I think the voting through likes would be a solid solution. You can post all the options yourself and let people vote. Do people have a limit? Like...you're only allowed to vote for three contestants? Or is it vote for as many as you want?
When I was a litthe kid, I spent weekends on my grandparent's ranch. I had to carry a stick everywhere I went because the turkeys had free reign of the property and would attack anything smaller than them.
FYI: Turkeys are damn near indestructible short of lopping their heads off. Birdshot to the body accomplishes nothing and can get you spurred. Have some fun with that info.
Tony wasn't a bad egg. He started out as a fluffy little poult like anyone else, went through that awkward teenage jake phase, then blossomed into a gorgeous gobbler. He was devoted to his family, both human and fowl--until one unforgettable November day when his father was murdered before his very eyes. Young Tony could do nothing but watch in horror while his humans chopped off his pops' head, ripped out his feathers, tore out his guts, stuffed bread up his asshole, roasted his carcass, and feasted on his flesh. His mother was...oddly indifferent, actually. But Tony was devastated and vowed revenge. He turned to a life of petty crime, but nothing could quell his lust for vengeance. That is, until he hatched the perfect plan. He infiltrated the farm from which the President of the United States was known to choose the annual Thanksgiving turkey. Tony hoped the rumors were true: that this was a ruse and that the chosen turkey would be pardoned for any crimes committed.
It took a few Thanksgivings, but Tony was patient. He bided his time until the day came that he was the chosen bird. As luck would have it, the new President was down in the polls and needed a win. So the President decided to make an especially big show of the turkey pardon, performing the ceremony during halftime of the Thanksgiving Day college bowl game. Tony would have loved nothing more than to murder the President on live television, but sadly, his lack of opposable thumbs prevented anything so dramatic. But what Tony did have was a glorious wattle. And he was ready. He had spent the last three years learning hypnosis. When the day came for his on-screen pardon, Tony used his wattle to hypnotize the entire TV audience. That day, every American family who had been watching that bowl game slaughtered, disemboweled, basted, roasted, and feasted on the smallest child in their family. Including the President, whose plump little grandson made a charming and delicious centerpiece for the state dinner of dignitaries and assorted world leaders.
Thus began a new divide in the American political consciousness. Half the country was appalled and cried for the President's impeachment or worse. The other half rallied behind him, proclaiming that this was the most delicious Thanksgiving feast they had ever had. As for Tony, he met a lovely hen and went on to raise a delightful family of children and grandchildren. Every one of them trained in the art of hypnosis.
-Mr President, please, we need to reconsider, we’re facing impeachment. This turkey needs to be brought to justice. Chief of staff Henry was begging with tears in his eyes.
-Nope. Can’t do. No.
-But, forgive my curiosity am I allowed to know why?! I mean why?
-You are allowed. Ready to hear it? I’ll give you the reason and once I do, there’s no unhearing it. Still interested?
-Yes, Mr President. It affects the entire country, we’re facing riots, protests and whatnot.
-There it is then. And remember you asked for it.
Put it down. In your notebook: “I asked for it.”
-Done.
-Here it is:
Fun fact: a bird dies after having sex with a human.
Fun fact the second: I like turkeys.
-What do you mean Mr President? Chief of staff starts sweating.
-I mean sex.
-But…
-No but, Henry. Birds. I engaged in a sexual activity, see, I’m trying to elevate my way of communicating the facts, with a certain turkey’s mother and you know with all the surveillance in modern farms I got filmed. Turkey criminal momma’s boy here has the film. More details needed? I don’t think so.
Henry’s eyes got bigger and then smaller and then bigger and then smaller for 56 times.
The Nightmare Before Thanksturkey (eidted: forgot to add my clock and object transformations. Face-palm! 630 Words)
.
I’ve got food on the table, so you’ll forgive me for being brief here. The only thing I like served cold is a dish of revenge.
.
So—people didn’t want the President of the United States to pardon me. Not sure what they’re so upset about? All their arguments use false forms of argumentation. Illogical. Not valid. Most use arguments from emotion. I feel this way, so the world should be that way. Nutty. Giant children. Sort of like those nested Russian Dolls. There’s one big over-arching feely-feel emotion that cloaks the next smaller emotion, then the next. The more you try to satisfy one feeling, there’s another—then the next. You never get to the truth. But those arguments from emotion are used all the time. Great tool for herding humans, but not herding turkeys.
.
