Pumpkin and Fig

Pumpkin and Fig

“We have all the time in the world!” looking at his vigorous roots, says Mr. Pumpkin to his young friend, Fig.

“Do we?” Miss. Fig doubts, for she knows how quickly figs can get dried in this arid land.

“Yes! Look at my big big green leaves! We are still in July but I am already in bud!” says Pumpkin thoughtfully.

“But what if a drought suddenly occurs to us, such as…the rain stops coming?” Fig knows that she can never boast about herself.

“Well…that is a tough question, Miss! I guess…we would probably…grow downward!” Pumpkin finally says, after racking his brains.

 “How?” Fig cannot imagine how she would be able to yield any fruits under the earth...

“We have to grow toward the source of water, no matter where it is!” Pumpkin explains, “I would yield pumpkins like the potatoes, and you...would be like...an upside-down cauliflower.” Mr. Pumpkin is amazed at his own imagination. 

“Ahh...?” Fig starts to adapt herself to such a peculiar idea. 

“Yes! Your truck, branches, and leaves would all go down into the earth, just like your roots!” Pumpkin’s tone sounds majestic.

“So...I’ll be shooting down into the earth like a bullet, only shooting up into the sunlight during the day?” Fig became fascinated with such an adventurous idea!

“Don’t worry about the sunlight! Humans will take care of it if they treasure you. I bet they would dig tons of tunnels underground like the moles!” Pumpkin laughs as he adds the details. 

“Would they? Just for us?”

“Oh, believe me! Nothing really troubles humans when it comes to food! Well, apart from sex and money! They may build an underground palace just for their desired fruits!”

“We are planted for them to eat, aren’t we?” Fig loves to see how people are eager to pick her fruits.

 “Of course! I enjoy seeing them carving and cooking my pumpkins, too! But I also learned from my matrix last year that humans can cook their favorite meals all day!” Pumpkin shakes his head, just like a big brother who has witnessed all those peculiar things!

“Wow, sounds like they love us so much!” says Fig, and a gentle breeze comes and caresses her happy face, which makes her dance her branches and leaves in the breeze. 

“Oh, Miss, you are still too young to learn all the facts about humans.” Pumpkin shakes his green leaves at her. “Humans live in such a way as if their mouths and stomachs are their gods!”

“That is a great pity for them! Mom used to tell me that humans are rich in their minds and souls; God makes them stewards of the earth!” Fig says as if she knows what she is saying, “But what is soul, mate?” She can’t hide but asks. 

“Who knows? I have never found it in any part of my body. Perhaps later in my pumpkins!” Mr. Pumpkin hesitates, “But from the perspective of a pumpkin, these poor humans are wasting their wealth! They eat, drink, and die, taking nothing away with them once they breathe their last. After they are buried, no one remembers them!” Pumpkin tries his best to make himself sound like a philosopher.

“Oh, they make themselves sound nothing better than us!” Fig sighs and continues with what she can apprehend: “What if we all grow downward and live under the earth? Would the earth look flat, like nothing has ever grown above it?”

“Wow! The earth would look absolutely flat, but this is what the humans have always wished!” Pumpkin remembers that he overheard two men complaining about the world not being flat the other day --

“Why are we farmers always placed at the base at the tower?” One said.

“Because we are the foundation of the human society!” The other farmer made his friend laugh.

“No. Because we never try to seize the opportunity to flatten it.” The first one said, “Experts say that the world is flat, as globalization gives equal opportunities to all the competitors in the world...”

“Experts also mentioned global warming can flood the entire earth one day!” the other one now sounded like an expert on television.

“Haha, the earth would truly be flattened then! How come I did not know that?” His friend laughed and chatted on...

“To have the earth flat means that the poor want to be equal with the rich?” Fig is still learning about humans, trying to figure out their minds and souls, which sound so mysterious to her.

“Humans are funny! They create an unequal world only for a few elites, so most of them spend most of their time seeking - an upward pathway in their social standing, an upward ladder to their career, or an upward life for power and money, but when their time is up, all of them would only be buried under the earth; everything falls apart, and nothing is buried with them!” Pumpkin looks up into the sky as he continuously felt the unexpectedly hot waves from the scorching sun. 

“Oh, such a waste of a lifetime!” Fig says, “But I guess they might just be part of the earth then.” This makes Mr. Pumpkin lift up his head and squint at her, wondering, “Where on earth does this silly girl learn about that?”

Noticing a posse of ants crawling up on her trunk, Fig suddenly asks, “Would the ants become the biggest crawling animal above the earth? I mean, if everybody else moves underground...Because they need the least amount of water!” Fig wriggles herself, trying to shake off these annoying little guys.

“Haha, probably!” Pumpkin laughs aloud while a little boy passes them with his mom --

“We have all the time in the world!” the boy pouts his little mouth at his mom.

