The blue pumpkin variety, from Queensland, is the color of the sky at night, when there’s a full moon, with a bit of fog. The inside is bright orange, and the flesh is sweet, ideal for baked goods, but I eat it raw. That’s how I like it. Every day, I have to eat a blue pumpkin to survive. My very blood craves it. My doctor wrote me one of those notes, telling my employers that I have to stay home, work remotely. A blue pumpkin a day keeps me alive, but I lose my strength quickly if I have to leave the house, so my husband brings one home every day, after work. He helps me slice into it. I pull out the strings, let the slime cover my skin, crunch through the uncooked seed, and sharpen my teeth on the raw meat.
My husband wants to take me away to where this variety grows. It’s getting harder and harder to find around here, and internet deliveries are increasingly slow. Sometimes my toes curl and stick and spasm, and my tongue turns blue. I’m probably allergic to what keeps me alive, but I don’t know any other way—except he, my husband, is determined to grow one, build a conservatory outside, sow some seeds—so he does, but they all die.
By this time, I’ve taken to leaving a trail of carcasses of squash leading to the dining room table—too tired to clean up after myself. I scrape the remnants of the flesh out with my teeth, while my husband sits across from me, to share a meal.
My fingers are curling too. You’d think it’s some kind of paralysis that creeps in. You’d think that’s what I’ve got, but I can still move, if I eat that pumpkin flesh and leave the shell behind. But then, I get it in my head that I must boil the blue parts. I see it in a dream: a whole pot with blue, bubbling water. I get it going and cool it down and water the seeds in the conservatory, falling asleep near the potting soil. I feel my fingers and toes curl in, my insides twist—I let out a loud enough cry that my husband comes running—I can hear his footsteps, and the rattling he makes opens my eyes—to darkness. Not even shadows do I see. A dampness surrounds me, along with a familiar, fleshy smell.
My husband asks again if I’m in pain. A little, I tell him.
What do I see?
Nothing.
But he’ll try to help. I hear his footsteps trail off and then return—and then feel a hand on my head. The carving sounds begin next, like a serrated knife sawing through a surface, and then suddenly, light from the other side, coming in through a triangle hole. The carving, sawing sounds continue, more jagged slits below, and another triangle window—and I can see: the conservatory, my husband. The slash-slash-pull-pull sawing sound echoes from above—and I watch as a hand reaches in, with a lit candle. I’m placed on the dining room table, so we can still share dinner together, before the blackness takes over the pumpkin flesh, and I’m nothing but a thin trail, leading to an empty room.
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