At dusk in Felt Presence, the ceramic pumpkin couldn’t settle.

“Too much thinking,” he said.

A skeleton offered to read him a bedtime story. It chose the care label from a piece of velvet.

The pumpkin listened through cool wash and gentle cycle.

“Does it end well?”

“Very well. You dry flat.”

The skeleton read it twice more.

Soon a small, hollow snore came from inside the mustard waistcoat.

The skeleton tucked the label into his emergency pocket and tiptoed away.

In his sleep, the pumpkin dreamed of being a teacup.

He told nobody.