mess! Just… shut the pump up! Pumpking has something to tell us!

Pumpkin Spice: Nah. He’s lying. He wants us scared to win our loyalty and ignore the fact that he didn’t get picked last season. He knows he’s ugly, inside and out. Pumpking, you’re full of shit!

A silence descends over the patch, tension ready to snap like a weak stem.

Pumpking: You say I’m a coward, fine, so be it. You say I’m full of shit, but I still have my seeds! You might not be so lucky. My stem has been heavy with dread to tell you what I will say now, ever since you were but a young vine. My pumpkins, my beautiful orange ovals, when you see those wearing the buffalo, with their beanies rolled up, one, two, three rolls, be afraid! Be very afraid, for the knife is a merciful tool compared with the glass these young ones wield. For when they take you, and take you they will, they will cut two holes in you, one for a bowl and the other a stem, and dear god! They will turn you into a bong! 

Pre-Jack O’ Lantern: What… what did you just say?

Pumpking: You heard me! A bong you will be! They will burn our dear friend marijuanna alive right on your skin! And you will feel its pain as its soul’s smoke fills you from within! Then these Boulder children will suck it out of you, and their eyes will turn red with rage, and they will do it again! Then again! They will bicker over who gets the next rip while you burn, again and again!

Peter Pumpkin: Oh my god! A bong! They’re going to use us to get high? We’re fucked! 

Pumpkin Spice: No, no, no, no! You can’t be serious! That’s not what we’re meant to be!

Penelope Pumpkin: We were truly grown to suffer! Just… just kill me now!

Professor Pumpkin: If only I could commit herbicide! 

Pre-Jack O’ Lantern: These kids burn too hard! Don’t they have their tools already? Why us? WHY!?!?!?

Pumpking: I’m sorry. It’s for their… their Snapchat stories!

Penelope Pumpkin: All for the snap? Fuck! Fuck fuckfuck! I see them now! Them with the rolled beanies! Holy shit, their hoodie strings are tied! NOOOOOOOO!

The assembly ends in chaos, as the pumpkins realize their blazing fate.