“No, Josh! Use your time wisely, or you will lose to it.” Mom turns to him and responds, “Finish your homework first!”

“But...just two hours!” the boy insists, “I love playing with Tom! He is such a good buddy. He never laughs about the thick lens of my glasses!”

“Two hours? Are you crazy, Josh?” Mom tries her best to grip her last piece of patience, “Ask daddy when he gets home.” 

“M---o---m! Two hours is not long! You put me at school much longer than that!” Josh pestered his mom with his sound argument. 

“Since when did we agree that ‘two hours’ is not a long time?” Mom asks her son rhetorically.

“…” The boy cannot find his answer, but he is not going to give up, “Both Tom and I think two hours is short!” 

As they walk by, their argument fades away in the air…All that Pumpkin and Fig can see is the little boy intermittently turning to his mom and jumping up toward her while she is walking straight ahead.

“Time spent with loved ones always feels short,” Pumpkin sighs as he reminisces about his happy childhood with his family. “They were growing, talking, and laughing around me. But the farmer picked out me, my brothers, and my sisters last year. Now, their seeds are planted 100 yards away! Man, now every day feels like forever!”

“If I were Josh, I would say to the rest of the world, ‘Let us put off everything else, Mom! It is so rare to meet such a good buddy!’” says Fig, as she notices Pumpkin’s melancholy.

“Exactly!” Pumpkin smiled, “Friends and family are precious! I heard everybody in my family shouting the same thing to the farmer when he harvested us, ‘No hurry, we have all the time in the world!’ But still, they took away all of us and spread our seeds afterward!”

“I guess humans would never be willing to waste fruits and vegetables. I yielded several cycles of figs last year; whenever there were ripe ones, they would quickly spot and pick them. ‘Don’t let the birds eat up all the fruit!’ This is what they always said.” Fig still feels proud of her fruits because she always considers it honorable for herself to be the human’s favorite.

“Remember Adam and Eve? They fell because of a fruit. Concupiscence, human’s forever enemy!” Pumpkin rushes to his conclusion, for he knows that Fig can learn about the phrase “pumpkin head” from humans at any time. 

“What makes such a natural animal desire the human’s enemy? Are they not made of flesh?” Fig becomes perplexed.

“Of course they are!” Pumpkin answers quickly, “But they are not meant to be of the flesh!” He moved his body slightly to hide from the sunshine, “Humans were given souls when they were created. They can feel like us, or even better, like the animals, but they can also think, reason, love, hope, plan, and invent. All these are done with the intelligence and wisdom God gives them as free gifts!”

“Oh, hard to imagine! Their heads look smaller than yours, Mr. Pumpkin; their mouth can only swallow one fig at a time!” Paying full respect to Mr. Pumpkin’s head, young Fig becomes stunned by human minds and souls.

“Wickedness and evil are also drawn from the same souls and hearts when they are grabbed by the devil and robbed for carnal desires!” Pumpkin continues with his lecture.

“Do they have to live differently from those animals such as the rats, the bunnies, and the ants?” Fig starts to, although slowly, sense how the soul makes humans different.

“Of course! Because the soul is made in the image of God, their creator, who expects them to live a life glorifying God rather than satisfying their flesh!” Pumpkin answers, with a sullen face, “And if they fail, they would have to go to hell, a forever torture!”

“My goodness, that is cruel!” Fig is dismayed, “Where is this...hell?”

“Somewhere deep, deep down the abbeys, nowhere can you find with your roots, Miss!” says Pumpkin solemnly, “And Satan, also named the devil, is the one who will go down to hell to torture them!” 

“Where is he now?” Fig is so scared that she shrinks quite a few of her roots quietly.

“Up in the middle of the air above. As he remains there, he is always in his full power to destroy the sublime purpose in human life. But God keeps humans in a constant fight with the devil to win the battle against their carnal desires and keep their souls uplifted toward Him!”

“Have they ever succeeded?” Fig is getting excited.

“Yes, but only a few, when God’s grace is abundant. Humans need to pray, not just eat and fill their stomachs!” Pumpkin now sounds like a fully qualified professor.

“Poor man! I wish they could win the battle!” says Fig, “But, but...if they don’t, this makes us the owner of their time!” says Fig, with her eyes glittering in the sunlight, “If they are so willing to spend themselves in planting, growing, harvesting, preparing, cooking and eating us, they devote their time to us!”

“Ahh...That’s so true!” Smiles Pumpkin, who now realizes perhaps it is not a bad thing for him to remain as the ‘pumpkin head’ to the rest of the world, “They just cannot help but love us, don’t they?”

“Am I right? Until they return to God,” shouts Fig, “we have all the time in the world!”