Pumpkins Creative Writing

I ran, my feet bloodied and aching, my ankle unsteady and shrieking in pain. I ignored it, gasping

Me, Ava, Korryn, Ali, Olyvia, Bailey, and Sophie were on the way to valley fair. The loud and crowded car ride was filled with music, laughter and Sophie screaming! We got some drinks and snacks along the way and played pranks on the people that our nanny Bailey went to highschool with. About 2 hours later we were there and waiting in line to get wristbands. When we finally got our wristbands we walked in the gates of Valley Fair.

Turning off the TV, Andrew grabbed his keys and rushed to the garage, angry for not being more cautious. Driving down the street as fast as he could to get to the cleaners, he said, “I wonder if Margaret has her phone. I will call it,” he said, pushing the buttons, he waited, and said, “Oh, no; it went directly to voice mail. She must have turned it off, but why would she do that?”

One year ago on the fourth of July at my family's farm, ¨wha whoo ¨we said in excitement as we jumped in piles of hay.We would mess up a pile, then put it back together we would run, run ,run ,then jump as high as we can we would make team and whatever team won they would get a special hat to wear and we would fight about who won and who get the hat also. They would fight about cheating , I would tell them not to fight because it's the Fourth of July after that would laugh so hard and they would laugh at them self too . they would be so confused at me and look at me sideways.. My brother and all the younger kids would play in the grass with toys than one of the

I remember it was a chilly October night, everyone running around in their costumes, and I myself, in a pink princess dress. My mom had spent all night doing my hair in perfect curls and I just couldn't wait to get my plastic clear heels on from Walmart that almost every 8-year old had. I knew that this Halloween would be the BEST.. Little did I know, it would, in fact, be

I never knew the Smokies were so close to my grandparent’s retirement village. Every summer all the cousins jammed into Grandpa’s Ford for our jaunt up the mountains. But back then the hills had no name. They were recognized only by the pop of our ears and the pink silk trees bowing down to the highway. Since those days I have grown partial to any patch of grass with “National Park” tacked to its title. Today the mimosas still tossed their petals to traffic, and the truck remembered its ever-present perfume of damp golden retriever. But today we were going to The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. “Cade’s Cove, next left,” the road sign read, and two bikes bumped along on the car hitch.

Thirteen years ago at our old house on Heritage Blvd on the fourth of July my mother got sick, so instead of our usual Fourth of July tradition of popping fireworks at our grandmothers house, we were stuck at home. The plan was to wait until our mother felt better to go pop fireworks, so like good children, my brothers and I nodded our heads and went off to play, and that lasted for about maybe twenty minutes before we got bored. My brothers Colten and Tyler had the bright idea to steal the fireworks and walk around the neighborhood, and I being about six at the time thought this was the best idea in the world. I looked up to my brothers, and they were older and smarter than me so I did not see the harm in going for a walk around the block and popping off some firecrackers. We did not think anyone would care, and we were completely wrong.

When I was a kid, about 5 to 8 years old, my hands would always get cold whenever the surrounding air is chilly. My dad would always tell me to rub them together, like you would in order to make fire. And so I did it. I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed. My fingers grind against each other from the tips of my little fingers to the base of my palm, but none of this worked. My hands still are cold, stone cold. Then my dad said after watching me rub for a whole 3

The story “Pumpkins” was first published in the journal “Western Humanities Review”. This journal accepts online submissions only, and charge a small submission fee. Flash fictions must be at 1,000 words or less, but authors can submit multiple submissions, as

It was January 2015 I was seven and all my Halloween candy was gone! I had spent 20 minutes thinking how to get more candy. That's when I saw how much candy my sister had she had eight full size candy bars eight. I had to get some so I asked,

The leaves were brown and the weather was cold, but not unbearably cold. The morning had just started and the sun was barely out. I was eight years old at the time and it was Thanksgiving Day, and on top of the various assortment of food, my family and I had relatives coming to our house to partake in this Thanksgiving feast. My mother had gotten numerous amounts of groceries from the store throughout the week, including potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, mix for stuffing, a humongous ham, and to top it if we had the staple for every Thanksgiving, a turkey. I could already smell the scent of a honey baked ham in the oven as I got out of bed and started my day in the bathroom.

My mom said we were going to the game, but the way she looked at me just did not feel right. I did not think we were going watch his boss's daughter play softball. We got into the van and left the parking lot to our hotel. We were not even driving for ten minutes before we stopped again, and it was not at a softball field. They lied. It was another parking lot, but we had to pay to park in this one. After we paid for parking, we turned a curve, and a big, blue, black, and white sign caught all of our attention. The kids screamed , Timothy and I screamed, we all screamed. We pulled into Sea World. None of us had ever been to Sea World, and we could not wait. The parking lot was so packed you could barely find a spot, but we got lucky and found one open spot. We raced each other out of the van, and even got into trouble because, "That is not how you behaved in public!" Those were mom's favorite words to say to us, but we were truly excited

Francine Prose's short fictional piece, "Pumpkins," was about a therapist who was having an epiphany, with how this sudden incident that has happened in town, affects him so greatly. The short piece also played with the significance of the pumpkin in an interesting way. One thing that I noticed in my first read of Prose’s short piece was that it has a very serious and heavy tone. For example, just within the first two lines, “There was a terrible accident. A truck full of Halloween pumpkins is speeding…”. As well as the beginning sentence of paragraph two. The second thing that I had noticed in Prose’s piece was that the story was being told through the therapist perspective. Although it took me several reads to catch this, each time I read

The next day when my parents went for shopping and came back at home with three bags full

It was Halloween and, being the super mature teenager that I was, I went trick-or-treating. Going house to house and getting practically thrown at with candy just seemed entirely worth it. Considering I was 5,3, I wasn 't surprised that I could pull off being a 12-year-old for one night without calling attention to myself.