Electrohick

This is my entry to Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 4/17/09

"Electrohick"
by snowdog

Dear Cousin Jimmy,

Just two weeks ago, I'd have not thought it was possible, but I'm now convinced that I have a superpower. Yes, I know what you're thinking, but hear me out. Over the last several days, I've developed the ability to send electrical impulses through the air. The voltage isn't enough that a human being or a dog would be shocked or injured. Indeed, most folks would never even feel the slightest tingle. Electronic devices, on the other hand, well, few can escape me unaffected.

What is the origin of my superpower? Fair question, sir. You know that water tower in the center of town? Late one night, I was climbing it with a can of spraypaint in my waistband. Joe's sister had spread a rumor about me around town and I'd decided to return the favor. What I hadn't noticed was that storm clouds had been building to the West all afternoon. It wouldn't have mattered, though. There was no way I was going to let anyone get away with telling folks I had-- well, we won't go into that.

I made it to the top of the tower and started spraying letters in my prettiest handwriting: "J-E-N-N-I-F-E-R...I-S... A --" Then there was a bright flash of light. That was the last I remember until I woke up in the hospital. About a week later, on the ride home, I noticed that traffic lights kept turning red every time I got near one. All the way down down Broad Street, there must be ten or twelve of them. Every time my truck got within fifty feet or so, the signal would go yellow. I got pissed and blew through one of them, trying to break the cycle, but it didn't matter. Soon as I got close to the next one, RED.

When I got home, I sat down at my computer to twitter about my experience over the last week, but a pop-up box announced that it suddenly had a "virus". This had never happened before. Fortunately, I was still able to reach my free porn sites, though.

Later, I went to the supermarket for more beer and my superpower struck again! The automatic door didn't detect me right away and I damn nearly ran into it face-first!

I know that I have to keep my superpower a secret. If word were to get out, people would try to hire me to blow up their ex's microwave or sabotage their neighbor's leaf blower. No, it's better that I live out my days as a mild-mannered security guard and do what I can stop crime by night. Let the bad guys try to escape the police while catching every light in town.

I remain an enigma.

Your friend and cousin,
Bobby

P.S. Skynyrd!!! WOOO!

Wanna Be An Idol (Sucking Up To Simon)

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 4/10/09.

"Wanna Be an Idol (Sucking up to Simon)"
by snowdog

The try-outs came into my town one rainy afternoon
No music, only singing in a private little room
All alone, nowhere to hide, I nearly hit the floor
Before the Idol judges, they had gone from three to four

Now I'm sucking up to Simon
And his silly hair
Paula, are you stoned again?
What's with that glassy stare?
Randy, no I'm not a "dawg"
Please don't call me such
But I wanna be an Idol
An American Idol
Wanna be an Idol so much

I got my golden ticket, now it's on to Hollywood
Sang with a bunch of losers, I don't think they understood
I'm in this thing to win it, I don't want to go back home
I'll watch them go down one by one until I'm all alone

So I'm sucking up to Simon
And his snotty attitude
Someone prop up Paula quick
She's been into the 'ludes.
Randy played with Journey, dawg!
His outfit was a rush
But I wanna be an Idol
An American Idol
Wanna be an Idol so much

I made the final twelve or so, my friends and family cheered
Consensus in the web logs called me talented, but weird
'Though millions heard my singing, I'm still standing here alive
You want to see me next week? Then please dial in number five.

For now, I'm sucking up to Simon
That annoying limey git
Paula's up and dancing
In a dress that doesn't fit
Randy says to "check it out",
I think I've had enough
But I wanna be an Idol
An American Idol
Wanna be an Idol so much

(Instrumental)

Spoken:
Oh yeah, I forget. There's a new judge. What was her name, again?


Now I'm sucking up to Simon
That accent and that smirk
Paula's feeling flirty
Keeps touching on that jerk
Randy, no, hey, you're the dawg
Keep that hip-hop stuff
But I wanna be an Idol
An American Idol
Wanna be an Idol so very much

Yeah I wanna be an Idol
An American Idol
Wanna be an Idol so much

Drummer Girl

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 4/3/09

"Drummer Girl"
by snowdog

The stage lights dimmed by three quarters into a deep blue and the spotlight painted a white disk around her as she shifted from the song "It's Never Goodbye" into her last drum solo. The dark sea of people erupted into applause at the first clickety-click notes on the ride cymbal. Slowly, she built on the foundation. A heartbeat thumping from the kick drum, a gradual rumble from the floor tom, then all the lights flared into a catherine wheel of whirling reds and greens as she suddenly spiked the intensity and speed of the performance. Into the verse-chorus breach a final time, she thought.

