A Childish Massacre, Pumpkin Flavored

The knife in my hands is the shiniest object I've ever held in my life. Moonlight reflects from it, making it look as if the knife itself were a source of light. Every movement I make with it is graceful and calculated, slow but compelling. A smile emerges from my mouth, all of my teeth exposed, I can almost feel the cold of the dark breezy night swallow me whole. 

“Kane, come on, it's time to carve the pumpkin with your brother!” I hear my mom yell at me from another room, she probably doesn’t know I'm already sitting on the porch with the pumpkins. I'm slightly disappointed, my knife is worthy of something greater than a squidgy smelly orange fruit, it's like giving a giant bar of delicious melty chocolate to a dog. They won't be able to taste it, it will just kill it straight away, where’s the fun in that? My head shakes trying to push the thought away, sometimes I fear someone can read my thoughts, would I go to jail? 

“What are you doing with that knife? Give it to me. I leave you unsupervised for one second-” My mom tries to yank it out of my hands, but I grip it harder.

“Miranda calm down, how else will he learn if you protect him from everything”. I feel the presence of my dad, he’s always been on my side.

“He is twelve years old Greggory, what if he hurts himself, do me a favour and take that knife away from him.” She is so annoying. I never get to do anything because of her, I feel a wave of rage but quickly settle down, if I get angry I will definitely never see this knife again. 

“Don’t worry buddy, I’ll teach you how to carve a pumpkin alright? But your mother is right, you have to be very careful or you can cut yourself.” I smile again and feel his hand on my shoulder, it's heavy and firm, his other hand reaches out towards one of the two pumpkins laying out front. 

“This one is yours, the other is for Ash.” He points at the smaller pumpkin, I don’t mind though, I don’t want my knife touching it. My mom comes back out and sits on a chair next to me, my brother follows her but decides to stand. I miss the old Ash, he used to talk to me and play with me, now that he is older all he does is lock himself in his room and go out with his friends. I thought I was his friend too.

“What are you looking at me for, freak?” My brother rolls his eyes and scoffs, I quickly turn my head away, I hadn't realised I was staring at him.

“Be nice to your brother Ash, you can go out after we do this alright? I just thought it would be a nice activity for us as a family.” My mom can be so naive sometimes. I can feel my brother’s stare in the back of my head, penetrating right through. It makes me angry. 

“Alright kids, so the first thing you need to do is clean the inside, you can use your hands.” My dad is painfully excited. Mom and Ash start cleaning a pumpkin between the two of them, they laugh together, but I don’t know why. Dad and I grab the other pumpkin. He tells me I need to put the knife down so I can use my hands, but I can’t. My palm is warm against the wooden handle, it fits just right around it. My thumb presses harder against the dull side of the knife, I can feel it denting my skin, but it's comforting.

“Come on Kane, how are you going to clean the pumpkin if you don’t let go?” He starts getting frustrated, he reaches out for it but I quickly lay it down on the opposite side of him. I don’t want him taking my knife.

I watch my dad scoop out orange strings from inside the pumpkin, I hate the smell, it’s going into my nose and filling my entire body inside. It would be funny if I turned into a pumpkin. I keep watching him and I feel my eyes rest on the orange guts. They are intertwined and some of them swing when they touch each other, others stick. It reminded me of a video I saw in biology class about the human body and intestines. It was freaky and made me want to touch them and wear them as a necklace. I decide to put one of my hands in, my dad laughs.

“It's alright, I know the texture is weird but you’ll get used to it. You can stop making that face now”. I could barely hear him from how concentrated I was. The strings were cold against my fingers, and the more of them I grabbed the better I felt. I put them in a bowl and went in for more. It was incredible, they stuck to my hands and got in my fingernails. The orange colour was vibrant and it stood out against the dark night, it was almost like my knife. Maybe I was wrong, maybe the pumpkin is worthy after all. Suddenly I realise that the pumpkin is empty and there are no more orange guts. I quickly go to see if my brother’s pumpkin has more of them but it’s empty as well, so I sit back down.

“I know it's gross but it's over now”. My mom laughs again. I didn’t think it was gross at all, in fact I loved playing with the guts, I wish they were still entangled in my hands. 

