Post by Alexandra Bishop on Mar 25, 2016 23:01:27 GMT
The ending to this is really rushed, so if anyone has some suggestions on how to kind of meter it out, I'd be very grateful!
There would have been ticking if it were an analog clock. Each passing second would be accompanied by a satisfying click as time eased away, like an overweight man sliding out of a low-riding car. At the very least, it would have added some drama; nothing like a stuttering minute hand, twisting its way around its axis to set someone’s anxieties on edge. It would most certainly have been more aesthetic than the digital clock that stared dully at me from my center console. Silent mechanisms coaxed the red LED lights into ones and twos and threes, and the minutes languished on and on as my patience thinned like the hair of a middle-aged man’s; rapidly and irreversibly. Eventually it swelled, reaching a mind numbing peak which propelled me into a unique nirvana. A “I’m past giving half a fuck,” state of mind, and the only thought buzzing through my mind was, “Well, this might as well be happening.”
I’d left my house before it was even light out. I spent extra time on my makeup, making sure every eyeliner stroke was in place and my eyebrows were, as the kids were saying nowadays, “on fleek.” I even took the extra effort of matching my socks this morning. I filled my thermos with piping hot coffee and wrapped my scarf around my neck before bundling into my freezing car, the heater of which had been broken since last February. In the time that I had been stranded on that narrow strip of road, the usn had sloughed into the sky and, squatting heavily on the horizon, promised another unimpressive sunrise. The day was turning out to be raw and unpleasant, and while some poet (an early Romantic, no doubt) might find beauty in the overwhelming dullness, I did not. My passions were not focused on the sublimity of nature, but on my rapidly cooling coffee. My mind was not drawn to nature, but to the bed that I had abandoned in favor of a fate changing interview.
My knuckles were white on the steering wheel as I slammed my fist into the horn. The sound rocketed out through the cool November air, bounding over slouched stone walls and alongside steep earthy embankments before, like teeangers with the contents of their parents’ liquor cabinets, disappearing into the woods. Through the trees, barely visible through the density of the branches, a porch light turned on. A few moments later a screen door slammed. As if a bomb had detonated nearby, the turkeys whipped their ugly heads up and snapped their beady little eyes towards the small house. Their snoods trembled with trepidation as they scanned the gray shutters for any sign of danger and, coming to the consensus that there was none, returned to rooting around the road just mere inches from the rusted front bumper of my Toyota. I howled.
“Motherfuckers!”
I punctuated each syllable with a honk, but the perturbed looking birds remained unperturbed. Their gobbling surrounded me, piercing through the glass of my windshield and straight into my weakening soul. That noises would follow me to my deathbed, their gross, lumpy heads would haunt my dreams for an eternity and a half. Perhaps I was already dead and this was my personalized hell.
Of course, I could have turned on the radio and drowned their yammering out. My hand had already tried several times to reach for the dial, but had stalled suddenly the minute my fingertips kissed the serrated knob. Every station that morning had been a perfect carbon copy of the other, each signed in triplicate by some bored bureaucrat somewhere. In between sleepy songs that oozed out of my stereo like spoiled milk, two overly enthusiastic hosts commented gleefully on, what many were dubbing, “The Turkey Takeover.” Or “Turpocalypse.” Safe in their studios, the fates of their careers not in the hands of the ugliest birds to ever evolve from primordial muck, they made turkey pun after pun, played gobbling sound effects at random, and took callers from around the county. The callers, who thought they were even more clever than than the hosts, would hoot and holler about how, “This year, Thanksgiving’s on me!” Cue shotgun sound effects and “yeehaw’s” from our witty hosts. Their mirth was unbearable. I decided the turkeys were the lesser of two evils.
Six months ago, amidst gushings about the perfect little house in the cutest little town, my real estate casually mentioned that the nation’s largest turkey farm was just a short jaunt down the road. “But oh, don’t worry about that,” she’d said, her false lashes flopping, “The farm is far enough away that the noise and smells won’t bother you! The perfect little country retreat!” So, I took her advice and immediately banished that tid bit of information from my mind. As it were, I had more important things to think about, like how to manage my first mortgage, what to do if my septic tank ever backed up, and other homeowner issues that had never cropped up when I’d been a renter. The fact that, at any given moment, there were around 15 million turkeys within walking distance was perhaps one of the least important thing to me. It was like the fact on a Snapple cap. You go, “Huh, that’s interesting,” before letting them accumulate on the coffee table until someone as the sense to toss them out.
So I’d moved in with little fanfare, just around the time that the “eco-assholes” rolled into town. They were a group of terrorists too radical for PETA, or so the tabloids lauded. So, they’d splintered away and set up shop in a small ranch on the opposite side of town. These twenty or so twenty-somethings caused quite the stir with the aging and angry Republican residents and the neurotic suburban housewives., who immediately launched a petition for their immediate removal from the town. Immediately, or so said the official document filed at the town hall, signed in triplicate by a bored bureaucrat. They feared that the youth of the town would be suckered into this “cult,” that they would bring, dear God no, marijuana into their wholesome neighborhoods! Parents unnecessarily warned their children not to accept cups of Kool-Aid from anyone sporting a “meat is murder” T-shirt. In truth, they didn’t bother me at all. The most contact I ever had with them was when I had to shoulder past a few of their protesters to get to and from the supermarket. I could handle their jibes and glares; after an eternity of dealing with catcalls from anonymous men and the prickling paranoia that dogged my every step in the city, a few protesters were nothing.
Never, in my wildest dreams, did I imagine that the farm and the eco-assholes would come together.
I gritted my teeth and took my foot off the brake. The car crept forward a few inches before nudging a turkey. It garbled indignantly for a moment, fluttering its wings as it repositioned itself to petulantly peck at my car. I slammed my foot back down, bringing my cart’s slow advance to a jerky stop before throwing the gearshift into park. It had taken me months to get this interview. I had submitted my resume twice, gotten three references from INSIDE of the company, and even bribed the HR lady with a Dunkin Donuts gift card. And these fucking turkeys were about to ruin it all. I whipped around in my seat, rummaging through the back for anything that might be useful.
The eco-assholes had snuck onto the property under the cloak of night, armed with a bolt cutter, some firecrackers, and an inflated sense of self-importance. With the stealth of a large and recently recommissioned freight train, they cut through the locks of one of the massive coops and began freeing the turkeys from their prisons. By the time the police responded and crashed the operation, around a thousand birds had been liberated. Confused by their sudden freedom, they meandered around in their sawdust enclosures, picking at this and that, perfectly harmless. But the eco-assholes had planned for this. They knew that the turkeys would be so overwhelmed with gratitude that they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. So, while some of the group were scuffling with the police, one of them lit a firecracker and lobbed it into the coop. It went off with a bang and sparked, according to the official police report (signed in triplicate) “a stampede, like that one in the Lion King, only a lot lamer.” Half of the flock attempted to fly into the rafters, but their bodies were too fat and their wings too weak, so they only succeeded in bouncing a few times before retreating to their cages. Only about two hundred made it into the yard and the woods beyond, which, in comparison to 15 million didn’t seem too many. But have you ever had two hundred turkeys take up refuge in your backyard?
A turkey jumped onto the hood of my car and, unable to gain traction, rolled off of it with a squawk.
I swung back around in my seat, having found an old umbrella. I wasn’t entirely sure what I planned on doing with it at that point, but it was something. My first thought was to hook the handle around their necks and pull them off the road, like some strange slapstick comedy show from the early days of television. The irrational and enraged part of me wanted to go Highlander on their asses and see just how many of the fuckers I could take down before they overwhelmed me. With a deep breath, I unlocked my car and stepped out, slamming the door roughly behind me, umbrella in my fist, planning my attack. The turkeys gave me a passing glance. One ventured closer, wondering if I had any food, and I swatted at it with the umbrella. The force caused it to spring open, and the turkeys jumped. Suddenly their attention was on me.
Their eyes said, “Let’s do this,” and I answered the challenge with vigor.
With a whoop, I charged, my high heels clacking against the pavement as I swung the umbrella high up over my head. The turkeys gobbled at me. Some ran, some charged. One got too close, it’s beak perilously close to the sleeve of the silk blouse I had chosen for my interview. I swung the umbrella deftly, whacking the bird across the face. It’s snood flung out in slow motion, and the bird stepped back, dazed. It tried for another peck, but I whacked it again, then whacked another one on my right, then one that had decided I wasn’t worth the effort and was trying to flee towards the woods. Many tried to come after me, but I was unstoppable.
“I don’t want to fail because of someone else’s mistakes!” I cried, swinging the umbrella in a large arc as the turkeys fled from the road. They jumped up over the stone walls and swarmed towards the house in the distance until, at last, I stood huffing and puffing in the road, a fine sweat causing my makeup to run down my face. But I’d won. I laughed, wild and loose, wondering if this is how Spartans felt after winning a great battle. I swung the umbrella over my shoulders, imagining it to be my sword as I turned victoriously to my car. In a few strides, I was beside it. I made to open the door. It was locked. Somewhere in the distance, a turkey gobbled.
There would have been ticking if it were an analog clock. Each passing second would be accompanied by a satisfying click as time eased away, like an overweight man sliding out of a low-riding car. At the very least, it would have added some drama; nothing like a stuttering minute hand, twisting its way around its axis to set someone’s anxieties on edge. It would most certainly have been more aesthetic than the digital clock that stared dully at me from my center console. Silent mechanisms coaxed the red LED lights into ones and twos and threes, and the minutes languished on and on as my patience thinned like the hair of a middle-aged man’s; rapidly and irreversibly. Eventually it swelled, reaching a mind numbing peak which propelled me into a unique nirvana. A “I’m past giving half a fuck,” state of mind, and the only thought buzzing through my mind was, “Well, this might as well be happening.”
I’d left my house before it was even light out. I spent extra time on my makeup, making sure every eyeliner stroke was in place and my eyebrows were, as the kids were saying nowadays, “on fleek.” I even took the extra effort of matching my socks this morning. I filled my thermos with piping hot coffee and wrapped my scarf around my neck before bundling into my freezing car, the heater of which had been broken since last February. In the time that I had been stranded on that narrow strip of road, the usn had sloughed into the sky and, squatting heavily on the horizon, promised another unimpressive sunrise. The day was turning out to be raw and unpleasant, and while some poet (an early Romantic, no doubt) might find beauty in the overwhelming dullness, I did not. My passions were not focused on the sublimity of nature, but on my rapidly cooling coffee. My mind was not drawn to nature, but to the bed that I had abandoned in favor of a fate changing interview.
My knuckles were white on the steering wheel as I slammed my fist into the horn. The sound rocketed out through the cool November air, bounding over slouched stone walls and alongside steep earthy embankments before, like teeangers with the contents of their parents’ liquor cabinets, disappearing into the woods. Through the trees, barely visible through the density of the branches, a porch light turned on. A few moments later a screen door slammed. As if a bomb had detonated nearby, the turkeys whipped their ugly heads up and snapped their beady little eyes towards the small house. Their snoods trembled with trepidation as they scanned the gray shutters for any sign of danger and, coming to the consensus that there was none, returned to rooting around the road just mere inches from the rusted front bumper of my Toyota. I howled.
“Motherfuckers!”
I punctuated each syllable with a honk, but the perturbed looking birds remained unperturbed. Their gobbling surrounded me, piercing through the glass of my windshield and straight into my weakening soul. That noises would follow me to my deathbed, their gross, lumpy heads would haunt my dreams for an eternity and a half. Perhaps I was already dead and this was my personalized hell.
Of course, I could have turned on the radio and drowned their yammering out. My hand had already tried several times to reach for the dial, but had stalled suddenly the minute my fingertips kissed the serrated knob. Every station that morning had been a perfect carbon copy of the other, each signed in triplicate by some bored bureaucrat somewhere. In between sleepy songs that oozed out of my stereo like spoiled milk, two overly enthusiastic hosts commented gleefully on, what many were dubbing, “The Turkey Takeover.” Or “Turpocalypse.” Safe in their studios, the fates of their careers not in the hands of the ugliest birds to ever evolve from primordial muck, they made turkey pun after pun, played gobbling sound effects at random, and took callers from around the county. The callers, who thought they were even more clever than than the hosts, would hoot and holler about how, “This year, Thanksgiving’s on me!” Cue shotgun sound effects and “yeehaw’s” from our witty hosts. Their mirth was unbearable. I decided the turkeys were the lesser of two evils.
Six months ago, amidst gushings about the perfect little house in the cutest little town, my real estate casually mentioned that the nation’s largest turkey farm was just a short jaunt down the road. “But oh, don’t worry about that,” she’d said, her false lashes flopping, “The farm is far enough away that the noise and smells won’t bother you! The perfect little country retreat!” So, I took her advice and immediately banished that tid bit of information from my mind. As it were, I had more important things to think about, like how to manage my first mortgage, what to do if my septic tank ever backed up, and other homeowner issues that had never cropped up when I’d been a renter. The fact that, at any given moment, there were around 15 million turkeys within walking distance was perhaps one of the least important thing to me. It was like the fact on a Snapple cap. You go, “Huh, that’s interesting,” before letting them accumulate on the coffee table until someone as the sense to toss them out.