It wasn't as easy for Karen as it had been during her younger days. Although few fans noticed the minute flaws, she could feel the slight ache in her limbs that was throwing her timing just a little. Richard had noticed, though. And it was his idea to bring the 2002 tour to a close with a farewell show in Paris. Later tonight, the Richard Carpenter Trio would go their separate ways after a career that spanned five decades.

CRASH-CRASH! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! CRASH! BOOM BOOM CRASH!

From their earliest beginnings as a jazz ensemble, through the seventies' soft rock hits and finally, the edgier arena-filling hard rock, the Trio had driven a long and sometimes bumpy road. Karen was certain that they never would have survived past the first few failed singles had producer George Martin not taken an interest in them early on.

It was the classic case of the right sound at the right place at the right time. The year was 1965. Martin had been producing a struggling young British band called the Beatles who simply could not stand to be in the same room with each other for more than ten minutes at a go. Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Pete Best simply were not a good fit. There was talk about removing Lennon as a remedy since his voice was the weakest and his ego the largest, but Martin had reckoned that it would make no difference. Were it not for a string of minor hits, such as "We Won't Work It Out", "Hard Day's Work", and "Please Me Now, Woman", the band would have split long ago.

Richard had met George Martin before a bar gig in New York City. They had struck up a casual conversation over bourbon, neither knowing who the other was. At sixteen, Karen had been too young to be in the bar legally, but no one asked any questions when Richard excused himself and joined her and Wes Jacobs onstage for a rousing set of jazzy covers of popular rock n' roll tunes. Martin had been won over after he heard the first of three original songs in the set list.

Karen had to snap out of her reverie for a moment to concentrate on some tricky hi-speed triplets on the snare and hi-hat. Not bad for an old lady, she smiled to herself.

The eighties had brought a new sound and a new set of problems. A switchover from Soft Rock to New Wave had alienated more than a few of their long time fans, but her well-publicized feud with Chrissy Hynde, contrived though it was, had won them a level of publicity that she had never dared to imagine. Sales of their 1982 album, You Again, doubled that of its predecessor.

Then came the anorexia. What had started as a strong New Year's resolution to control her weight had blossomed into a full-blown eating disorder. It was Martin who noticed her frail appearance and, along with Richard, coerced her into the newly opened Betty Ford Clinic. There was no doubt in Karen's mind that this act of tough love had saved her life.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-A-THUMP-THUMP-SPLASH-SPLASH! CRASH!

In the early nineties, Nirvana had exploded onto the scene and it seemed for a moment that grunge would wipe out everything that had come before it. Indeed, countless New Wave and Hair Metal bands were swept away in a deluge of reheated Punk. It was a hard time for the Trio, but Richard and George reinvented their sound, giving it just enough of an edge to interest a new generation of rockers, but still poppy enough climb the mainstream charts.

It was at New Year's Rockin' Eve 1999 in Times Square that Karen had first begun to feel the stiffness in her joints, although at the time, she had written it off to playing in the freezing night air of NYC. To be safe, she saw her family physician while the band rested in Connecticut. There, she was diagnosed with a mild case of arthritis and told that the condition would worsen over time.

After several days of soul searching and more than a few tears, she decided that Richard was right. To paraphrase Def Leppard, it was better to retire gracefully than to slowly fade away in front of an audience.

BOOM! THUMP-A-BOOM! BOOM! Slowly building snare roll... and... CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

The cheers were deafening. Once again, accompanied by the Trio, she launched into the final chorus "It's Never Goodbye". The lyrics leapt to mind effortlessly and she sang into her headset mike.

