Dwain Northey (Gen X)

It was Halloween night in the once-friendly pumpkin patch of America. The children gathered, not for tricks or treats, but for the annual vigil of despair — waiting for the Great Rotting Pumpkin to rise again.

Charlie Brown stood among them, clutching a hollowed-out insurance card instead of a candy bag. “Do you really think he’ll come this year?” he asked nervously.

“Oh, he always comes,” said Lucy, her voice dripping with cynicism. “He comes when the moon turns orange and the poor turn desperate.”

The ground began to tremble. From the dirt burst a monstrous pumpkin, swollen and decayed, reeking of bile and broken promises. Its carved grin was jagged and cruel, oozing something that looked suspiciously like taxpayer money.

“I am the Great Rotting Pumpkin, United States!” it bellowed. “I come bearing austerity and fear! Instead of candy, I bring tax cuts for the rich and bills for everyone else!”

Linus, ever the true believer, clutched his blanket. “But… but you’re supposed to bring hope!”

“Hope?” the pumpkin laughed, spraying moldy pulp onto the kids. “That’s been outsourced! Now, I bring deregulation, deportations, and despair!”

The Great Rotting Pumpkin stretched its vines across the land. One vine snatched away a brown child from his mother’s arms, another wrapped around an elderly couple and yanked away their social security checks. A third vine slithered through the hospital doors, whispering, “Pre-existing condition? Not my problem.”

Snoopy, ever defiant, donned his World War I flying ace goggles and tried to attack the beast from his doghouse. But the pumpkin laughed again, flicking him away with a giant orange tendril. “Silly dog,” it sneered. “Even your veteran benefits are being privatized!”

By dawn, the pumpkin’s shadow covered the entire nation. Candy had turned to coal, houses to tents, and dreams to debts. The children stared up at it, hollow-eyed.

Linus finally spoke. “Maybe next year… a better pumpkin will rise.”

Lucy shook her head. “Not unless someone plants something new in this soil first.”

And as the Great Rotting Pumpkin feasted on another tax loophole and belched out a smog of despair, the only thing left glowing in the night was the faint flicker of hope—buried deep beneath the rot, waiting for someone brave enough to dig it out.

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