Desmond: A Halloween Story

By Devil Bear
Photos by Daddy

This is Desmond. He looks scary, but he's really not. Before he became Desmond he was a pumpkin, and he sat around our house for a couple days while we decided on his face. He definitely needed a face. How else could we talk to him?


Finally on Halloween, we decided he should look like Darkness from the movie Legend. It seemed like the thing to do considering it was Halloween and all. Mommy says Halloween is an old holiday that honors the last harvest. Daylight becomes shorter, and darkness becomes longer.

So we got on the internet and found a picture of Darkness! The picture was really small, so Mommy made it bigger and then printed it out, only now it was all fuzzy. But she said that didn't matter because she could still see the dark and light places enough to draw on the picture.

She told us not to look while she cleaned out the pumpkins insides. I had to look, and it wasn't so bad. She saved the seeds and put them in the refrigerator. Then she drew her template on the pumpkin and cut out his face. And when she was lighting the candle he said, "Hello, I'm Desmond. Desmond Darkness."

We loved looking at Desmond! We would turn out all the lights just so we could see him glowing in the dark. Darkness in the darkness! And he was so proud. We tried putting him in the window to share with the world, but from outside he was too high and too far away to see. So we just kept him inside for ourselves, and he was fine with that. He wasn't stuck up, despite his good looks.

After a few days Desmond started to change. First he started getting all fuzzy inside. I asked him what was happening and he said he was getting ready to go back. "Back where?" I asked, "to the pumpkin patch?" "Back to the earth," he said. The next day he was even fuzzier, and started frowning and getting soft. He even had a funny smell, but I didn't tell so I wouldn't hurt his feelings. But he knew. "Please take me back!" he begged.

And so, on the Saturday after Halloween, on a day that just so happened to be a full moon, we took Desmond to the park, dug a hole and buried him. Mommy said a few words, and Daddy was sad. But I wasn't. I knew Desmond was happy to be in the ground again.

A few days later, Mommy took a few of Desmond's seeds and planted them in a little pot with some dirt. "We'll just see what happens," she said.