You can say farewell if you must
You can use any word you like
You can say it's forever, I promise it's never
It's never goodbye, never goodbye,
Never goodbye

The Kiln

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 2/26/09

"The Kiln"
by snowdog

I bent down for a closer look. It was another of those hard-shelled chewy pieces of brightly colored candy. This one was green. To make sure, I took the pen from my breast pocket and poked at it to reveal the white "S" printed on the under side. This was the second one I had found less than twenty yards from the crime scene. Either some child had been careless or...

Glancing back toward the rowhouse where the body of the woman had been found, in the general direction of the first candy, I drew a mental line outward and started a slow sweep in the direction of where another might lay. Burger wrappers. Condom packet. People in this city are swine.

A child involved in something this heinous? At the back of my mind, I dreaded this trail leading me into a domestic situation. Why do people have to drag law enforcement into family business? In my four years on the street, I had managed to avoid arresting anyone in a spat with relatives. It's a place the law just doesn't belong. These days, of course, cops are required to make an arrest.

As I stepped over a section of sidewalk that had been partially upended, probably by a tree that had long since been removed, I spotted another one. Another green candy lay glistening in the hot sun. That confirmed my suspicion. I flipped through my yellow pad for a blank sheet and started making notes of their locations, using the lines on the paper to make a rough scale approximation of the distances.

This had been one of the more gruesome crime scenes I had witnessed in my time as a detective. Immediately after ducking under the yellow tape, I had begun to notice the red stains: a footprint on the welcome mat, bloody ax on the white sofa, a smear along hallway wall.

The occupant of this middle rowhouse had harbored a number of arcane interests. Strange shapes cast in glossy ceramic lined the shelves and bookcase. I didn't recognize any of them--fertility gods perhaps. All of them were vaguely human-shaped creatures with grotesquely distorted parts. One had arms that bent backward and wrapped twice around a helpless female victim. Another had hands on the end of its legs. A third had huge, frightening eyes.

Presently, another candy lay at my feet. This one was red.

After updating my pad, I glanced around the street, a nervous habit formed in my early years. No one gave me a second glance; in fact, there few people about at all. I picked up my pace a bit, confident that I knew where to find the next candy. And there it was. Purple.

Now I stood on the corner of a busy intersection. The light had southbound traffic backed up as far as I could see along Warren Street. Which way to go? I decided to first try going straight across. Hopefully the child had been careful enough to mark the intersection closely. And, with any luck, the next candy wouldn't have been eaten by one of the many rats that inhabited the homes in this area.

The officers had led me down into the basement of the house where the body had been found. This was the source of the obscene statues: a dimly lit ceramic workshop. More grotesque shapes adorned the shelves in this darkly paneled room in various states of completion. A woman with overly long arms and legs and giant, shark-like teeth sat next to several open jars of paint. A man with octopus tentacles for arms sat half dried, awaiting his turn in the kiln.

The kiln. That was where what was left of the body lay. The woman had been hacked into pieces and left to bake there, probably for the better part of a day. My stomach had churned at the odor of cooked flesh.

After walking fifty yards along the street, I had spotted no more candies, so I turned and backtracked to the intersection, crossed the street again and headed South, with traffic. Store fronts lined Warren Street beckoning passersby inside with carefully displayed wares, protected by wrought iron bars. There it was. Another yellow one wedged into a crack in the walk.

I noted the location and picked up my pace again. A purple one. A green one. Another green. Then no more. I strolled back to the last candy and found myself beneath the awning of a doughnut shop. Through the window, a policeman chatted with the cute female clerk, either unaware or uncaring about perpetuating a stereotype.

A staircase to the right of the shop led up toward the second floor of the building and a sign in the window offered an apartment for rent. It seemed like a long shot, but I decided to check it out. Halfway up the stairs, I noticed a red piece of paper, as if someone had torn open a candy wrapper. I had stumbled into the right place.

On the landing at the top, I found a black door with three flower pots, all containing dead plants. Just as I was about to knock, the door flung open violently and a thin man stormed out.

"Forget it, Jeanne!" he shouted back into the apartment, pulling on a ragged baseball cap. "I'm not gonna do it again! You deal with them!" He turned to leave and was startled to notice me standing there. After a moment he shook his head in resignation. "Have at her," he said and took the steps down two at a time.

My first impulse was to stop him and ask some questions, but that was preempted by the sound of a child screaming inside. I drew my pistol and banged on the door.

