Hollow Bean 2024

“Explain,” said the inter­ro­ga­tion machine. “Describe their culture.”

“They have an impor­tant cel­e­bra­tion,” said E.T., “called Hol­low Bean. Every­one carves faces in fruit squash­es and dress­es up in sheets.”

“Who holds this celebration?”

“The chil­dren, who actu­al­ly rule the Blue Plan­et of Earth. They are more intel­li­gent than the old­er peo­ple and out­run them on bicycles.”

The machine whirled around him again. “And what is the pur­pose of this celebration?”

“To col­lect the all-impor­tant food.”

“Which is?”

“Can­dy.”

—William Kotzwin­kle, E.T. The Book of the Green Plan­et. 1985, Berke­ley Books.

Hap­py Hol­low Bean, every­one! And b. good.

Pho­to by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash.