[Writing] The Turkey Takeover

This is a short story that started out as a joke. It is of course fiction. I wrote it a month before Thanksgiving 2007

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Have you heard the news? I sure have. Yesterday, or the day before, I can't remember. It's been on all the news stations. If you haven't seen it, you will. The turkeys are taking over. According to one anchorman with grey hair, the birds ruffle their feathers in a strange way and raise their turkey tails to hypnotize and command the humans!

According to the same anchorman with grey hair as I recall, he said that the turkeys marched off of their farm after hypnotizing the farmers on the outskirts of Chicago. When no one heard from the farmers, the sheriff came looking in his big white police SUV. When he got there, the turkeys were littering the grounds with their black turkey gravy end trails.

The sheriff couldn't find any of the farmers, because they were all corralled in turkey coupes in the barns. Days before the slaughter. The turkeys knew what was in store for them, because they pass it from generation to generation. Well that is the generations used to lay eggs in the spring. The ones that are spared from the slaughter to lay eggs to get slaughtered in a year.

I'll digress from that. When the sheriff made his way through the innocent looking turkeys scattered all over Mr. McGregor's farm, he discovered them. The farmers all hypnotized in the coups that once held the turkeys. Large heated rooms with chicken wire to keep the turkeys contained.

Before the time the sheriff called for help, he could barely talk. That's when the turkeys ruffled their feathers. They shook their tails and the sheriff was under their command. Under the muffle of his grey mustache, he spoke out, "Yes my masters."

In a daze, the sheriff walked back to his SUV. The SUV wasn't just full of high performance gasoline, it was loaded with turkeys. They had all climbed aboard when the sheriff wasn't looking. They gathered in the back of the SUV; in the passenger seat too and of course on the top of the vehicle to fit nearly one hundred plump birds totaling more than one thousand pounds of poultry.

The vehicle pulled away from the farm with the sheriff at the wheel of the SUV and the turkeys at the wheel of the sheriff's mind. The officer of the law drove back to his rustic town of Grenenwauld, IL. A small town beaten by a century of it's existence. A town with a post office, a grocery store, multiple bars and most importantly the church.

Sunday morning, everyone but the farmers and the sheriff were in the pews of the small church. That is how everyone had taken notice that 10 farmers had been found missing.

As the bells in the tower chimed the end of church, that is when the SUV drove into town, streaming a tail of dust behind it. Shaking and waving from the feathers of the turkeys.

Reporters have been to the town since to see the aftermath of what the turkeys had done, but no one saw them coming. Two by two, the people of Grenenwauld filed through the double doors of the small white church. There they were greeted by the sounds of turkeys and ruffling feathers.

Everyone stepped away from the church and stood in line. No one was immune from the hypnosis that the turkeys used to control those that would eat them in a week.

The plan of the turkeys was in action, and there was no stopping them. The townspeople of Grenenwauld filed into their cars, each of them had a turkey in the passenger seat. Each person opened the door for their new turkey overlord's and was forced to sing a silly theme of "Pork, the other white meat!"

Cars formed a stream that flowed from Grenenwauld on an hour long drive into the metropolitan city you may have heard it. The Americans call it Chicago, but the Native Americans call it "the Stinky Onion."

Businessmen, employees, street performers, bums, and tourists alike all fell under the spell of the ruffled feathers of the turkeys. They were hypnotized, and like Grenenwauld, no one saw it coming. That was only because they were too blinded by their visions of eating turkeys for Thanksgiving, which at that time was only one week away.

The turkeys quickly took control of the Sears Tower and set up their base of operation at the world's tallest office building. That is when the media outlets found out about the reign of the turkeys. The media outlets thought that they were so clever by renaming it "Turkey Tower."

As respected journalists with grey hair, they felt an obligation. A duty to report the news that turkeys had indeed taken over the metropolitan city of Stinky Onion.

No one would have believed them that turkeys had indeed taken rule over the city and renamed it the Stinky Onion. News outlets filmed and reported the turkeys ruffling their feathers. Posing for the cameras and hypnotizing people on the streets, people in office buildings and their ten thousand dollar a month apartments.

But the turkeys weren't posing to the cameras, nor were they oblivious. They were commanding the news men and weather girls. The turkeys were hypnotizing a nation wide audience. Farmers were forced to release their turkeys. That is farmers that had seen the broadcasts on 24 hour news networks.

Broadcast for days were stories of a city ravaged by Toms that sought to live another year. Then came the other broadcasts. Scientists found a way to dehypnotize people. It was only through a series of long and painful injections to the rear end of hypnotized patients.

The first man that was released from the turkey's hypnosis had two things to say. The first thing he said was, "My bum hurts, were all 21 of those shots necessary?" The second thing he had to say was more pertinent; he told the world, "Due to global warming, the turkeys have mutated and adapted with strange powers of hypnosis. Those turkey calls that they do are them communicating with one another. They've got to be stopped! They intend to eat us all for Thanksgiving!"

The scientists then told the man, "Tell us something we don't know!" The man spoke those things as turkeys had the Stinky Onion police department break down the doors of the lab they were in. The turkeys took over the lab and the cameras that were reporting the happy news that a cure was found.

However, the turkeys now had the cure, the scientists and the man that was released from hypnosis.

There were no more news reporters in the USA or Canada left to report the news, they had all been put under the spell of the turkeys. Horny teenagers then began to appear on You Tube with desperate videos calling to anyone that was watching; horny teenagers calling for a revolt against the turkeys. Each new video that made its way to the Internet called for turkey hunters to drop their six packs, pick up their rifles and head into Chicago to hunt for turkeys.

By bus loads and pick up truck full, the hunters arrived on the south side of the Stinky Onion. There they would make their attack. The borders of turkey town were breached and a few Toms were shot dead in the street. Thomas Alan, Thomas Coine, Thomas Peake, Thomas Jonson, Thomas Tomas. These were the people that the turkeys had used as human shields before they made their getaway into the center of the Stinky Onion.

The horny teens had sent those hunters to their doom, because soon the turkeys took control of the armed hunters. Hunters armed with guns they were. However, after knowing the horrors that guns cause, the turkeys ruffled their feathers and commanded the hunters to use their guns to build a jungle gym for children; children that were hypnotized to play on the dangerous metal structure.

With no more grey haired anchors to report the news, the turkeys manipulated camera men to record the news; an address from the new turkey overlord of Stinky Onion. Sure it was all in turkey talk, and only those hypnotized could understand it, but now in hindsight, I realize that it was probably a threat to Santa.

Each and every Thanksgiving there is this little parade that holds Santa at the tail end of it. He brings in the month of December and the good cheer of Christmas. However, this year the turkeys migrated north to meet the jolly fat man in a red suit.

Thousands if not millions of foul mouthed New Yorkers lined the streets to witness the parade. The first few floats amused everyone that witnessed the spectacle, but after the fifth float came the giant turkey float.

Sure the giant turkey was fake, there couldn't possibly be a 30 foot tall turkey could there? Well not a real one at least. There were however hundreds of turkeys on the float, that flapped their wings, bobbed their heads and soon took control of each and every man, woman, child, dog, cat and vagrant peeing on a fire hydrant.

They all chanted under the command of the turkeys, "All hail turkey." Poor Santa didn't know what hit him. Like I said, no one could foresee what was coming. Now no one knows what's coming for Christmas when the turkey have Santa hypnotized like this.