"Open up! It's the police!" I shouted. No answer. The door was unlocked, so I invited myself inside.

The kitchen was tidy, but spartan, sporting only a bare dining table and four chairs. Pistol in front of me, I made my way to the right, into a hallway.

"Police!" I shouted, checking the bedroom to my left. Empty. A tall, middle-aged peroxide blonde woman appeared at the end of the hall.

"Police?" she rasped, "Oh, Jesus, that's just what I need." She took a long draw from a cigarette, stared at me for a moment, then turned away and walked back into the living room.

"Ma'am, I need you come back here."

"No," she shouted, "You come here."

Cautiously, I followed her into the living room. She stood with her hands on her hips and nodded toward a pretty teenage girl who was curled up defensively on the sofa.

"I'm sorry," the girl said. "I didn't mean to scream."

She appeared to be about fifteen or so. I dropped the pistol to my side. "Then why did you?"

She looked hesitantly at her mother.

"Because she doesn't want to be sent away again," the older woman answered impatiently and then blew out a billowing cloud of cigarette smoke.

"You sent her away?"

She motioned around the apartment. "Look around! Do you see any food in here? In this economy, we're lucky to keep ourselves alive, much less two children."

"Two?" For the first time, I noticed a small boy hiding behind the arm of the sofa. I waved. "Hi kid." Then on a hunch, I asked, "Where did you get the candy?"

"I stole it," the girl said, now scowling at me slightly.

"Okay, why don't you tell me what happened, honey. No one's going to hurt you."

She sighed and glanced at her mother again. Then she focused on my eyes and pointed.

"My mother made her boyfriend take us out into the city, trying to get us lost. He..." she paused for a moment and wiped away a tear. "He got into a car with another man and left us on the street!"

"He left you?" I looked at the mother.

She just shook her head. "He was supposed to take them to a shelter. At least they could get food there!"

The girl glared at the woman and continued. "Jared left a trail of candies, but on the way back, we smelled cookies coming out this rowhouse... gingerbread. They smelled so good and we were so hungry. I knocked on the door. This woman answered and invited us in!"

Completely mesmerized, I sat down in on the edge of a rickety coffee table and looked in eyes. "And she gave you the cookies?"

The girl nodded. "But they made us sleepy. She made us go downstairs with her. Then she..." Tears welled up in her eyes again.

"What did she do, honey?" I asked, images of the grotesque statues filling my head again.

"She said she was going to eat us!"

The room was silent for several seconds.

"I know!" she sobbed "I know you don't believe me! But she tried to put Joshua into this big oven she had in the basement! I had trouble standing from the drugs, but I found an old ax behind the wood stove!" With that, she buried her face in her hands and wailed.

I stood and pulled the cell phone from my belt. The mother looked at me suspiciously.

"Who are you calling."

"Someone I swore I'd never call, ma'am." After a couple of rings, a woman's voice answered. "Hi Susan, get me Child Protection Services, please."

Return To Glastonbury

This is my entry to Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 1/15/09

Return to Glastonbury
by snowdog

This is it, I'm dying. Three of my six legs are broken, my wings are useless and worst of all, the stinger from one of those Killers protrudes from my abdomen, filling my system with toxin. I can only lie here on my back and listen to the buzzing in my head.

The coming of the Africanized Killers was foretold in the Wax Prophesies which date back to our beginnings on the European continent. Their arrival was to be a sign that we should follow the ancient ley lines back to Gastonbury Tor, to alight on the edge of the Holy Grail and to taste of the Healing Wine. Glastonbury is the place where the First Queen took flight. It's our destiny to be renewed there before we return to our toil which men find so useful.

I laugh bitterly as I recall the first time I heard the term Colony Collapse Disorder, as if we were being killed off by pesticides or that great hoax called Global Warming--heck, I wish it were warmer! The flowering season would be extended, our pollen collection would-- well, that's not important now. Time is short. The toxins must be affecting my brain.

No, it's not Colony Collapse Disorder. It's war! The humans don't seem to notice that aerial combat surrounds them, although to be fair, much of it happens at higher altitudes, just above the trees. That is most dangerous place to be a bee.

