Besides all the hard labor of working on the farm, the two held their second pumpkin patch event this year, where visitors from anywhere could come and adopt as many pumpkins as they wanted. "Today is the day, isn't it, sweetie?" Geneva smiled as she walked out of the kitchen area into the sunroom area to water her indoor plants.
She held the water kettle so carefully and aimed it at one of her thirsty plants. Her husband came up from behind her, he wiped the sweat off his forehead from the very early morning chores. He was so occupied with feeding the outdoor animals and moving around farm equipment on his own that the first thing he didn't get to see was Geneva's happy face.
"I hope we make more than our predicted sales; many folks can't resist a pumpkin patch event during the fall season."
"I remember our first one last year, about ten people had shown up."
"If only there were much better transportation going from and to the city, many people would want to visit the farm more frequently," Franklin sighed in disappointment. He remembered that moving from the city to farm life came with both positives and negatives. Moving far out into rural areas came with fewer visitors than the constant walkabout of neighbors and citizens everywhere in a town or city. He didn't hate the farm life, as he was committed to taking the farm business after his father had retired and passed away. But it meant fewer people would take their time to make long driving visits to where he lives, as most are busy themselves.
After taking the responsibility, he and his wife got married and took on the challenge of raising two kids. While balancing the hard labor of growing crops and looking after animals every day.
He got back to work after a short morning break, now opening the outer gates of the farmland. Franklin was determined to make higher sales than last year, but his main issue was featuring a batch of pumpkins that looked imperfect. He had an inner suspicion that visitors wouldn't want to buy a batch of deformed or infected pumpkins. He stuck to providing high-quality goods and being a perfectionist. His wife, Geneva, never became stressed or took her gardening too seriously. She just tried her best and never gave up on growing the healthiest flower or crop. They were in this together, as a team sharing their knowledge with each other.
Geneva made her way to the pumpkin patch field to start setting up for the visitors. She stopped watering her indoor plants to take a look at her progress out back. The cold and crisp air touched her face from the outside. Her favorite thing about fall was that she could smell the clearer and cleaner air than in the summertime. The Heat and humidity were unbearably uncomfortable to her. She walked over to a small group of pumpkins that looked healthy enough for the event, she kneeled to get a closer look at the surface quality and shape of the pumpkins.
Her attention instantly went to two individual pumpkins that were set out in front of the other larger-sized pumpkins. An orange and green one. Both of them had weird, rounded stubs near the bottom of their base area. Her eyes narrowed as she stared, and she felt skeptical now. She never thought that she would grow two imperfect-looking pumpkins in this stage of her gardening career.
It was strange, but she decided to remove the two from the group and put them on the side. Her first thought came quickly, and it wasn't to throw them away or carve them up, but to investigate them first.
"Huh? That's weird, I swear these two looked perfect the other day,"
She scooped up both into her arms and funnily gave them a name like she was gonna keep them now.
"I kinda want to give them a name, hmm ... how about ... Oak and Gaia," She chuckled.
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A group of visitors from outside continued walking down a long dirt road. It was the main road that connected to the outskirts of the farmland, where many would either walk or drive. There were two families and a few strangers who decided to visit their local Farm. Franklin opened up the gate, eyed the group walking in, and introduced them to the pumpkin patch event.
"Alright, folks! Take your time finding the right squash! Welcome to Prismatic Woody Farms, The Pumpkin Patch is now open for us!" He announced with happiness.
"Mommy! Mommy! Can we get a purple pumpkin?" A girl jumped up and down with excitement.
"After we look for your dad's favorite pumpkin color," Ashe smiled back at her daughter, Chelsea.
"It's nice to see you again, Franklin! How's your family?" Bill instantly chatted up to the farmer, who continued to hold the front entrance gate open.
"I hope we can find one that isn't rotten, Dad," Noah slightly worried.
"I highly doubt it, the farmer has been doing a better job at producing better pumpkins," Frank rubbed his son's head in reassurance. He remembered the disaster from last fall and didn't want to disappoint his son again. It was obvious that they were coming to carve some healthy-looking pumpkins.
After introducing the visitors and leading them into the pumpkin field, Franklin noticed his wife was back inside. He found some free time to go figure out what she was up to, since she would still be outside occupied in either the pumpkin field or the garden area. He walked inside from the back door of the house, the sunroom entrance door was open from the kitchen.
He turned his head at the entrance to see that she was mumbling and thinking deeply about something inside the kitchen at the table. He noticed there were two pumpkins displayed on the table. Her eyes were locked onto the pumpkins as she rubbed her right hand on one of the pumpkins.
"Hey, isn't it great that we got more visitors?"
"..."
"What's wrong, honey?"
"I-I think there's something wrong with some of our pumpkins, We haven't had any imperfect pumpkins in a while."
"Imperfect?"
"Yeah, these two pumpkins, both the orange and green ones, have surface deformity. I don't think we've had any deformed or infested pumpkins at least in a while,"
"Did any critters get into the pumpkin field in the past few weeks?"
