The Great Pumpkin Competition - Chapter 1

“We need you two to enter our company as a sponsor for the Great Pumpkin Competition!” Mr. Charleston said.

Jasmine and I looked at each other sarcastically, as if we were supposed to know what the Hell he was talking about. The Great Pumpkin Competition? Of all of his hair brained schemes, this may have been the worst. We were a financial firm, and a damn good one, if I did say so myself. But we were always trying the most unconventional ways of getting our name out. Mr. Charleston always wanted to reach the furthest communities. He said if we could get the small towns by our side, we could avoid the heavy marketing of the bigger cities and still get a lot of business.

“Sir… um… what’s that?” I asked.

“Glad you asked,” he said with a smile. “The Great Pumpkin Competition came up on my feed. It’s in a large county down south called Old South. Obviously, I’ve never been down there to see it myself, but apparently it’s a really big deal.”

“What is it?” asked Jasmine, her thin arms crossed.

“I mean, I’m just using context clues here, but it’s a competition, it’s got pumpkins, I’m just doing the mental math here…”

“Sir, aren’t we reaching a bit here?” I asked.

His face turned grave. He rarely looked so serious. In all the years I’d known him, he always wore a happy face. It’s one of the things I liked about him, and one of the reasons I was loyal to his company, Charleston Corp. In any situation, no matter how grim, he always maintained a high level of positivity. Seeing his face now, I realized things must have been serious, more serious than they had ever been.

“Rick,” he said, placing his hands on his desk. “We just lost Ginger’s.”

“Sir?” gasped Jasmine.

Ginger’s was a chain restaurant that had been using our services for years. Even in hard times, we always said as long as we had Ginger’s, we would stay afloat. They were big business for us, and our relationship was always really good. I was shocked to find out we had lost them. This was bad news indeed.

“Look, I don’t want to freak you guys out but… if we don’t get some new customers and fast, I’m gonna have to close the doors.”

Jasmine and I looked at each other. We had always flirted, but never taken our relationship past friendly coworkers. But now, we were in full agreement. We needed to save the company, no matter what.

“What do you need from us?” I asked.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ve been working with a local scientist, and I have genetically modified some pumpkins. These things are HUGE! I think we can actually win the competition. If we can get a big win, or at least place high in this thing, I think it would be a big deal for the company.”

“And you want us to enter the tournament?” Jasmine asked.

“Precisely. I’ve already reserved you a place to stay on the outskirts of town. I’ll hold down the fort while you guys are out. Assuming you are doing well, you’ll likely have to travel around the county to compete, so make sure you’re wearing our branded clothing and waving the banner, and I guess just have fun!”

-

It was a long plane ride to Old South. We enjoyed each other’s company, and joked about how silly this whole thing was. We had both graduated college, and we thought it was funny that this is where our careers ended up. I had always found her very attractive. She was tiny and thin and beautiful. But she would never be attracted to someone like me. I was really small for a man. I was only 5’4 and thin as paper. She was taller than me in heels, to the point that I was embarrassed to stand next to her.

We went over the itinerary, and I used the opportunity to get close to her. We both huddled over her laptop and read the plans for when we got off the plane. I felt like I was invading her space, but wasn’t pushing me away. She laughed at my jokes and kept the conversation going, which sent me some interesting signals, but I tried not to read too much into it. I didn’t want to ruin what we had here.

“So we have to travel pretty far out of town first,” she said, looking at the map and timing how long it would take from the airport.

“Looks like Mr. Charleston’s scientist is on the outskirts. He’s probably unknown to most of the citizens here.”

“You think he’s really made a huge pumpkin?” she asked. “I mean, this is a big deal out here, they are expecting something truly massive, I gotta think.”

“It had better be big, or we’re gonna be in big trouble,” I said.

We continued our discussions even as we exited the plane. I felt like our relationship was really improving. I wondered if it was out of the realm of possibility to ask her out on a date while we were in the country. It’s not like there was a lot to do. I pondered if that would be considered entrapment. Maybe she would feel like I had her in a corner and she couldn’t say no. Fear directed me away from this idea, but I could at least fantasize about it. I should have just been happy I got to travel for hours with her.