I remember the day the killers arrived. I was making a meal of some particularly nice Begonias, sipping the sweet nectar and getting that sticky yellow stuff all over my legs. It was so warm that afternoon, I began lingering inside each flower and fanning my wings to cool down before leaping into the air again to move on to the next bloom. It's strange how you don't know how great life is until it changes.

As I flew between the carefully spaced plants, a worker named Tzue fell past me to the ground. I buzzed down next to her to see what was amiss, but she had already gone silent and still. Then I heard the ungodly noise overhead. There were only three Killers, but I could only watch in horror as they latched on to another of my fellows in mid-air and drop him into the damp mulch. Jeek brought one of the buggers down with him, though, as the stinger failed to disengage.

I jumped into the air above the garden and moved as inconspicuosly as I could, ducking behind leaves and fence posts until I was out of their sight. Then I made a beeline for the hive, ignoring the countless pink blossoms below me. The Queen would know what do to. I had only get past the guards.

It took some time and lot of phermone, but I convinced them of the danger and the four of them escorted me into the Royal Chamber. It took me several minutes to describe what was going on and to relay the deaths of Tzue and Jeek. She listened and wiggled her antennae in that way the does when she's agitated. She called her guards and had two of them escort me to the South Garden, where I had seen them.

The two remaining Killers engaged the guards. It was a good fight, but when the guards had fallen one Killer still remained. It was an act of war our colony as was foreseen a thousand years ago.

Again, staying low to expose myself as little as possible, I made it back to the hive to relay the news to my highness. I was right. She knew just what to do. Within the hour, she had named a list of fifty-two workers, myself included, to seek the ley lines that would return us to Glastonbury Tor. I worried for her, but I could see in her multi-faceted eyes that she had already sacrificed her life for the colony. It was all done but the deed itself.

It was up to Irne's sense of the lines--a hatchling skill only few of us possess--to get us going in the right direction. I knew that other colonies would soon be sending their own swarmquests, if they hadn't already. It was possible that our brothers and sisters in Europe had already been wise to the Killers and were sipping from the Grail even as we departed. Presumably, only a single pair of workers need drink to fulfill the prophesy, one male and one female, but we couldn't take the chance.

We were ambushed somewhere near the west coast, just as we were going to make that Northward turn toward what the humans like to call Alaska. I tell you there were three thousand Killers if there was one. We fought valiantly for our colony and for our all honeybeedom, but in the end, we were lost. Finally, one of the Killers wrapped his forward legs around me and buried his stinger straight through my belly.

I can feel the toxins clouding my mind now. My vision has gone blurry and purple, like looking at the sun from the inside of a Wysteria bloom on a windy day. I think of my Queen and her many children. May one of us reach Glastonbury Tor and bring Renewal...

Workin' Them Angels Overtime

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 12/26/08

Workin' Them Angels Overtime
by snowdog

Herald slid his time card into the machine and was finally able to relax a bit when the kachunk! pronounced him off-duty. He glanced at the stamp on the card: JAN 1 1998 0300.

"Hey, you're blocking the line!" A finger poked him hard on the neck.

Herald glanced behind. A towering bearded angel stood close, grinning mischieviously as he continued to poke him with a thick finger. He stood at least six-foot-five with a broad strudy build. His sword was slung over his right shoulder, protruding down between his wings and back.

"Hi, Joshua," Herald said, letting out a sigh as he picked up his own sword and duffle bag.

"What's wrong, dude?" Joshua asked. He stepped forward and punched his own time card. "You look like you got them guardian angel blues." He held the card close to his face and silently mouthed the date and time to himself, as if memorizing.

"I don't know, man. Well, it's snowdog."

Joshua slid the card into the wall-mounted rack and motioned for Herald to lead the way to the lockers. "You're having trouble with snowdog? Didn't you brag a few years back about how easy he was to take care of?"

"Yes, well, that was before..."

"Before..." Joshua prompted.

Herald shook his head and sighed again. "He doesn't believe in us anymore. And since that happened, he's become..," he struggled for the word, "reckless, taking more chances with his life than ever. I think the irony escapes him."

Folding his wings back, Joshua sat on a wooden bench in front of his locker and set about removing his sneakers. "Sounds serious," he said tossing the left shoe behind him. "I'm guessing he partied in the New Year last night?"