In spite of my being the official White House turkey this year—I didn’t choose to be born into this nightmare. The only thing they can accuse me of is breaking out of an egg. No obligation on my part to be moral. Didn’t choose any of this. Just look at what they’ve been doing for decades. They’ve been slaughtering millions of us each year—even kill their own. But if we take a handful of theirs? For. Get. It. They lose their shit.
.
Think about it. At the very least...these people are hypocritical psychopaths running the country. And this year—after everything we’ve been through—it seems to make sense for these whack-jobs to finally get a taste of their own malfeasance. Bet you weren’t expecting a turkey know what malfeasance meant? Here’s another word for you. Turducken. You know what turducken is? Some of you psychopaths, this is what you do. You decapitate a hen, rip off her feathers, pull out her guts, bones and toss it all into a garbage can. You shove her into a duck. Yes. A duck that’s had his or her head chopped-off, feathers removed—innards scraped out and de-boned. Now that those two birds are nested inside each other you shove them up into one of us: a headless, featherless, gutted, boneless turkey. A chicken inside a duck inside a turkey. Turducken. If that’s not bad enough we all get cooked in an oven for four hours at 375 degrees fahrenheit. Insane.
.
So, how does a presidentially pardoned turkey like me honor our dead? Honor our brothers and sisters who’ve been slaughtered? Here’s my recipe. On Thanksgiving Eve a headless and gutted mayor gets deboned. The mayor gets stuffed into a headless, gutted, boneless governor who gets stuffed into a headless-gutted-boneless senator. Set the oven to 375 and bake for eight hours. Maygovtor. Good name. Baked Maygovtor. Get together with my peeps and we eat.
.
And you people in the main-stream-media? You know—corporate news—you’re no better. You’re the propaganda wing for these exterminators. You paint me as a menace to society. Seen your headlines: Serial Psycho-Turkey; the Foul Fowl; Barnyard Bates; the Feared Pheasant, the Cold Cut Killer, Turkey Terminator. Terminator? Compared to who? Compared to the mountains of bodies left behind by the people in the White House and their cronies? Call me a Serial Psycho-Turkey? Compared to what? Compared to two the hundred and forty-million turkeys killed each year? You all need to sharpen your math skills and readjust yourselves. Because what I did to three people? That. Ain’t. Nuthin’ compared to what you've been doing to turkeys. Compared to what you've been doing to your own citizens. That’s a word called democide.
.
Now. If you’ll excuse me. I’d like to get back to my meal. Don‘t like my holiday meat served cold.
.
Click or copy this link for the Ai-generated image that goes with this story:
The words rattle around my skull like crusty old jelly beans.
"The president is dead."
I down my fifth or sixth shot of scotch. It does nothing to ease the migraine forming at my temples.
"The president is dead."
Screw the glass, I swig straight from the bottle this time. It's been twelve days since the pardon, and they already got to him. Those damned fowl beasts.
At first it was like any other Thanksgiving. All of America, or at least the part of America who still cared about such stupid traditions, tuned in to watch as the president pardoned this year's turkey, aptly named Lucky Duck. This time though, instead of gobbling off to peck worms outta the white house lawn, the damned thing pounced on the first lady and claimed her left eye as a prize before kicking and scratching his way to true freedom away from the chaos of the crowd and away from me, the farmer who raised him.
I stare blearily at the radio that had delivered the news as I let out a belch that tastes like bile and stale corn-nuts. It's smashed to pieces, no chance at repair. I probably shouldn't have done that. But I also probably shouldn't be drinking, holed up in this empty bar, hiding from the mobs. I need to keep my wits about me if I'm going to survive this.
Once Lucky Duck escaped he wasted no time sewing chaos all over the city. Wherever he went, nearby birds rallied behind him, any humans around became bloody, pulpy, pecked up piles of goo. The bird revolution spread quickly across the country. Instead of taking action, we humans took to the internet, arguing about whose fault it was. I quickly became a scapegoat and a pariah.
The remote nature of my farm kept me safe until day three, after Lucky Duck broke into the zoo.
I was halfway through a silent breakfast of cold oatmeal next to my cold wife - she blamed me too, of course - when the front door crashed open and there he was. I hardly recognized him, stained red with blood, perched atop an equally bloody Emu, fire in his eyes and a swarm of lorikeets forming a rainbow cloud around him.
