tales for dreamers: unexpected faces

When the carver started carving the pumpkins, he didn’t expect to find faces hidden in there. Human faces, that too. 

But as the paring knife dug into the fruit, the wielder intending to carve a jack-o-lantern or a crow or a witch, the faces began to emerge.

Some were angry. Some seemed happy. Some appeared relieved to have been found at last.

“How did you get in there?” the carver asked.

“That doesn’t matter,” an angry face replied gruffly. “The more pertinent question is how do we get out of here now?”

“How?” the carver asked.

“What kind of a fool are you?” the angry face hissed. “If we knew how to get out, would we still be in here?”

The carver didn’t like being spoken to rudely. He had half a mind of thrusting the knife in that angry face and mutilating it. 

He’d have done it too, but one of the smiling pumpkins spoke right then, “Please forgive our mate. This life of imprisonment has been especially difficult for him.”

The carver grunted, far from being assuaged. “Doesn’t give him the right to bark at a fella. That too one who’s trying to help.”

“I understand. That was not at all acceptable,” the friendly pumpkin said in a voice that was calm and sweet. “Please forgive us.”

The carver, still a good man at heart, turned his attention to the sweet-voiced fruit and asked, “So you don’t really know how to get out?”

“No,” the pumpkin let its voice fall. “The witch who put us in never revealed how to escape. Every Halloween, we keep our eyes peeled to see if we can spot her, beseech her somehow to let us out. No luck, so far.”

The face sighed, and the carver was overcome with pity for the poor being that was trapped inside.

“It’s alright,” he said, leaning over and gently patting it on its head. “We’ll figure out a way together.” 

He brushed the face, attempting to remove any debris that might mar its beauty.

Something like a tongue—or perhaps it was a hand, who could tell now?—shot out of the pumpkin’s mouth and jerked the unsuspecting carver into it.

It took less than an instant. There were no witnesses. No trace of the crime. Not even a cloud of smoke.

Later that night, the witch slipped out of the pumpkin with the smiling face. With a flick of her fingers, she coaxed her black cat out of the pumpkin with the angry face.

“Funny how these silly humans fall for the good cop, bad cop trick every single time,” the witch muttered, licking her fingers.

“Well,” the cat said lazily, twirling his tail, “they’re the ones who invite us into their world every year.”

Chuckling, they hopped on to her broom and disappeared into the night sky.

Last week's image info: The yellow face in 'the voice of the mask' appeared on a tree along a path that runs beside Nelson Community Centre and joins the Centennial Bike Path. It is still there. I don't know who put it there, but every time I see it, I usually pause for a moment to see if it will actually say something to me. It hasn't yet.