“Now we can design the faces with a marker, it can be any face you want.” I watch her sit back down and pick up a marker, I still can't decide what I want to draw. I look over at Ash and stick my tongue out with my eyes fixed in the middle in hopes to make him laugh. He turns around and ignores me, focusing his attention on the pumpkin. I feel my heart race and my legs getting restless, why is he like this all the time? I'm just trying to make him laugh like I used to before.

“Here Ash” My dad interrupts my thoughts and hands me a red marker. “You can do whatever face you want, maybe something like this.” He grabs his ears and sticks his tongue out, I grin and almost let out a chuckle. See Ash? It's not hard. 

I look at the pumpkin and how hard it is on the outside, very similar to a human head, but not as round. This pumpkin is dented on one side, like a man I saw in a video once, he had gotten hit with a brick in the head and ended up with a dent on a the side of his head, but I couldn't watch the end, my mom had come in to tell me how disgusting that is and how I shouldn't be watching videos like that, especially not at my age. She said I could only use the computer under her supervision from now on. I finally decided on what face the pumpkin should have, the same face the man made in that video. I liked it, it was funny, especially the way his eyes were able to roll into the back of his head, I’ve never been able to do that. I start drawing the face on the pumpkin but it looks weird, the eyes don’t look the way I want them too, and I don’t know how to draw a mouth open showing teeth and everything. Why isn’t it working? I throw the marker across the porch and cross my arms as tight as I can. I feel like a flame has gone wild inside me.

“Jesus Christ, Kane! Why did you throw that? You could've hurt me or Ash.” There she goes again. I want her to leave me alone. I see my dad come closer to me and shoot a quick look at my mom, I’ve seen it before. It’s his way of telling her to calm down and treat me better, I think. 

“What’s wrong Kane? Do you need me to help you? Calm down bud, come here and show me what went wrong.” He’s better, he understands me. I point down at the attempted face I drew on the pumpkin and shrug my shoulders.

“Can we use our words, bud?” I shrug again. His face looks slightly disappointed for half a second but he quickly smiles and goes to pick up the marker where mom is.

“Greggory, you can’t keep letting him do that. It's been three years since he stopped talking, you have to be more strict. I can’t be the only one pushing him, he’s going to end up hating me.” I pretend that I’m not listening by playing with the pumpkin guts in the bowl, they think they’re whispering but when mom is angry she talks loudly and moves her eyebrows around a lot.

“Miranda he’s just a kid, you can’t treat him like an adult. If he doesn’t want to talk then we have to respect that. What do you want me to do, force him?” He walks back to hand me the marker and pat me on the shoulder as if nothing had happened. I decide to try again, but this time I draw with a lot less details. I look next to me to see Ash and my mom already carving their pumpkin. I look back at mine and draw on some final details. Two ovals for the eyes with half circles on top to simulate eyes rolling back, the nose is a simple triangle, a bit lopsided, but it's the best I can do. Finally the mouth, I make sure to carve the outline with a tongue on the back and a couple of front teeth showing. It's beautiful, almost as full of emotion as the man with the dented head in the video. I put down the marker and enthusiastically grab the knife that was laying beside me.

“Do you like it?” My mom asks while walking towards us with her and Ash’s pumpkin. She looks proud of it, maybe if I carve my pumpkin perfectly she’ll be proud of me. I know she wants me to answer, maybe say how much I love her pumpkin, how much I love her, maybe she wants me to tell her how much I appreciate her and everything she does for me.

“Looks good, I like the smile you made. Good work Ash.” My dad answers. My mom’s face drops a little, I think she was hoping I’d talk. Ash stands behind my mom and looks directly at my dad.

“I did better than last year, right?” He asks dad, I wonder what he and mom were laughing about before. I remember last year I wasn’t allowed to carve, only draw the face. It made me angry. I see mom say something to Ash.

“Thanks mom, I’ll be back before eleven. I'm just going to get ready”. Ash runs inside and I hear the sound of his footsteps fade as he goes to his room. My mom sits again in a laid back position and closes her eyes, the breeze sways in her direction, she is relaxed and enjoying the chill in the air. I like it too.

“Kane I need you to be very careful carving, there’s absolutely no rush. Grip the handle as tightly as you can and get your other hand out of the way.” He smiles reassuringly and takes a step behind me to watch.