So I’d moved in with little fanfare, just around the time that the “eco-assholes” rolled into town. They were a group of terrorists too radical for PETA, or so the tabloids lauded. So, they’d splintered away and set up shop in a small ranch on the opposite side of town. These twenty or so twenty-somethings caused quite the stir with the aging and angry Republican residents and the neurotic suburban housewives., who immediately launched a petition for their immediate removal from the town. Immediately, or so said the official document filed at the town hall, signed in triplicate by a bored bureaucrat. They feared that the youth of the town would be suckered into this “cult,” that they would bring, dear God no, marijuana into their wholesome neighborhoods! Parents unnecessarily warned their children not to accept cups of Kool-Aid from anyone sporting a “meat is murder” T-shirt. In truth, they didn’t bother me at all. The most contact I ever had with them was when I had to shoulder past a few of their protesters to get to and from the supermarket. I could handle their jibes and glares; after an eternity of dealing with catcalls from anonymous men and the prickling paranoia that dogged my every step in the city, a few protesters were nothing.
Never, in my wildest dreams, did I imagine that the farm and the eco-assholes would come together.
I gritted my teeth and took my foot off the brake. The car crept forward a few inches before nudging a turkey. It garbled indignantly for a moment, fluttering its wings as it repositioned itself to petulantly peck at my car. I slammed my foot back down, bringing my cart’s slow advance to a jerky stop before throwing the gearshift into park. It had taken me months to get this interview. I had submitted my resume twice, gotten three references from INSIDE of the company, and even bribed the HR lady with a Dunkin Donuts gift card. And these fucking turkeys were about to ruin it all. I whipped around in my seat, rummaging through the back for anything that might be useful.
The eco-assholes had snuck onto the property under the cloak of night, armed with a bolt cutter, some firecrackers, and an inflated sense of self-importance. With the stealth of a large and recently recommissioned freight train, they cut through the locks of one of the massive coops and began freeing the turkeys from their prisons. By the time the police responded and crashed the operation, around a thousand birds had been liberated. Confused by their sudden freedom, they meandered around in their sawdust enclosures, picking at this and that, perfectly harmless. But the eco-assholes had planned for this. They knew that the turkeys would be so overwhelmed with gratitude that they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. So, while some of the group were scuffling with the police, one of them lit a firecracker and lobbed it into the coop. It went off with a bang and sparked, according to the official police report (signed in triplicate) “a stampede, like that one in the Lion King, only a lot lamer.” Half of the flock attempted to fly into the rafters, but their bodies were too fat and their wings too weak, so they only succeeded in bouncing a few times before retreating to their cages. Only about two hundred made it into the yard and the woods beyond, which, in comparison to 15 million didn’t seem too many. But have you ever had two hundred turkeys take up refuge in your backyard?
A turkey jumped onto the hood of my car and, unable to gain traction, rolled off of it with a squawk.
I swung back around in my seat, having found an old umbrella. I wasn’t entirely sure what I planned on doing with it at that point, but it was something. My first thought was to hook the handle around their necks and pull them off the road, like some strange slapstick comedy show from the early days of television. The irrational and enraged part of me wanted to go Highlander on their asses and see just how many of the fuckers I could take down before they overwhelmed me. With a deep breath, I unlocked my car and stepped out, slamming the door roughly behind me, umbrella in my fist, planning my attack. The turkeys gave me a passing glance. One ventured closer, wondering if I had any food, and I swatted at it with the umbrella. The force caused it to spring open, and the turkeys jumped. Suddenly their attention was on me.
Their eyes said, “Let’s do this,” and I answered the challenge with vigor.
With a whoop, I charged, my high heels clacking against the pavement as I swung the umbrella high up over my head. The turkeys gobbled at me. Some ran, some charged. One got too close, it’s beak perilously close to the sleeve of the silk blouse I had chosen for my interview. I swung the umbrella deftly, whacking the bird across the face. It’s snood flung out in slow motion, and the bird stepped back, dazed. It tried for another peck, but I whacked it again, then whacked another one on my right, then one that had decided I wasn’t worth the effort and was trying to flee towards the woods. Many tried to come after me, but I was unstoppable.
“I don’t want to fail because of someone else’s mistakes!” I cried, swinging the umbrella in a large arc as the turkeys fled from the road. They jumped up over the stone walls and swarmed towards the house in the distance until, at last, I stood huffing and puffing in the road, a fine sweat causing my makeup to run down my face. But I’d won. I laughed, wild and loose, wondering if this is how Spartans felt after winning a great battle. I swung the umbrella over my shoulders, imagining it to be my sword as I turned victoriously to my car. In a few strides, I was beside it. I made to open the door. It was locked. Somewhere in the distance, a turkey gobbled.
