Once upon a time, in a garden in the forest, there grew a small squash. It was the only vegetable still alive in the decadent patch. An old woman who had lived alone in the woods had once kept up the garden, but she had passed away years ago when her home had been enveloped in a monstrous fire.

But one night, dust from a shooting star fell into the garden, landing atop the yellow squash. It slowly became aware of its situation: alone in a dusty square of land filled with weeds and brown vines.

The squash, although sentient, lacked any method of movement. It was trapped, buried in the rotting plants around it. It felt the seasons change, summer to winter, and then to summer again.

The naive vegetable was aware that the plants around it grew and died, and it began to wonder why it did not as well, for it surely wanted to. It felt thoughts coursing through itself, but it had nobody to share these thoughts with, nobody whose thoughts it could learn from.

Years later, a small girl in a yellow cape and hood, separated from her chaperone (a wolf), wandered into the garden. The squash felt the movement; it sensed that something else was truly alive nearby. The air around it began to vibrate. Slowly, the squash understood: "...lost! Whatever will I do?"

The girl sat down next to the squash. She noticed the plump thing, which would have barely fit in a supermarket produce section scale. The yellow-laden child removed the squash from its stem. "What a delicious looking eggplant! Oh, and if I hadn't gotten lost! If only I had been able to stay with the wolf until we reached the baker's home!"

Pain shot through the squash as its green life-support was yanked from it. It felt another horrifying stab of "discomfort" as the girl bit into it, masticating its skin into a fine yellow pulp.