The Eatery

In case you didn’t know, this is meant to be a parody of Shirly Jackson’s The Lottery, a far better short story than this one which you should definitely read: https://www.cusd200.org/cms/lib/IL01001538/Centricity/Domain/361/jackson_lottery.pdf

The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the tomatoes were blossoming profusely and would soon gain their sentience and the cucumbers and bell peppers were richly green.

The garden was beginning to awaken to a new day. Several vegetables had already gathered in the square by the kitchen window, staring fondly at the fertilizer pile they had attempted to sculpt into Mr. and Mrs. Peterson, the owners and overlords of the garden, but ended up looking like a rather poor middle school science project volcano due to the vegetables’ noticeable lack of hands. There was a gentle buzz in the air. Everybody was nervous. The Eatery was about to commence.

The children assembled first of course. The gorgeous little gourds and the cute little cucumbers stood in the middle of the square next to the fertilizer mound. If they had hands they would have shoved them into metaphorical pockets and if they had proper faces, they would have looked down at their metaphorical feet.

The adults in the square were trying to act cool as Cucumbers (as many of them were actual cucumbers and didn’t want to ruin their family name).

The Eatery was to commence at 10:00 sharp. By the time 9:95 rolled around, everyone in the garden was gathered around The Mound, tight lines forming on their outer layers, ready to commence, hoping to just get over with the damned thing and go back to sitting in soil and staring at the clouds.

Once the dining room clock had struck 10, Old Man Gourd climbed up on top of the mound and looked out at the crowd. He was the oldest vegetable in the garden, at least the vegetable to go the longest without being taken inside. He was constantly caked with dirt and was beginning to rot and spoil a bit but was in otherwise delectable shape.

As he rose to the dirt mound, a hush fell over the bustle in the square.

Old Man Gourd cleared his throat and spoke.

“Welcome, citizens of the Peterson Garden, to the 36th Annual Eatery. The rules are simple; all of you must get into Mr. Peterson’s toolbox. Upon doing so, a pebble will be flung in the air. Whoever that pebble lands on will be the winner. Any questions?”

The silence held.

“Alrighty then!” Old Man Gourd proclaimed enthusiastically. “Off to the toolbox we go!”

All the vegetables were taken over to Mr. Peterson’s toolbox, left lying wide open next to the shed. Everybody slowly filed inside, packed together tightly in rows. Thankfully the toolbox was sizable and most of the tools were missing after one of Mr. Peterson’s drinking games the previous night.

After Old Man Gourd made sure that everyone was uncomfortably packed in, he attempted hoisting himself into the air to scatter pebbles. The first few attempts were rather pathetic but he thankfully got it on the fifth one. A few pebbles scattered in all directions and one -just one- flew inside the toolbox and landed right on top of Carla Cucumber. Carla gasped.

Old Man Gourd smiled. “There we go.”

When Mrs. Peterson came out to check on her lovely little garden, she saw a cute little cucumber, sitting in the very front of the rest, ripe as can be and practically glistening. She smiled, picked the cucumber up, and gently placed it in her wicker garden basket. All the others watched as she examined them closely, sadly decided that it would have to be the lone cucumber today, and ventured back inside. They watched through the window as she washed Carla and laid her down on her “rustic” wooden cutting board.

“It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Carla Cucumber screamed, and then the knife was upon her.