The Art of the Fowl

The Final Coop d’État 🤍

Well, we gone and damn got a Runner up in Vocal’s ‘Absurdist Challenge’. Warning * They asked for the Absurd. ‘Nuff said.

You can read it here…

https://vocal.media/humor/the-art-of-the-fowl

Or Below:

Chuck yawned in perfect sync with the buffering sun. Another day, another bit of grain. He rolled out of bed. Lethargic, he shuffled to the fridge. Empty. He sighed. The grocery store it was then. He hated shopping more than most things in the world but the recent glitch in the Zon-am algorithm had left orders scrambled again. Bacon replaced by potato chips, cheese with chalk and once, a screwdriver substituting a cucumber.

Chuck was done. He was going to go old school. Well, as old school as he could get these days given the ‘progress’ in retail. Humans had been replaced by personal Re-bots. So advanced in their programming, they would scan each customer on entry calibrating their vitals and such before emitting a basket full of body-patible groceries.

This morning, he wanted eggs. And that was what he was going to eat whether the Rebots liked it or not.

He sauntered into the store with all the confidence of a middle-class white dude mansplaining crypto to a pretty little miss. As usual, The Rebot stopped him on entry, but Chuck was not in the mood. “Not today,” he shouted as he strode right past the machine. The Rebot, unprepared for such an incompatibility ****Error code 138: Free Will Detected****, hurried on to the next consumer. “Vote Apel’sin,” it chimed as it scanned the elderly woman’s retinas. “Down with the ducks.”

The store was oddly serene – Like a spa after the masseurs have vacated for the day. The Rebots zipped seamlessly through the aisles assembling their lists. The fluorescent magenta lighting flickered intermittently. Nothing out of the ordinary really. He turned into the dairy aisle, ahhhh eggs.

He paused.

The price had sky-rocketed. Again. “How?”

The digi-tag sputtered indecisively, teetering $400.99 or $402.49. Chuck scoffed. Ridiculous. They were just eggs for Mendelson’s sake. Just bloody eggs. This whole thing started the moment the second coming of Apel’sin was installed, he pondered. Prices had just kept on escalating – higher and higher. And it wasn’t just eggs either – babushka dolls and caviar. Vodka… and, naturally, commemorative coins from the 1994 Sochi Olympics. All things have a price and a bidder driving them upwards.

A lesser man might have been concerned but Chuck still believed in the system. Of course he did. White. Middle class, it was all designed in his favour, so he simply clucked, adjusted his life- jacket, and kept on walking—confident that everything was finger lickin’ good. Outside, a chicken crossed the road, gawky eyes turning to watch him leave.

On the way home, Chuck listened to the state-regulated Vixen News. Again, Apel’sin was bemoaning the current egg crisis. It wasn’t his fault of course. It started with Colonel Bidet and then of course the pesky ducks. A liberal quack-go, he called it. “The Free-rangeatarian Duck Agenda,” Apel’sin declared with a dramatic flourish, “is a threat to humankind and chickens everywhere!”

The familiar Noddy music tinkled to ease out the program. Chuck rolled his eyes as Stegg Cloocy implored citizens to report any dubious duck activity and urged people to drown them in ponds if necessary. Humanity needed to be protected from the duck agenda. At all costs.

By the time he reached his front door, his nano dev was chirping furiously—eggs had officially reached 1,000% inflation, and apparently, this was big news.

VanGod—the mother of capitalism, now more algorithm than corporation—owned all poultry in the western hemisphere and was deep in price negotiations with Hong Kong, reluctant to let go of its chickens. A long-standing resentment from the TikTok wars lingered—something about ‘homogenizing the Asian.’ But no one remembered the details anymore. Hedge funds were pouring money into backyard coops and watering houses, while McDonald’s had slashed McDuffins from the menu on account of the eggless state.

Meanwhile, Big-Chicka was lobbying for a ban on omelettes in blue states. Things were not looking good.

Chuck was sitting on the sofa contemplating the rise of eggs when the tannoy blared the latest breaking news:

All savings would be converted into egg-quity with immediate effect.

Chuck jumped up, annoyed. He didn’t want to invest in eggs.

He checked his nano dev and saw his bank balance had changed: $0.00. Instead, he had 18 Grade-A Large.

“Holy mother of Putinototis,” he grumbled. “Damn ducks are taking our money.” He composed himself.

“It’ll be fine,” he muttered. “Markets correct themselves. I’ll just wait for the eggs to dip and buy low. Besides, Apel’sin promised. He’s one of us after all. He’ll take care of the little guy in the end.”

He checked his dev again.

Market Update: Analysts Recommend Holding, Not Cracking.

Yes. He was right. It’ll all be fine in the end.

A notification pinged.

‘Your Egg-Quity Account Has Been Approved. Click to View Your Poultry Allocation.’

He hesitated before clicking. His screen filled with numbers. A graph in the corner showed his projected yield. Below it, a message blinked into obscurity:

“Hatch Date: Pending.”

Somewhere in the distance, a rooster crowed.

It all happened so quickly. It didn’t take long for people to start blaming ducks. They weren’t the ones laying the eggs, after all. What were they even doing? Sitting around in ponds, flaunting their amphibious privilege? The outrage was real. The streets descended into mayhem.

Chuck watched the screen as Apel’sin yanked off his head, revealing the visage of an oversized orange rooster.

“You’re fired. Humans. Hash tag. Losers.” The bloated ginger fowl laughed a glottal, clacking, ominous cackle.

It was never about the damn ducks. It had been the chickens all along.

The bloody chickens.

Chuck squawked loudly as a large golden egg emerged from his trousers and plopped onto his sateen sofa.

He was alive stock now. The days of free range were over. He even had the tag on his ankle to prove it. Курица.

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