Unquiet Desperation

One of my favorite retellings of a classic tale is the John Aegard’s short story “The Great Old Pumpkin.” It’s the tale of Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin, but instead of the childlike innocence engendered by the original Charles M. Schultz story, it has a Lovecraftian bent. Steve Eley did a reading of it for Escape Pod back in 2005, and I’m going to take advantage of the Creative Commons license and toss it into my feed this week.

As you are no doubt aware, I am the issue of solid Dutch stock‚ the prosperous Van Pelt family of St. Paul. Mine was a comfortable and happy childhood, and I spent much of it in the devoted service of the Great Old Pumpkin. For him, I cultivated an annual pumpkin patch. I also evangelized him in the community, relating the tale of how, every year on Hallowmas Eve, the day when the spiritual most strongly encroaches on the substantial, this mightiest of gourds would rise to revel across the world with the most sincere of his adorers. My neighbors were understandably skeptical; after all, not once had this superbeing ever chosen to grace my pumpkin patch or any other place in our town. I vowed that I would coax him into my backyard, and I set out in the manner of a learned man to discover how I might do this.

So, get out those Elder Signs and watch out for the fish-men…it’s story time.

And for more great stories, check out Escape Pod, Pseudopod, and Pod Castle.

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