Held Up

“Don’t take the ‘Express Lane’,” Paul warned. “Last time chickens slowed us down.”

Tim frowned. “Darn slowpokes! Afraid to drive fast, should stay out.”

“Na, I’m talking real chickens,” Paul continued. “Engine trouble. Took a while to get going.”

“What?”

“We was lucky. Truck behind had new barbecues. Behind him, delivery van with bbq sauce.”

Tim listened, keenly interested.

“Get this, they set up on the roadside. Best supper ever.”

“You lucky no cops showed up.”

“Two did. Said ‘twas illegal what we’s doin’.”

“You’s arrested?”

“Nope. After two rounds of chicken, they thanked us. Took off on their bikes.”

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Ripped To Bits By Ghosts

I moved into my workshop, with a gas-ring and pair of chickens in a cage. I needed no assistants. I watched the sky from a hilltop laboratory, harnessing the lightning.

In reality I sleep under the stairs in my friends’ flat. He’s a motorcycle courier, she’s a receptionist. I work where I can, wherever the agency sends me, seven days a week. If I’m ill I rely on her noticing and bringing me soup or something. I have a notebook to record my dreams. Huge flights of geese turn furrows through the red November skies. Worlds can barely contain me.

From Guest Contributor Geoff Sawers

Forever In Sunset

Seamus liked this time of day for visiting Breige. It seemed fitting.

She’d enjoyed sitting outside in her Yorkshire Fiddleback, just under the scullery window, breathing in the satisfied air of a full day’s work done as the chickens clucked down the hours to twilight.

She’d watch the sun set across the farm.

“Hell of an old gal,” Seamus sighed, manoeuvring to stand in the spot, watching his shadow sweep along the cemetery path.

The sun dipped, sending the shade of her headstone growing alongside his until it was shoulder to shoulder.

He reached out, smiling as the shadows embraced.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Cabral

Immediately after he was stripped of his chevrons, Cabral ripped off his shirt, stepped out of his pants, turned, and ran. He hurdled the low stone wall, graceful as he could manage. Moments later, shot at but only nicked on the hip, he lay face down in the coop surrounded by surprised hens and their bolder cocks. He crawled, stopped, caught his breath, inhaled the scent of shavings and other leavings. Not far away he heard the bleating of the small disparate herd. “Why,” he later almost told his captors, “Why didn’t I seek the goats? That’s where I belong.”

From Guest Contributor Clyde Liffey

The Chicken Farmer

The chickens followed him from inside their coop, pacing back and forth. They never took their eyes off him.

He stopped going outside except when entirely necessary. He'd constantly peek through the curtains hoping they'd not notice. They always noticed. They were waiting for him to make a mistake.

Chickens were meant to eat pretty much anything. But his chickens had gotten a taste for grapes. They were sweet. They were also expensive.

He couldn't afford to feed them nothing but grapes, so the chickens had gotten a taste for eyes. Now, they were determined to have his other one.