The clink of my wife's spoon hitting her bowl interrupted our staring contest. Her chair's screech against the floor grated my eardrums as she rose from the table and shuffled over to a second emu at the right of my bird, gracefully mounting it like a horse. She glared down her bifocals at me before leaning over to Lucky Duck and giving him a soft peck on the cheek.
They left me there, without so much as a scratch, to ponder, dazed, at how I had missed such a glaring affair. My prized bird and my prized bird, together. Dammit Margaret.
I throw the empty bottle across the room and it crashes against the wall. My regret is instantaneous as I hear a distant, "What was that?"
I scramble to my feet and immediately stumble back to the floor. Damn these scotch legs. I get back up but it's too late.
"Please," I plead with the grubby face that has appeared in the bar. I smell his sweat mixing with the blood on the deep scratches on his face. I search his eyes for any ounce of mercy, any compassion tucked away in his tear ducts. I bring a shaking finger up to my lips in a silent shush.
The corners of his mouth turn up in an ominous grin. His teeth are the same shade of yellow as Lucky Duck's corn feed.
"He's in here," the bastard yells. Soon, a mob of scratched up survivors of the birdpocalypse funnel in and surround me. I lay on the floor taking hit after hit, thankful at least for the scotch to dull some of the blows. Someone must be carrying a radio; between hits I catch little bits of the emergency broadcast.
A pool cue cracks against my arm.
"...Pentagon has been breached..."
A steel toe boot dents my stomach.
"...death toll rising, defense secretary is down..."
An enterprising young woman in a torn up business suit gets a good crack at my head with a glass bottle. Vodka stings as it trickles through the cuts in my face.
The last thing I hear as I black out is that damned emergency announcer.
"...Lucky Duck is in possession of the nuclear football, seek shelter immediately..."
This is not the Thanksgiving football game I had in mind.
👍 re the likes
Sounds good, Sir!
Likes it is
Like the likes.
I’ve only got (corny) titles for you:
The Big Gobble, or,
Gobbled Up
Turkey - Monster: The NoThanksgiving story. So absurd I love it. Feels like the next song by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f78_Tf4Tdk&ab_channel=FlightlessRecords Here's one they made, about a vulture fighting an evil Ninja.
I think the voting through likes would be a solid solution. You can post all the options yourself and let people vote. Do people have a limit? Like...you're only allowed to vote for three contestants? Or is it vote for as many as you want?
When I was a litthe kid, I spent weekends on my grandparent's ranch. I had to carry a stick everywhere I went because the turkeys had free reign of the property and would attack anything smaller than them.
FYI: Turkeys are damn near indestructible short of lopping their heads off. Birdshot to the body accomplishes nothing and can get you spurred. Have some fun with that info.
Tony wasn't a bad egg. He started out as a fluffy little poult like anyone else, went through that awkward teenage jake phase, then blossomed into a gorgeous gobbler. He was devoted to his family, both human and fowl--until one unforgettable November day when his father was murdered before his very eyes. Young Tony could do nothing but watch in horror while his humans chopped off his pops' head, ripped out his feathers, tore out his guts, stuffed bread up his asshole, roasted his carcass, and feasted on his flesh. His mother was...oddly indifferent, actually. But Tony was devastated and vowed revenge. He turned to a life of petty crime, but nothing could quell his lust for vengeance. That is, until he hatched the perfect plan. He infiltrated the farm from which the President of the United States was known to choose the annual Thanksgiving turkey. Tony hoped the rumors were true: that this was a ruse and that the chosen turkey would be pardoned for any crimes committed.
It took a few Thanksgivings, but Tony was patient. He bided his time until the day came that he was the chosen bird. As luck would have it, the new President was down in the polls and needed a win. So the President decided to make an especially big show of the turkey pardon, performing the ceremony during halftime of the Thanksgiving Day college bowl game. Tony would have loved nothing more than to murder the President on live television, but sadly, his lack of opposable thumbs prevented anything so dramatic. But what Tony did have was a glorious wattle. And he was ready. He had spent the last three years learning hypnosis. When the day came for his on-screen pardon, Tony used his wattle to hypnotize the entire TV audience. That day, every American family who had been watching that bowl game slaughtered, disemboweled, basted, roasted, and feasted on the smallest child in their family. Including the President, whose plump little grandson made a charming and delicious centerpiece for the state dinner of dignitaries and assorted world leaders.