“Time to carve.”

I look at the knife in my hands, it's warm again. It's the only thing I feel in my whole body, the heat and energy that my palm transmits to the wooden handle, my fingers tighten around the rivets and I lift the knife high. I look back at my dad, directly into his eyes, he’s waiting patiently, and I struck down. Once, twice, then again. Each time with more confidence. Not once do my fingers slide, every move I make is done with precision. It's like the knife is simply an extension of my body, not a lifeless object. I feel the splatter on my forearm and fingers, and suddenly realise what I’m doing and stop. I had struck my pumpkin with so much force that all it is now is a pile of mush and orange rind. My dad is no longer behind me, he has taken some distance. My mom doesn’t look relaxed anymore, she is standing up looking sternly at my dad, she too has taken some distance. It’s the loudest silence I have ever heard, no one dares to move.

“Put the knife down please.” My dad is talking in a way that almost sounds like yelling, but he contains it. I’ve never heard him talk to me like this. I strengthen my grip around the knife even more.

“I said, put the knife down.” I’m angry. The chill in the air is gone, I just feel heat and bitterness. My breath is fast again, but my heart is beating even faster. I want my mom to be proud of me, and instead she is looking at me with disgust. My dad has his arms crossed in front of his chest and won’t look away from me. 

“Alright I’m going out now.” Ash appears behind dad in a new change of clothes, mostly yellow. I don’t like yellow. He looks at mom, then at dad, and finally at the pile of pumpkin. He doesn’t look at me.

“The freak did that?” For the first time in years he looks at me. For the first time, he acknowledges me, he can see me. Maybe I have to do something like this again so he acknowledges me again. I walk closer to him, but dad is in the way. I tilt my head to the side so dad can move, but he stays there. Doesn’t he understand I need to get to Ash? I begin to get desperate, mom is no help either, she keeps telling me to put the knife down, but won’t come near me. I tilt my head again, but dad stays in the same position. There’s no time, Ash will be going soon, what if he forgets about me? 

I raise my hand and rush it down, hot dark blood splatters everywhere. I raise it again, it’s like smashing a pumpkin but better. For a second I forget about Ash and slash the knife down again and again. My mom is screaming in the background, Ash is shouting and trying to push me away. It’s working, he is making contact with me. I stop for a split second and my dad collapses on the floor, but I don’t have time to watch, I know that if I go for mom, Ash will care even more. I turn around quickly and run her way, Ash is trying to grab me but he is shaking too much. I raise my hand and struck down again, maybe it's unfair to mom, she has nowhere to run, but that makes it even more fun. Her body is harder than the rind of the pumpkin, it's more of a challenge. I wipe blood from my eyes and keep bashing the knife into her until she falls. Ash is on the ground too, his head supported by his hands and knees. I see him rocking from side to side murmuring words that I can’t quite understand. I look back at mom and dad, it's funny, she fell in a way that her arm is extended towards my dad, their fingers are touching. That's the first time I see them holding hands. I like the silence, no bickering, and  no talking about how they should fix me. I see the blood slide down my arms, there’s so much of it. I kneel down next to mom and notice what looks like a thick tube sticking out of her, is this what I had learned about in biology class?

I pull it with a lot of strength, it's slippery and slimy and requires a lot of strength to pull, until finally it all comes out. I drop the knife and grab onto the tube, it doesn't stick like the pumpkin guts, but it looks better. I raise the intestine towards the light and place it around my neck, like a pretty necklace. I know Ash likes necklaces, he wears black ones with metal charms. I quickly head towards dad and do the same thing with him, his is a bit thicker, but it slides out easier than mom’s, I think mom’s helped me get the hang of this. I wipe off the blood, or at least as much as I can and walk towards Ash. He is in the same position, rocking like a baby shaking his head over and over again. I smile and kneel down wrapping the tube around his neck. Guts suit him. I look down at his yellow shirt and see how the blood stains it almost orange, like the pumpkin. His face looks like the one the man had in the video. He looks up suddenly, I stumble back. 

“What have you done?” His voice breaks. And for the first time in years I’m able to speak again.

“Happy Halloween Ash!”