Something Good to Eat
by Todd Austin Hunt

Shingles form this roof
Cedar instead of red tile
Benumbs my tired ass

I scoot forward a little bit, to get some circulation back into my rear end. Low hills gather shoulder to shoulder like spectators around the small farm, grass like thick green pelts drunk with summer. Through the constant shower of feathers I can count the clumps and pools of red and purple that stain the hills. Eighteen horses torn by beaks. The chickens are the size of ostriches and they are hungry. I was feeding the hogs at dawn when I heard them coming. Clucks and screeches too big to fit in my head. I’m glad I sent Ruth and Jackie to Dad’s yesterday.

When chickens ate seed
And looked up to my knees
Life was more pleasant.

Where did the chickens come from? I can no longer see the horizon; it’s choked with mutant yardbirds. A yellow Minorca twice as tall as the others juts her way up the drive that leads to the farmhouse I’m sitting on. Wattles hang from her beak like sides of beef in a slaughter-house. None of my birds showed such aggression or appetite for red meat. They would scatter and squawk at the slightest step. All of the little ones got snapped up like Popcorn Chicken. I used to go see movies like this on Saturday afternoons with my brothers. They turned the lights on in the theatre after the monsters died. I’m backing up. Right now, even though Dad wears me out with talk of the Second Coming, I wish I was sitting on his cigar-stinking sofa. Before he preaches, at least he gives me a can of cold Schaefer’s. Listening to stories about end times beats the getout of the experience.

Our beloved Christ
Here to judge humanity
In wake of chickens.

Because of the angle of the roof, and the deep eaves over the front porch, I can’t clearly see what’s going on directly below. I see jolts and blurs of multi-colored tail-feathers. I’m staying right here, though, on the apex. I’m afraid of slipping and rolling into their scuffle. The last of the hogs shrieked a few minutes ago. Maybe that’s what is keeping them from leaping up onto the roof. The Minorca has climbed into the bed of my new Dodge. Her claws scar the hunter-green paint, and my priorities must be skewed, because it really pisses me off. She’s actually staring at me while depositing a vast pile of steaming chickenshit into the pickup. Beak opened in a terrible yawn, the tongue is a giant conch out of its shell. With a squawk that turns my insides into Organ Soup, she pounces forward to my house. The axles of my truck crack. Here she comes. I bring my knees up to my chest and clasp my arms around them. Who wants to be something good to eat?

St. Peter of bliss
Offer me buffalo wings
Get postcards from hell.

The End

Story copyright Todd Austin Hunt, published by the Fortean Bureau
http://www.forteanbureau.com