Entry # C16

In Space no one can hear you scream

By Lisa Williamson

They tell you in space they can’t hear you scream. Yeah right. Tell that the Joe. Poor guy didn’t pay attention to the rule book. Everybody knows you don’t bring alien vegetation onto a space station but well, he did. He bought some seeds and slipped them into the hydroponics tanks. Now that might have been harmless if the seeds were what he thought they were but, well, he got rooked.

See, he thought he was getting pumpkins. Yeah those big orange gourds that taste good when cooked. He had a hankering for a pie and nothing from the synthesizers tasted right to him. So he traded some useless chips when he went down world and snuck into where the plants were growing. He hid his precious seeds in the back where they wouldn’t be seen. Little did he know that Earthly soil and water was like insta-grow to his seeds.

They grew almost over night into these big orange pumpkins. Now if they had just been pumpkins it would have been a fine and tasty treat but when he went to check on them he got the surprise of his short life. There, eating its way through the other plants, was his pumpkin. Oh it was at first a lovely sight, big and round and firm but when he reached out to pat it the thing spun about, growled and snapped at him.

Oh my did he let out a screech. Really, a big man like that screaming like a little girl. I still laugh as I think about it. He fell on his big…oh right kids. Well lets say it was a good thing that ‘pumpkin’ was rooted. I obviously had to go to his rescue.

When he got it through his head that it couldn’t chase him he started babbling. Telling me all about where he got the seeds and begging me not to tell the Captain. Now why would I do that? After all it is just a piece of hungry vegetation.

Once I got him calmed down and out of my hydroponics lab I turned my attention to the noisy foliage. It was still thrashing and gnashing its teeth and waving its leaves about. I am not the type to be afraid of a plant, so it just made me laugh. I mean really? A plant is a plant, no matter if it has teeth or not. I stood back and looked it over, big, round, firm and fleshy. Other than those teeth it was the perfect plant.

Well now out here in space we don’t have the normal calendar like the planet bounds do, but I knew it was near that holiday where things were supposed to get all spooky and scary. I had a thought that made me grin and waved to the plant before putting my plan into action.

What plan you ask? Well I set up a party of course! After all I might be the guy in charge of all those plants but I had another job, Morale officer. Got things together and sent out the call to my buddies to come down to hydroponics that night. The party was great and the look on Joe’s face when he saw his prize pumpkin was hysterical.

Yeah it was still there, a bit different but then setting out those big pies in front of what remained of the thing was perfect. After all if you are gonna have a Halloween party you need a jack-o-lantern right?