Thus began a new divide in the American political consciousness. Half the country was appalled and cried for the President's impeachment or worse. The other half rallied behind him, proclaiming that this was the most delicious Thanksgiving feast they had ever had. As for Tony, he met a lovely hen and went on to raise a delightful family of children and grandchildren. Every one of them trained in the art of hypnosis.
Voting with "likes" makes sense to me. Thanks for the prompt. Gobble, gobble, gobble......
-Mr President, please, we need to reconsider, we’re facing impeachment. This turkey needs to be brought to justice. Chief of staff Henry was begging with tears in his eyes.
-Nope. Can’t do. No.
-But, forgive my curiosity am I allowed to know why?! I mean why?
-You are allowed. Ready to hear it? I’ll give you the reason and once I do, there’s no unhearing it. Still interested?
-Yes, Mr President. It affects the entire country, we’re facing riots, protests and whatnot.
-There it is then. And remember you asked for it.
Put it down. In your notebook: “I asked for it.”
-Done.
-Here it is:
Fun fact: a bird dies after having sex with a human.
Fun fact the second: I like turkeys.
-What do you mean Mr President? Chief of staff starts sweating.
-I mean sex.
-But…
-No but, Henry. Birds. I engaged in a sexual activity, see, I’m trying to elevate my way of communicating the facts, with a certain turkey’s mother and you know with all the surveillance in modern farms I got filmed. Turkey criminal momma’s boy here has the film. More details needed? I don’t think so.
Henry’s eyes got bigger and then smaller and then bigger and then smaller for 56 times.
-Process it, Henry and turkey lives.
-I see, Mr President. I see. Eyes bigger.
Is this something we write out in the comments or link in the comments via your own SubStack?
This makes me think of the Bone Chiller's Episode: Frankenturkey. Anyone else grow up watching VHS tapes of that show over and over?
The Nightmare Before Thanksturkey (eidted: forgot to add my clock and object transformations. Face-palm! 630 Words)
.
I’ve got food on the table, so you’ll forgive me for being brief here. The only thing I like served cold is a dish of revenge.
.
So—people didn’t want the President of the United States to pardon me. Not sure what they’re so upset about? All their arguments use false forms of argumentation. Illogical. Not valid. Most use arguments from emotion. I feel this way, so the world should be that way. Nutty. Giant children. Sort of like those nested Russian Dolls. There’s one big over-arching feely-feel emotion that cloaks the next smaller emotion, then the next. The more you try to satisfy one feeling, there’s another—then the next. You never get to the truth. But those arguments from emotion are used all the time. Great tool for herding humans, but not herding turkeys.
.
In spite of my being the official White House turkey this year—I didn’t choose to be born into this nightmare. The only thing they can accuse me of is breaking out of an egg. No obligation on my part to be moral. Didn’t choose any of this. Just look at what they’ve been doing for decades. They’ve been slaughtering millions of us each year—even kill their own. But if we take a handful of theirs? For. Get. It. They lose their shit.
.
Think about it. At the very least...these people are hypocritical psychopaths running the country. And this year—after everything we’ve been through—it seems to make sense for these whack-jobs to finally get a taste of their own malfeasance. Bet you weren’t expecting a turkey know what malfeasance meant? Here’s another word for you. Turducken. You know what turducken is? Some of you psychopaths, this is what you do. You decapitate a hen, rip off her feathers, pull out her guts, bones and toss it all into a garbage can. You shove her into a duck. Yes. A duck that’s had his or her head chopped-off, feathers removed—innards scraped out and de-boned. Now that those two birds are nested inside each other you shove them up into one of us: a headless, featherless, gutted, boneless turkey. A chicken inside a duck inside a turkey. Turducken. If that’s not bad enough we all get cooked in an oven for four hours at 375 degrees fahrenheit. Insane.
.
So, how does a presidentially pardoned turkey like me honor our dead? Honor our brothers and sisters who’ve been slaughtered? Here’s my recipe. On Thanksgiving Eve a headless and gutted mayor gets deboned. The mayor gets stuffed into a headless, gutted, boneless governor who gets stuffed into a headless-gutted-boneless senator. Set the oven to 375 and bake for eight hours. Maygovtor. Good name. Baked Maygovtor. Get together with my peeps and we eat.
.
