I Saw The Great Pumpkin Out For A Stroll//October 233rd, 2025

 The most amazing thing happened to me, on a Saturday afternoon. 

The date was August 30th, just two days before Labor Day; the start of September, and, thankfully, the unofficial (but official, in my book) end of summer. 

I wound up at a local toy shop, coming away with some tiny plushies. (Two of them Christmas themed, ironically, as I am working toward finding the magic in all things once more.) As I exited the store, something caught my eye beyond the fence leading to the next residential street. 

A very tall pumpkin man seemed to be walking toward a house. My mind snapped back to when I was six years old, the very first time the Great Pumpkin came to visit me. How I'd heard him in the night, a candle rattling around in his head as he did his work, ensuring the happiest of Halloweens for the truest of believers. How special it felt to know I was one of his Chosen. 

I'd always hoped to thank him one day.

I quietly tiptoed around the fence, out into the narrow street. The pumpkin man, the possible Great Pumpkin himself, didn't seem to notice me, and soon I saw why.

The yard before him was heavily decorated, tombstones and a groundbreaker pumpkin out awaiting trick-or-treaters while the sun still beat down. Dedication, and a true, sincere passion for Halloween, had clearly brought him here. A legend come to life before my eyes. 

I realized, a moment later, that he was deep in conversation with an equally tall skeleton. Whispers in the wind brought their words back to me. 

'September is nigh', they were saying. 'And the summer has been long and wretched. The True Believers are restless, and they need us now. Let the season commence, for it will sadly be fleeting. We must revel in this dream as long as we can.'

I've never felt so understood than I did in that moment. All comments of 'too early' invalidated by the Great Pumpkin himself, and his skeleton friend. They didn't seem to notice, as I turned to walk back, but I hope they heard, and felt, my words of gratitude. 

Let the season commence, indeed.

 

Based on true events.