Fall and All Between
Fall and All Between
Of Pumpkins and Patriots
November 12, 2020
Santa-o-lantern
The Jack-o-lanterns are long past the first stages of decay and are now misshapen and grotesque. They are frightening now in a way they never could have been when the idea was to make them scary. Now they are truly upsetting as the eyes, nose, and mouth droop in surrender to the cold and the passage of time, and the entire orange carcass slopes and crumbles, obscene vestiges of happier, warmer moments just a few weeks earlier.
But Santa Claus does not throw them out. He rakes leaves and sighs at the crumbling, decomposing pumpkins, one of which still somehow harbors a living candle whose flame flickers defiantly, the wick, wax, and pumpkin flesh now all having nearly completely devolved into one defeated mass.
Halloween. Veterans Day. There are leftover chocolate bars in the house and Santa thinks of them as he drags the rake across the fallen leaves, soldiering them into a pile and ushering them to the curb. Back and forth, Santa’s mighty arms can make quick work of the leaves but he takes his time, enjoying the process of slowly seeing the green of the autumn grass reemerge from its sanctuary beneath the leaves which are red, yellow, golden, and brown.
The American flag flapped in the wind and basked in the sunshine all summer and seemed to fly a bit sharper on Veterans Day. But now, as Santa rakes and sighs and thinks of the reward of chocolate, Old Glory droops a bit, discolored with a few wet, stubborn leaves that block out some of the stars and interrupt the determined flow of the stripes.
A squirrel runs by, parading bravely through the leaves and the moist grass, followed by a rabbit. The largest rabbit Santa Claus has seen all year, he thinks. The rabbit does what the squirrel did, what so many squirrels and rabbits have been doing, which is make a quick attack on the dying pumpkins and then abscond with their reward.
But then the rabbit stops and decides to enjoy its bit of pumpkin while sitting not far from Santa, maybe seven feet or less. The animal’s dark eyes are wide as it chomps away and Santa holds his rake and says to the rabbit, “my son died in Vietnam.”
The words have no weight in the rabbit’s large, powerful ears.
“My son died in Vietnam,” Santa says again as he rakes some more leaves. “I wanted him to go. He was brave, that kid. He was audacious, handsome, and tall.”
The rabbit hops away and Santa’s eyes meet the drooping gaze of the dead pumpkins and then he fixates on the dying flame. He does this for a long time and then drops the rake and, using the handrail, slowly climbs the front steps and goes inside the house and grabs a handful of chocolate bars.
There is more work to do. --TK
Thursday, November 12, 2020