And you people in the main-stream-media? You know—corporate news—you’re no better. You’re the propaganda wing for these exterminators. You paint me as a menace to society. Seen your headlines: Serial Psycho-Turkey; the Foul Fowl; Barnyard Bates; the Feared Pheasant, the Cold Cut Killer, Turkey Terminator. Terminator? Compared to who? Compared to the mountains of bodies left behind by the people in the White House and their cronies? Call me a Serial Psycho-Turkey? Compared to what? Compared to two the hundred and forty-million turkeys killed each year? You all need to sharpen your math skills and readjust yourselves. Because what I did to three people? That. Ain’t. Nuthin’ compared to what you've been doing to turkeys. Compared to what you've been doing to your own citizens. That’s a word called democide.
.
Now. If you’ll excuse me. I’d like to get back to my meal. Don‘t like my holiday meat served cold.
.
Click or copy this link for the Ai-generated image that goes with this story:
[https://steveconway.substack.com/p/the-nightmare-before-thanksturkey]
"The president is dead."
The words rattle around my skull like crusty old jelly beans.
"The president is dead."
I down my fifth or sixth shot of scotch. It does nothing to ease the migraine forming at my temples.
"The president is dead."
Screw the glass, I swig straight from the bottle this time. It's been twelve days since the pardon, and they already got to him. Those damned fowl beasts.
At first it was like any other Thanksgiving. All of America, or at least the part of America who still cared about such stupid traditions, tuned in to watch as the president pardoned this year's turkey, aptly named Lucky Duck. This time though, instead of gobbling off to peck worms outta the white house lawn, the damned thing pounced on the first lady and claimed her left eye as a prize before kicking and scratching his way to true freedom away from the chaos of the crowd and away from me, the farmer who raised him.
I stare blearily at the radio that had delivered the news as I let out a belch that tastes like bile and stale corn-nuts. It's smashed to pieces, no chance at repair. I probably shouldn't have done that. But I also probably shouldn't be drinking, holed up in this empty bar, hiding from the mobs. I need to keep my wits about me if I'm going to survive this.
Once Lucky Duck escaped he wasted no time sewing chaos all over the city. Wherever he went, nearby birds rallied behind him, any humans around became bloody, pulpy, pecked up piles of goo. The bird revolution spread quickly across the country. Instead of taking action, we humans took to the internet, arguing about whose fault it was. I quickly became a scapegoat and a pariah.
The remote nature of my farm kept me safe until day three, after Lucky Duck broke into the zoo.
I was halfway through a silent breakfast of cold oatmeal next to my cold wife - she blamed me too, of course - when the front door crashed open and there he was. I hardly recognized him, stained red with blood, perched atop an equally bloody Emu, fire in his eyes and a swarm of lorikeets forming a rainbow cloud around him.
The clink of my wife's spoon hitting her bowl interrupted our staring contest. Her chair's screech against the floor grated my eardrums as she rose from the table and shuffled over to a second emu at the right of my bird, gracefully mounting it like a horse. She glared down her bifocals at me before leaning over to Lucky Duck and giving him a soft peck on the cheek.
They left me there, without so much as a scratch, to ponder, dazed, at how I had missed such a glaring affair. My prized bird and my prized bird, together. Dammit Margaret.
I throw the empty bottle across the room and it crashes against the wall. My regret is instantaneous as I hear a distant, "What was that?"
I scramble to my feet and immediately stumble back to the floor. Damn these scotch legs. I get back up but it's too late.
"Please," I plead with the grubby face that has appeared in the bar. I smell his sweat mixing with the blood on the deep scratches on his face. I search his eyes for any ounce of mercy, any compassion tucked away in his tear ducts. I bring a shaking finger up to my lips in a silent shush.
The corners of his mouth turn up in an ominous grin. His teeth are the same shade of yellow as Lucky Duck's corn feed.
"He's in here," the bastard yells. Soon, a mob of scratched up survivors of the birdpocalypse funnel in and surround me. I lay on the floor taking hit after hit, thankful at least for the scotch to dull some of the blows. Someone must be carrying a radio; between hits I catch little bits of the emergency broadcast.
A pool cue cracks against my arm.
"...Pentagon has been breached..."
A steel toe boot dents my stomach.
"...death toll rising, defense secretary is down..."
An enterprising young woman in a torn up business suit gets a good crack at my head with a glass bottle. Vodka stings as it trickles through the cuts in my face.
The last thing I hear as I black out is that damned emergency announcer.
"...Lucky Duck is in possession of the nuclear football, seek shelter immediately..."
This is not the Thanksgiving football game I had in mind.