The Chicken Incident

Well, I'm finally finished with a story I've been working on for the past three years. It's probably the longest single thing i've ever written, but it's nothing compared to the Novel an english teacer I had is writing. I also didn't really write in it alot. 

I would like to dedicate the following piece to my uncle, Roger, who passed away in early March. He his greatly missed.

The Chicken Incident

 

            One day, an innocent Chicken named Roger, was eating chicken feed when,

            “Bang! Bang!”

            A Deer came bounding out of the woods at an excess of 40 miles per hour!

            “Bang!” This one hit. The deer skidded into the fence.

            “Crack” The Fence split in two, the Chickens started running away.

            “Bang! Bang!” Five Chickens fell. The farmer was taking out his own Chickens!

            “Moo!” The cows, aroused by the noise coming from the chickens came through the fence, followed by the sheep.                  

            “Bang! Bang! Bang!” The Farmer brought out his two sons, bullets were flying everywhere! Sheep, cows, and chickens were falling!

            “Mooo!” A cow came and landed on its side, right in front of Roger, serving as a bunker. Twenty of the surviving chickens hid behind the overturned cow for cover. They counted out the Casualties. There were 51. Three cows, seven sheep, and one deer, but no animal was hit harder than the chickens, who sustained 40 known casualties. The chickens also figured out that only 10 other chickens had managed to flee the battle alive. The survivors decided to march on the farmer, who was trapped in the Pig Pen.

            “Crack!” The chickens were lobbing eggs at the farmer. But, due to chicken’s lack of thumbs, or fingers for that matter, their aim was horrendous. Just then, Roger watched in horror, as 18 of the surviving chickens were shot off the cow behind him, like some terrible scene from a war movie, the chickens were literally blown backwards off the cow by the force of the Gun. Then Jim, the last chicken besides Roger, was killed instantly buy a cluster of pellets that hit him dead on.

            Now Roger was alone, the last chicken. He started climbing the cow, back to shelter.

            “Bam!”

            An explosion from the farmer’s shot gun hit the cow, sending Roger flying, “Crack”.

            Roger slammed into the shed with enough force to make a human black out, but he was still conscious somehow. He tried to get up, but decided to let the humans think he’d moved on.

            “That was more gruesome than I’d have preferred, but it got the job done, Hahahha! *Cough* *Cough*,” The farmer told his sons manically, “Now let’s get some breakfast”

            So the three savages went inside, and Roger realized that he had to do something. He dug under the Grain Silo and made a nest, and equipped himself with all the necessities to survive. And over those long weeks, he “Hatched” a plan.

***

He began digging tunnels all around the barnyard, and he realized he could tunnel into the woods, and so began his plan of revenge.

            Roger gathered up the surviving chickens, and made an underground village. There was a giant pile of grain, and I giant dish of water, to sustain them for the many weeks that they would be spending underground. They had a pool, a bowling alley, and even a Nest-Ball stadium. Life was good for the Chickens, as they recuperated, and renew their numbers.

***

The time had come. The Chicken’s revenge was imminent. They evacuated six houses along Rooster Ave., and began to dig under one side of the silo.

            After one side of the silo’s foundation was gone, they filled the trench with water, and used the farmer’s car jacks to raise one side up.

            “Hurrah!” The Chickens yelled, the silo was falling.

            Meanwhile, the farmer’s family, unaware of a gas leak, sat down to a breakfast of biscuits and bacon.

            Some pyromaniac chicken set fire to the silo. Then, Roger smelt the gas leak.

            “RUN!!” He shouted over all the commotion, but only a few chickens heard him, and they ran for their lives, the others started to follow, but then,

            “Crack!” The silo burst through the top of the house! Bacon went flying! The biscuits on the oven popped! The farmer said a naughty word! The juice spilled! It was pure chaos! Then, just when things couldn’t get any worse, they did.

            “KAWACKA-THOOM!!”

            The house exploded in an inferno, anyone within 50 yards was instantly fried, the heat wave finished the destruction. The chickens ran for their lives, but they were too slow.

            Roger and the few chickens that survived were caught on the rising updraft, and flew!

            “Don’t forget me!” The lowest chicken yelled as the flames engulfed him. Roger hung his head, he had gotten revenge, but at what cost? He had caused more death and destruction than the farmer had, and many innocent beings perished. He landed on a tree, and fell asleep in the face of overwhelming shame.

            “There is one way you can redeem yourself, young one,” a voice came from behind him.

            “What the…” Roger said as he whirled around, almost losing his balance, and was face to face with a translucent porcupine wearing a hat similar to the one Dr. Suess’s “Cat in the Hat” wore, “How do I redeem myself?”

