Hey, if the market can induce Christmas before Thanksgiving than I can prolong Halloween....
When we transform a pumpkin into a jacolantern, we gut out its heart and leave nothing but a hollow inside strewn with orange veins – remnants of the self it used to be. We poke out its eyes, leaving two hollow holes – windows to a soul that is not there. And we gut out its nose - but it is better that way because now he cannot smell the stench of rotting pumpkin juice – the stench of his own inevitable death. And he cannot see his own wrinkly face caving in upon itself, his own wrinkles birthing more wrinkles that cannot bear the weight of heavy pumpkin flesh that has been punctured with cookie-cutter pumpkin eyes that do not shift to show insecurity or slant to show animosity or soften at the sight of love. He is strong and brave and emotionless and unsentimental. He bears all. He has a face- we have given him a face. But what is a pretty pumpkin face without a pretty pumpkin soul? We take his pumpkin seeds – the sperm of his existence and chew them up and spit them out. We feast on little would-be pumpkin embryos. We abort the possibilities for other young pumpkins, yet we also ensure that there will be a few less soulless jacolanterns. But who is to say that they are fated to be soulless jacolanterns? Who is to say that they will not grow to be blue-ribbon winning pumpkins on display at the county fair, pumpkins whose skin is so tough that it cannot be punctured into faces on which feeling cannot be read? We are ensuring that the world will never know the capacities of pumpkins that never got the chance to be gutted. No wonder they are always scowling.
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