As we got the rental car and began our travels, we passed by a bunch of the towns that we would assumedly be competing in. They were definitely different from us city folk. Where we had tower skyscrapers and bustling streets filled with traffic and hurried people, these towns were wide open, green, and slow. I could see people moving around at a snail’s pace, waving to each other and tending to farms. And they all seemed so… big. I was looking from a distance, but they seemed thicker, hardier, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I was already self conscious about my size, but these people were making me feel even worse and I hadn’t even met anyone.

We eventually pulled up to the laboratory. It was an old cottage made of logs, hardly a place I would expect major scientific breakthroughs to be happening in. It was surprisingly far out of town. You would suspect a county that was obsessed with pumpkins to want this guy front and center. Maybe he was ostracized? Maybe it was considered cheating? It was hard to say what was really going on, but we needed him and if his pumpkins were as big as he said they were, he would be a big piece of the puzzle.

We got out of the car and walked up to the front door. We saw vast fields around him, with different vegetables and fruits and whatnot, all of different sizes. We admired the amount of work it clearly took to make foods of this size, and questioned what his motivations were. Solve world hunger?

We knocked, and an old man opened the door after a minute. He looked us both up, as if he was expecting something else.

“Charleston?”

“Yes sir,” I said, looking at Jasmine. I looked back at him and waited for him to respond in any fashion.

“Come with me,” he said.

We entered the cottage and walked downstairs. It was only slightly more high tech inside than it was out there. There were definitely sciency things here and there, vials, petri dishes, the like. But it still wasn’t what I was expecting.

Soon enough we would reach the bottom, with a large cage with a tarp covering it. We stood in front of it while he slowly poked around to the other side. The tarp slipped off, and we were left staring at, admittedly, the biggest pumpkin either of us had ever seen. It was about six feet tall and bright orange. As big as it was, it still looked quite healthy. It almost looked edible. I say that because, as a city dwelling man, I didn’t really know what you DID with a pumpkin. I knew it was used for pies. Did people actually eat this? That part I didn’t really know. I just knew we had a contest to win.

“This to your liking?” he asked.

“Absolutely, this thing is massive!” I said.

“Great, I can have it sent up to your trailer,” he said. He began to walk away, but he paused and turned back around. “By the way… just what exactly are you trying to DO, with a pumpkin of this size?”

“We are entering the Great Pumpkin Competition,” Jasmine said.

He gave a double take. He raised his glasses and looked at her closely as she said that. It was as if he had never heard something so absurd.

“The Great Pumpkin Competition?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“You?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, starting to feel uncomfortable.

He chuckled softly to himself.

“Paychecks a paycheck,” he snorted.

-

We drove back to town with the pumpkin in tow. Our first stop was the town of Lockshead. They had a banner that read THE GREAT PUMPKIN COMPETITION as we drove in. Clearly they were excited for it.

As we drove in, we saw a booth that said REGISTRATION. We pulled over and got out. It was time to actually enter ourselves into the competition. We were wearing our shirts, just like we were told. We were excited to win this thing and save our company.

“Name?” the lady at the desk asked. It was outside and the air was crisp. I thought it was nice doing business outside for a change.

“Rick and Jasmine,” I said.

“And that’s… your names?” she asked.

“Yes,” Jasmine said.

She looked Jasmine up and down.

“Um… are you SURE?” she asked.

Jasmine nodded.

“Okay, I’ll get it… started…” she said. She looked at someone behind me. “I’ll get you next, mister.”

I looked behind us and saw the mister… and then the missus… and then what must have been their daughter. And their daughter was truly something. She had to have been three hundred pounds, and not that I was staring, but a LOT of those pounds had to be going to her breasts. She was a big girl, there was no doubt about that. But those breasts were HUGE. They bulged from her chest, at least a foot out. Just the overhang of cleavage was bigger than anything Jasmine had to offer.

“All done,” the lady said, and I turned back to look at her, the color draining from my face. I began to realize why we were getting all of the weird responses. Maybe this competition wasn’t as literal as we thought.