            “You must collect all seven pieces of the Jade Pizza , your journey will not be an easy one, as each piece will become increasingly harder to find. But, each piece you get will tell you where to get the next one.”

            “Interesting,” Roger said, “Now where’s the first piece?”

            “Right here,” the Porcupine said, as he pulled the piece of pizza form under his hat.

            “Thanks.”

            “I shall meet you again, once you have collected them all,” the porcupine said as he faded away.

            “Wow,” Roger said. Roger flipped the piece of pizza over and saw a link, reading “http://www.ebay.com/”.

***

Three days later, a package arrived, inside, was the second piece.

“Two down, five to go,” Roger said to himself. He flipped that piece over, it said “Take Me to Your Comics, Franklin Tennessee” Roger looked up. He saw a billboard saying, “You are now leaving Franklin, Tennessee”.

“Gah!” Roger said, as he started to run back into town. “Now, where’s that comic shop?”

Roger walked down Main Street for what seemed like forever. Then, he saw a store with a sign reading “Comics” and a UFO on top. “This must be the place.”

Roger walked in, and immediately saw the piece of jade pizza, in a glass case.

“Hello,” Roger said to the man behind the counter.

“What do you want?” The man asked in a slightly agitated tone.

“That piece of pizza behind that glass case,” Roger replied.

“Then I expect you have something of value to give me.”

“All I have is a baseball card of my dad from the week that he was in the MLB,” Roger said, handing him the card.

“Well then, I don’t thi- SWEET MARVEL!! It’s Roger Chickington Sr.!! There were only two of these ever made! And one was burned! Go! Take anything you want!” the owner said, and dropped a pile of comic books in Roger’s wings, and put the piece of pizza on top of the stack.

“Thank you,” Roger said on his way out.

“You might need this,” the owner said as he tossed Roger a backpack.

“Thanks again.”

***

 

Roger read the back of the piece of pizza Astro-Pizza, Los Angeles, California, Roger read. “Where’s that?” Roger looked through his backpack, and sure enough, there was a map of the U.S. He saw Tennessee, and looked for L.A. It was across the country.

“It’s worth a try,” Roger said, “but how will I get there?”

Roger saw a large bus that said Greyhound California.

“That’s convenient,” Roger said as he hopped in the bus’s cargo hold, where he drifted into sleep.

When he woke up, the bus was slowing down.

“Arriving in Beautiful Los Angeles, California!” A voice came from above him. He couldn’t get the door to open, until the bus started up again, and it bounded open. Roger bailed out of the bus, and hit the ground hard. Partially dazed, he got up.

“Can we go to Astro-Pizza Mommy? Please?”

“Okay, okay, we can go.”

“And there’s my ride,” Roger followed the child and their parent to their station wagon and hopped on the spare tire.

When they arrived at Astro-Pizza, Roger got an idea, and hid under a popcorn bucket and snuck inside, on his way he ran into a soda cup, also moving on its own. He absentmindedly went to the arcade, then he saw it. In the most dimly lit corner, he saw an old claw game machine with an “Out of Order” sign on it. Inside, he saw the piece of pizza. He went over, unnoticed, and wondered how he would get to the pizza. He poked his head inside the prize chute, and noticed that they could easily climb up it.

Roger started climbing up the chute. When he got to the top, he ran to the pizza, and picked it up.

“Yeah, the boss said to trash it, it’s broken beyond repair,” Roger heard a voice say.

“Uh-Oh,” Roger put the piece of pizza in his backpack and started digging down through the prizes,  until he was sure that no one would see him.

“Crash!” Roger heard glass shatter. He crawled up through the stuffed animals and broken glass, and found himself on a barge full of trash.

“Well then,” Roger said to himself as he sat on top of the broken claw game. He flipped the most recent piece of pizza over and read The Pizzeria N 32^nd St, Ny, Ny. Roger looked at the map, NY was across the country from where he was. He put his head in his wings in despair. There was no way he could get there.

“Need some help my fine feathered friend?” Roger turned around, and was face to face with a Polar Bear.

“Um, yeah. I kind of have to get to New York, can you help me?”

“You bet I can! I can get us there in a week, just stick with ol’ Carl here and you’ll do fine.”

“Let’s go!” Roger hopped on Carl’s wide back, as Carl started swimming

About two days later, Roger began to feel cold. “Brrrr….”

“Oh, I forgot to mention the cold, we’re going to be going through Canadian waters. It’ll get really cold, you’ll need this.” Carl procured a small poofy jacket and tossed it to Roger. “I know people,” Carl said as if to answer Roger’s unspoken question.