Herald nodded. "You could say that."

"Details, Harry. I need details!"

"He started right after work. His boss always gets a ride home with him, but this time they bought a keg and talked a bunch of co-workers into meeting them out in a dark field, just outside of town."

Joshua snorted and tossed the right sneaker over his shoulder. "Eh, so he pounded a few beers. You outta see my guy."

Herald gave an sarcastic laugh and continued. "No, not a few beers. A lot of beer. I quit counting when he drove that huge boat of a pickup back to the store for another case."

"Out driving, huh. Asking for trouble."

"They all sat drinking for hours, right up until about 11 pm. Then his boss talked him into driving them both to a friend's house for a party. Snowdog was very drunk at this point. On the trip there, his nose kept running, and having no hankerchief, he would wipe it on the back of his hand and wrist as he drove."

"Yuck! Man, even I wouldn't do that."

Herald was lost in the horrible memory now. "When they got to the party, snowdog stretched his hand out to the host and noticed that it was covered with streaks of blood. His nose hadn't been running after all."

"No, man, you're making that up!"

Herald ignored the accusation. "It didn't really matter to anyone. That's when the bottle of rum came out. And this where gaps will start appearing in his memory of the evening, I suspect. Snowdog didn't have a lot of experience with hard liquor up to last night. The party itself was a blur. He'll remember the little kid running around among the wasted adults. He'll remember seeing the Ben Fold's Five video to "Brick"... strange details, but no real events or conversations."

"I'm afraid to ask how he got home." Joshua had all but forgotten about changing clothes.

"Sometime around 2 am, his disbelief attracted some hellhounds. There were four of them, so I had my hands full trying to stop them. While I wasn't looking, he climbed into that huge Dodge Ram and started the thirty minute trek homeward. Fortunately for everyone, he lives out in the woods. There was almost no traffic. Strangely, his motor skills were still partially intact. But he spent some time driving in the oncoming lane, just because he could. And then he switched off his headlights for a while and drove by moonlight. I've never been so scared in my life."

"I can imagine."

"Then he thought about the unattended little boy at the party and started sobbing uncontrollably."

"He what?"

"He cried like a baby the rest of the way home. He'll realize tomorrow that hard booze messes with his head. I'm hoping he'll come to his senses in some other ways."

Joshua shook his head. "That's rough, man. But it's not like you'll ever quit this job. We've worked together for a long time, and you have more years in than I do."

"No, I guess I won't quit. But I'll make damned sure he never does anything like that again."

A Thanksgiving Carol

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 12/04/08

A Thanksgiving Carol
by snowdog

Ok, so I'm walking down the crowded sidewalk along Walnut Street in Center City, Philadelphia. It's Thanksgiving Day, early evening actually. It's just starting to get dark. The smells of the holiday waft to me from the side streets lined with endless row houses. Aside from a brief stint in the country which taught me only that I never wanted to go back, I've spent my entire life here. It's an amazing place and I know every inch of brick and concrete. I've seen every strange person, place or thing the city can throw at a guy.

So you can imagine my startlement when I'm stopped in mid-stride by a gleaming apparition. I might not have been quite as shocked had it been the restless spirit of my grandmother, although that would have certainly arrested my attention. But the translucent image that shimmers ten feet in front of me on the busy walk is that of a turkey. Its outline seems to fade in and out as it shifts from glowing blue to purple and back. Then I notice its face.

This turkey is angry. I don't mean in some primal way, as if I had wandered into its nest. I mean angry with me personally, as if I had just called its chick ugly. It stands in front of me, glaring straight into my eyes with a stern indignation not normally associated with poultry. It's not a pretty sight.

Strangely, no one else seems to notice the bird as they walk around and sometimes even right though it.

"Gobble-Gobble-Gobble?!"

It takes a few purposeful steps to toward me and I have to admit, fear rises in my throat. I stumble backward and duck into an alley way to my left. As I turn to pick up my pace there are two more ahead, both staring me down in smoldering rage.

One by one, more glowing turkeys flicker into existence in the alley, like fluorescent tubes coming to life. I turn to run, but there are at least ten more blocking the exit. I'm trapped!

"What do you want from me?" I shout under their accusatory glare, not quite sure that they can't understand me.