"You would find out before me, I hope not." Her eyes drooped, and she pouted.
Franklin got a closer look himself, he grabbed the orange pumpkin with his hands and started investigating the outside of it like his wife. He repeatedly tossed and turned the orange pumpkin. The two bumps at the bottom of the outer shell looked like swollen golf balls that were swollen. He immediately thought maybe these two pumpkins had been infested with bugs from the inside of their body.
"We should probably not sell these two pumpkins, but I need you to check on the other ones later on," Franklin explains, as his shoulders slumped. He instantly felt guilt and shame, as he was a perfectionist when it came to his crops and plants. Geneva herself didn't have the same mindset, but felt sad about having a few bad pumpkins.
"Alright,"
"But for now, we can decide to use the two pumpkins for something else, or I'll just get rid of them," Franklin rubbed his forehead in frustration.
Geneva opened the front entrance gate to accommodate the second wave of visitors who came later in the day. The visitors received a fun tour of the farm animals, as Franklin introduced them to his close buddy named Brewster. He was a fun-loving, always offered a ride and emotional support, and became the farmer's favorite.
Meanwhile, Geneva returned to the gardening area out back. She went to analyze the other pumpkins she grew over time for any unhealthiness. She gritted her teeth over the thought of her husband not setting up any traps or using pest repellent to help protect the plants and crops. It was inevitable, as ever since they moved to the farm, they've encountered pests trying to eat and attack their laborious work. She put the two weird pumpkins she picked out earlier to the side, hoping that maybe they would have looked better, if that's possible.
She wasn't paying attention when something weird started to occur...
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The little orange pumpkin she picked out earlier started to rattle like a maraca. The swollen golf ball size bumps at the bottom slowly grew out into short stubs, the more the little pumpkin rattled around. It took about a minute or so until the pumpkin changed from its original form to a more anthropomorphic, doll-like form for a pumpkin.
Its tiny eyes slowly formed from the armoured surface, two popping out like cooked corn kettles from oil in a pan. Alongside its mouth, which wasn't fully defined yet.
Geneva, not even noticing, went back inside shortly to check up on her sunroom plants. The little orange pumpkin fell over onto its back as the transformation was finally over.
At least five minutes as passed since it started to gain anthropomorphism. Its little stubs were now completed, it now had four stub limbs, its stem was still healthy, and its eyes and mouth were still completely closed.
"..."
The eyes slowly opened up...
It was the first time this pumpkin had experienced something completely new, and pumpkins weren't exactly known for having in this world. It was a consciousness.
"..."
("It's so ... it's so bright")
("Wh-Where ... am I?")
The little orange pumpkin kept staring up at the blue sunny sky, trying to take in what they saw. Everything they started to witness was just so heavy and breathtaking. They had no clue where they were upon opening their eyes. It was like a human infant entering the new world with limited self-awareness. They started to fumble about by sitting up off the grassy ground.
Their eyes took in a whole different environment the moment they sat up. There was a garden of flowers, crops, and pumpkins surrounding them. They were in complete awe when their eyes fell upon this environment.
"..."
They pulled their short, stubby legs into their body with their stubby arms and tried to stand up off the ground. They ended up clumsy in the process, their legs had no idea how to carry their entire body weight. The head being big was what made it worse for them to try and stay standing.
"Whaa~"
Geneva came back out, and she couldn't believe her human eyes when she looked down right in time to see a little orange pumpkin stumbling around in the field trying to stand up. It kept falling over with each attempt, but it didn't give up so easily. Geneva's heart instantly dropped when she witnessed this; she jumped in shock and fear and landed into a nearby bush.
Her mouth was locked closed, as all she could do was continue staring; she didn't know what to say or do. She started to second-guess herself in her mind about the fact that she wouldn't take hallucinogenic drugs; she never did. But regardless, it felt like the world had flipped upside down, or this was a hallucinating dream right now.
("T-This can't be! W-Why and how is it doing that?")
In her 47 years on Earth, she has never seen a pumpkin gain the ability to walk on the ground. It creeped her out, as she had no idea how and why it was doing that.
She shouted for her husband, "Honey! Come here!"
The little pumpkin, finally, with all their effort, was able to gain their inner center balance to help them stand up. Its utmost attention went immediately to the shuffling of the grass right behind them. The little green pumpkin that was picked out earlier also started the same transformation process that the orange one did. It eyed the green one in complete curiosity, as it wondered why something was jittering behind them.
They had no clue what was going on, but their attention was locked onto it. They had no clue that an human was watching them from afar.
"Whoa..."
Geneva's eyes got smaller when she heard it make some sound. She couldn't believe her eyes. Her husband finally showed up, as he was done entertaining the other visitors. He trusted that they would search for the pumpkins in the other field that they wanted and buy them.
"What's wrong, honey?"
"Look!"
Franklin also looked to see that the orange pumpkin was eyeing another pumpkin from the garden, and it was the same pumpkin they had looked at earlier. He was also shocked, as in his 53 years, he had never seen a pumpkin standing with limbs.
