I am an artist!

Every year in the weeks leading up to Halloween local resident William Fletcher can be seen in his studio, hunched over a bunch of pumpkins, furiously carving away.

“I’m an artist and this is my art” he will tell anyone that listens.

Every year I carve thousands of pumpkins into all shapes, sizes and designs. I’m proud of my art. I have thousands of pumpkins. Thousands. Would you like to buy some? Okay how about one? Just one? Please mister buy some pumpkins. They are starting to rot and I’m running out of room in the basement. It’s my wife’s house you see. She bought it. She has a job. A good one. She pays all my bills.  She’s very tolerant of my art you see. She believes in me and my artistic ability. I mean oh sure sometimes she drops subtle hints like “Why don’t you get off your ass and get a f*cking job” but I know that she’s just stressed from work. I don’t want to get political but what sort of cruel capitalist society expects people to earn a living?

The local pumpkin carver admits that carving pumpkins was not his first foray into the arts.

I tried being a writer. I wrote a few plays, books, short stories and poetry but every teacher who saw my writing would just shake their head and say, “This is shit. You really suck. You have no talent.” But I forgave them all. Living in a cruel capitalistic society such as America they were forced to earn a living at teaching rather than being paid to write. Socialist countries do that you know. We could learn a lot from them.

Stymied by the jealousy of his instructors he then turned to music.

I formed a band with a friend of mine who is a lawyer. But he lost his license because he was always showing up drunk to court. Shame really. I was depending on the money he made to pay for our instruments. Hey look, he had a job so he was the business side. I was the artistic side. We got a few gigs but everyone kept telling us that we sucked and had no talent. They were jealous and just wanted us to fail. Capitalism does that. It destroys people. If only we would adopt the socialist system that Europe has.

Unable to make a living as a musician he finally picked up sculpting.

Michelangelo is my hero. That man was talented. He could carve anything. Shame he lived in the capitalist and superstitious middle ages where he had to carve for benefactors rather than himself. But I wanted to follow in his footsteps. But marble is hard to carve so I turned to pumpkins. You know not just anyone can carve pumpkins. It’s a very exclusive club. Okay so I bought a book on how to carve pumpkins. Shame that a capitalist society like America forces pumpkin-carving artists to shill their wares online instead of paying them to teach their art. But I digress. Now I’m a pumpkin carver. I’ve found my artistic vocation. I mean sure I haven’t sold any yet. Most people who look at my pumpkins just laugh and tell me I suck. But I’m confident I will finally sell one. I hope I do. My wife says that If I don’t start pulling my weight she’ll throw me out. I should have never ratified our relationship with the so-called marriage bond. It’s so bourgeois. But yeah, I have to sell some. Now. I don’t want to get thrown out on the street. She makes lots of money and it’s a nice house.

*******************************************************************************************************************

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

*******************************************************************************************************************

Local, talentless would-be pumpkin carver William Fletcher has been thrown out of the house he was living in with his wife after being unable to sell any of his pumpkin carvings and was last spotted living under a bridge.

“My wife is such a capitalist pig! Imagine throwing me out! One day she’ll be sorry. Boy it’s cold out here. Climate change you know. Capitalism destroys the environment too!”

(50)