A thought hits me and I make a quick count. Then I do the math in my head. Sure enough. Thirty-two. I'm surrounded by the ghost of every Thanksgiving Day turkey of which I've ever partaken. I put up my hands, and stall, trying to concoct some sort of defense for my behavior. But before I can get a word out of my quivering lips, one of them struts close to me. Though barely as tall as my thigh, he never takes his eyes from mine. He points a wing toward the back of the alley.

"Gobble-gobble!"

I look in the direction he's pointing and see the mass of turkeys part to allow me through.

"No!" I start to protest, "I'm not--" When I turn back, the turkey is still glaring at me and pointing. There is no choice. I swallow and take a few tentative steps toward the dead end at the back of the alley, the proverbial green mile for the condemned man.

As I approach the graffiti-covered concrete block wall, it starts to shimmer in blue. My accuser darts past me and I feel my body follow him. I'm but a passenger now. The blue light surges, filling my senses.

Streets, lights, signs, people, cars... they blur past as I'm pulled along at impossible speeds through Center City, reaching at least thirty-five miles per hour at one point! The sounds merge into one another in a wave of incomprehensible white noise. Left turn... up the stairs... through a wooden door.

Five people are seated around a plain rectangular table in a dark, cramped apartment. The father is saying Grace over the food. There are the usual Thanksgiving trimmings, the potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. But that's not why I've been brought here. At the center of the table sits a steaming, delicious looking turkey. The corpse of...

The ghost bird who brought me here pecks at my leg in anger.

"Hey!" I yelp. "Look!" I gesture toward the small blond boy on the far side of the table. "I was only four! I didn't know what I was eating!"

I watch in horror as my younger self waits until his mom isn't looking, then starts to pass slices of my accuser under the table to the basset hound. I laugh nervously and look back down. Somehow the turkey's stare was even more outraged.

WHOOOSH! I'm back in the alley.

One by one, bird by bird, I'm taken back to visit every single Thanksgiving that involved my consuming the delectable white breast meat, all in chronological order.

There was the time when I was twelve. My mom had refused to take me to see Star Wars for the fifth time, so I screamed in rage and plunged my fork into the turkey meat on my plate again and again. Then I threw it in the trash.

I was eighteen and locked in a shouting match with my dad. I threw turkey at him.

I was twenty-four, during my short stay in the country. Billy and I swilled beer and dropped the turkey head first (well front first) into the fryer. We whooped in delight. Then it caught fire. So did the trailer.

I was twenty-seven. My wife and I were settling into our first apartment in Philly. She watched in horror as I stuffed a chicken inside a duck and then shoved them both inside a turkey! This bird is particularly angry with me.

Finally, I've returned to the alley after seeing my most recent crime against poultry.

Again, one at time, each turkey ghost looks at the first bird that appeared to me and says:

"Gobble."

Somehow, I know that translates as "Guilty."

"Wait!" I shout, and all the stares turn toward me again. "Don't I get to defend myself?"

Then the chant starts. "Gobble! Gobble! Gobble! Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!"

They start closing in on me. Now the apparitions begin to glow an angry red as they back me into the now dark dead end of the alley.

"Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!"

I can't take the accusations anymore! Delicious! They all look so...delicious. Some of them start to recognize that look in my eyes and turn to leave the alley. I make a run at them all and send the entire flock fleeing out onto Walnut Street.

"Come back!" I shout, much to the confusion of oblivious window shoppers.

I pursue the turkey ghosts past the bank. Past Woody's Bar. Past the idiots protesting the sale of Fras Grois. Past the endless scaled down fast food chains that line the busy, but narrow street.

"GOBBLE! GOB GOB!! GOBBB!! GOBBLE!!!"

I'm getting close. I reach up to wipe drool from my face. Then I take a dive at a straggler in the flock, flinging my body headlong, arms stretched as far I can. The turkey vanishes and the sidewalk rushes up to meet my face.

BAM!!!


I'm finally aroused by my sleep apnea. I bolt upright in my recliner and try to catch my breath. As I get my bearings, I glance down at my swollen belly. There lay the crusts of the fifteenth and hopefully last turkey sandwich of the post-Thanksgiving leftovers.