Pumpkin Spice

In the early 21st century, Pumpkin Spice became an institution. Millions would flock to coffee shops, convenience stores, and Costcos to buy lattes, candles, and car fresheners, anything with the beloved Pumpkin Spice. It was the new harbinger of Fall, and the public was obsessed. 

In the early 1st century, human sacrifice was all the rage. Ancient humans couldn’t get enough of it. Disconnected civilizations on opposite sides of the planet, all found their way to this craze without the benefit of social media and targeted advertising. For decades scholars argued over the origins and purpose without any real clear answers, that is… until six years ago. 

Our ancestor’s sacrifices to the old gods seemed silly to us, even as we celebrated things like Halloween, not understanding there was a reason for their celebration of death every October.  

So numb from four years of constant lies and talk of “fake news” from the reality tv star running the country, the American people weren’t even fazed when The Old Gods returned, not at first. CGI, Deep Fakes, The Jim Henson Company, surely the creatures swooping down from the skies to feast on their fellow citizens were a product of one of these things. Just another libtard Hollywood scare campaign, like the “thoroughly debunked” climate change. 

It was hard to make out exactly what they looked like. They were blurs of feather and fur and tentacles. Teeth and beaks and claws. They rode out of storm clouds, striking like lightning, an empty shoe and a puddle of blood often times the only sign of an attack. 

Naturally, the response to this new threat was measured and thoughtful. The government definitely didn’t fuck up the response to this in every conceivable way…

So as the entire grid of the eastern seaboard went black from one of our own EMP’s, and the dust settled over the radioactive remains of what was once Cleveland, people settled into their bunkers and basements. They boarded up windows and doors and waited for the next great idea to emerge. 

That’s when a professor from Princeton pointed out the connection to our semi-distant past. Maybe the Aztecs and Mayans weren’t so savage after all? Maybe there really was something to this whole blood sacrifice thing?

So the beloved institutions of the fearful, The Police, ICE, Homeland Security, started quietly rounding up the illegal immigrants and dissidents. They grabbed the protesters and “the anarchists”. There was no telling how far they would go. People with speeding tickets and overdue library books started looking over their shoulders. 

And so these blessed chosen were given the chance to appease The Old Gods and save their brothers and sisters. 

Makeshift pyramids were erected all across suburbia. There were no enslaved Hebrews to build them like in Egypt, but the working poor did just fine. They piled cement block and aluminum siding to match HOA regulations. Temples missing hieroglyphics, instead adorned by corporate sponsors. The Pyramid of Giza was joined by the Pyramid of McDonald’s and Monsanto. The Shrines of Starbucks and Wells Fargo. Everyone got in on the fun. 

Sacrifice days replaced Sunday football, which was fine with most Americans who were sick of how “political” the NFL had become. The new high priests of the Old Gods became celebrities in their own right. Kids collected their trading cards and several landed reality TV shows where you could watch all the “unscripted” drama leading up to a blood offering. 

Many churches pulled down their crosses, Mary and her virgin-born Son retired to broom closets, replaced with monstrous sculptures of the creatures in the heavens. The Vatican and the televangelists did their best to make sure their businesses didn’t see an interruption in cash flow, but after several years of the seeming apocalypse and still no return of The Big Guy, even they had to evolve. Who’s to say Jesus wasn’t a hundred-foot-long flying serpent with teeth like swords and a wingspan the size of a jumbo jet? After all, he had been white for ages and that was just as believable. 

After a bit of trial and error, and a thorough review of many ancient texts, academia and the Pentagon agreed, the time for sacrifice should run from the second week of September till the third week of November. This was when those above must be appeased. 

And so just as the burial spices frankincense and myrrh were once the fragrance of death, so became the smell of pumpkin spice wafting off an overpriced latte’. The aromatic bouquet of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, no longer just a cozy reminder of cold weather and fall leaves, but instead the matador’s cape to the world’s collective lust for violence. 

The fevered crowds gathered at their local ziggurat, waiting in the “splash zone” for the pink mist, convincing themselves this was a necessary evil to appease powers greater than themselves.  

This was true of all history. Every stoning and beheading, every lynching and capital punishment, every war in a foreign land, these were all out of the hands of those pulling the trigger and swinging the sword. Surely there was nothing that the common man could do to stop it? 

So as steel met artery and the red of neighbors and friends rained down on their faces, the masses smiled. Not much had really changed after all.