SFWC Community Microfiction: Mom’s Pumpkin Boyfriend
This is the third entry in our microfiction series written by San Francisco Writers Conference community members.
Mom’s Pumpkin Boyfriend
Carved out jacko on the dresser. Mom first learned to do this last Halloween. Scooped the goo out of a pumpkin head when Dad was out on a drunk. Mom’s own head a beehive of regret and wondering how on earth their marriage went so wrong.
Mom and Dad who must have been young, their faces turned upwards. And then years go by. Jobs, and then no jobs, Mom twinkling the neighbor’s eye, Dad taking his first sip of gin.
So, tonight, it’s one Halloween later, and Mom’s pumpkin boyfriend is pretty much all she’s got. Not the one from last year, of course. That one dried up months ago. But here’s the thing about pumpkins – there is always another one, and also, they tend to stay put.
Dad is out, and I peek in to tell her I’m off to trick or treat even though I’m already too old. I see my mother sitting there, dressed in a negligee she has saved from forever. Air spiced up with Dad’s cologne. On the dresser, her new pumpkin boyfriend, lit-up candle shining out of his eyeholes, a shot glass of gin up against his pulpy gashmouth, and Mom just watching, almost like she’s waiting, to see if he’s going to take a sip.
~ Francine Witte
Francine Witte is a flash fiction writer whose work has appeared in Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, Flash Fiction America, and New Micro. She recently won a Pushcart Prize for her story “Plate Spinners.” She hosts the Zoom flash series FBOMB and The Prose Garden, and is flash fiction editor for FLASH BOULEVARD and South Florida Poetry Journal. She lives in NYC. Visit her website at francinewitte.com.
