A Stranger Pumpkin

January

Midnight and morning jockeyed beneath the moon’s watchful glow as JoJo pitter-pattered through inky shadows toward the abandoned schoolyard—where a wind-shredded butcher paper sign reading, “We Miss You,” smacked against rusted fencing: a siren call from contagion, or slow applause for our approach—meanings blended within hollowed, desolate spaces.

JoJo nosed around a grand cottonwood’s trunk as I attempted to stave off sleep’s departure from beneath heavy eyelids—longing for still warm sheets blocks away as steam-pulsing pipes running along the school’s facade conjured an equally welcoming image of boiling coffee.

Fully spent, JoJo pulled back toward the empty streets slicked with frost as we ambled back to our lit porch—her ears pricking into the wind, toward a nebulous form galloping down the asphalt. But before I could stoop to gather JoJo, much less to reach for my pen knife, the coyote barreled past—stopping momentarily at the school’s gate to cast its yellow eyes upon us in quiet consideration before slipping between the posts, melting into darkness.

I turned the deadbolt and tucked my shoes away, and angled toward the bedroom. Pillows curved around my temples, pressing long-uncut curls into my ears.

And then, as sleep lapped against my lids, a haunting coyote yowl echoed along the empty avenue—rousing a canine chorus from neighboring houses, to which JoJo lent her voice.

Coffee it is.

***

February

The small hand washer bucked back and forth as its soaked contents slopped around. Back bent and neck tensed, I attached a tube to the washer’s underside, letting the soapy water trickle down the bathtub drain.

Outside, the sun shone brightly, but the air blew cold, chilling my ears.

Neighbors’ laundry clung to the rusty cables stretching between corroded, T-shaped anchors. And as I added mine, I felt us all slip in time—reminded of the subtle luxuries we’d enjoyed, each of which the pandemic continued to bring into startlingly sharp relief.

An hour later, with my tees frozen rigid, I chided myself that I still had a lot to learn.

***

March

There would be no more parties, not that I attended many anyway.

Like most, I’d cajoled my mind into supposing that each day was guaranteed by virtue of waking into it—that the nightmares or fanciful dreams into which I’d descended the previous night would not be my last, that my breath would not escape in one final gust, leaving my husk to bloat beneath the sheets.

And yet, knowing that I’ll never be gifted with the foresight to know the quiescing time of my demise, I’ve continued, like so many, to grind out my life, like a cigarette blunted and snuffed, at the altar of capitalism: overly consumed with getting ahead, of managing every step as though it were part of a carefully orchestrated ballet. 

Each day, as the toll rose—families fragmented, communities decimated—it became all the more obvious the odiousness of the system to which we’d sacrificed: grasping how much we’d inflicted upon our bodies—aching bones and ground teeth and shooting pains about the wrists and dull, persistent knots down the back.

Still, amid it all, there was a demand for more.

***

April

The walls behind my headboard seemed to breathe, through plaster and desiccated rat carcasses: the cloistered air musty.

Or maybe it was my neighbor’s failing body struggling for air, reaching down into what was left of their lungs for the next gulp—pulling from the darkness any semblance of a future, arcing toward morning as the police sirens faded. Or perhaps they were talking in their sleep to a nonexistent lover.

Protracted solitude had a haunting effect.

***

May–August

It was a gift of memory, one of warmth.

He’d delighted in watching me lean into the shower’s steaming spray, the water spiraling though my curls, beading along my shoulders—muscles relaxing and toes extending along the basin, reveling in experience.

Rarely did I fully grasp the enormity of those moments—of sharing intimate space, the joy of the mundane—until after romance ebbed.

But perhaps that’s how it’s supposed to be, so that there’s something to smile about years later, as you bid another lover goodbye and welcome, again, your own faithful reflection.

***

September

They wore a smoky cat-eye that pulled attention from their mask. Creased at the corners, their eyes disclosed a smile, and I reciprocated. 

“Well, anyway, I have leftovers a friend brought me from her family.” They’d framed the remark as an embarrassing admission of imminent solitude—of being, like many, with themselves for the evening.

And I found myself stifling a chuckle—not at them, but at the predilection so many have fostered: that spending time with your quieted self-conversations was a ruse—a manifestation of deflected adoration; in those moments, I’ve come to recognize that I’ve kept far worse company.

Because who I am and who I’m creating, nurturing, and empowering are not so dissonant that they cannot be reconciled within the seasoned sinews of my heart.

***

October

I plucked the pumpkin’s rotting hull out from between neighbors’ garbage bags: a sunken smile collapsing in on itself and taking with it two asymmetrical eyes—right into my compost bin.

I mused that it might be the afterbirth of a fairytale from which a carriage might spring along unfurled tendrils.

Or perhaps it wouldn’t change into anything; perhaps it’d transformed already—as midnight’s toll struck long ago.