Roger spent the next few days talking to Carl. He found out that Carl had been banished from the Artic Waters and had swum down to California, where he met Roger. He had been living by following garbage barges and sneaking food off them.

They were going around the southern coast of Greenland, when a pod of Killer Whales surrounded them.

“Roger, see that iceberg over there? Stay on it.”

“But-,” The next thing Roger knew, he was flying through the air, and landed on the iceberg with a thud.

***

Roger saw Lady Liberty. He was here, New York City. He soon found the 32^nd St Pizzeria. There it was, the piece of jade pizza. Underneath it was a sign 100,000^th Customer!! And right beside it was another sign reading 99,993. It changed to 99,994. Roger realized that he had to get to the front of the line, fast.

Being a chicken, he sprinted to the front of the line unnoticed. 99,995, 6, 7. Wait! He was too far up! He slid behind someone. 99,999. He made it!

“Customer 100,000!! What would you like?”

“Uhh,” the thought that he actually had to buy something, “Um, can I have a straw?”

“Sure, that’ll be 2 cents.” Roger reached into the “Take a Penny” box, and paid the cashier. “Okay, here’s your pizza slice, and your straw.”

“Thanks,” Roger flipped over the pizza slice, National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC. “Man!”

 

***

By chance, one of the senators from New York had recently been to the Big Apple to see his family, and was returning to work, so Roger jumped into his luggage. On the trip, Roger roughly estimated the miles, and jumped out of the cargo hold , into 5 acres of some of America’s most secure soil, the park inside the Pentagon.

“Now, how do I get out?” Roger asked himself.

In the end, he decided to just try to find his way through the maze that the largest office building in the world provided

Roger went past many offices, and somewhere along the way, he stumbled down a wrong staircase. At the bottom, he found a purple brick, probably previously used as a doorstep, he absentmindedly picked it up, thinking that it might come in handy sometime.

This small action triggered the alarms for the entire building.

All at once, a hundred or so guards surrounded Roger.

“Tarnation,” said Roger. He ran.

A hail of bullets opened up on Roger, but none of them hit him. Roger threw the brick into his backpack and continued running.

Roger darted to the first door that presented itself, and ran up the stairs inside, to a helipad.

“Whatever.”

Roger jumped into the waiting helicopter, and took off. He flew away from the Pentagon, and managed to lose the guards.

He lost control of his helicopter around the Tidal Basin, and struggled to keep it in the air. A voice came out from his radio, “You do not have the authorization to enter this airspace. We request that you leave, or we’ll be forced to retaliate.”

“Crap.”

Now, Roger is struggling to keep his helicopter in the air, as well as avoid retaliatory strikes. *FWOOOSH!!* A Stinger rocket went right past the tail rotor of his helicopter. *FWOOSH!* *FWOOSH!* Two more, he couldn’t rely on luck forever. *CRASH!!* Roger looked around, the tail of his helicopter was missing, as a formation of F-4’s flew above. The helicopter spiraled to the ground as fuel spewed out the back.

Roger dove out of the doomed helicopter instants before it crashed into the Washington Monument.

Using the momentary distraction, Roger pushed through the tide of people coming out of the Natural History Museum, but couldn’t get in, and decided to wait until nightfall.

Using high strength Parachute Cord, Roger silently lowered himself down into the Museum. Moving into the Hope Diamond exhibit.

Having seen the movies, Roger expected to see laser tripwires guarding the Diamond. Interestingly enough, his helicopter crash must have shaken vital parts out of the delicate laser assembly.

Roger walked over to the Hope Diamond case, and, being a bird, was momentarily stunned by the shininess. He removed the case, and picked it up. The pedestal it was on collapsed and a trap door lay underneath.

Roger opened the trapdoor, but, having heard the legends about the Hope Diamond, he carefully put it back.

Roger jumped in the tunnel, not knowing what to expect.

Walking down the tunnel, Roger saw many oddities. He saw a jar wit the label “Hitler’s Brain: If found, return to the USSR”. He saw the FBI files on Al Capone, and The Apollo 11 file.

Roger saw it, the second to last piece of Jade pizza. Roger ran up and flipped it over. Chernobyl Factory, Siberia.

Roger knew his history, and was outraged. If he tried going to Chernobyl, he would get eaten by radioactive zombies, or just die of radiation poisoning.

Roger threw the piece of pizza against the floor. And it shattered. But not all of it, only an outer layer. It was a fake cover! Roger carefully picked up the actual piece of pizza, and it read Mount Everest, Nepal.

***

Roger arrived in Nepal, and journeyed to the base of the mountains, luckily, he knew how to stay warm after his journey with Carl.

Roger’s journey to the top of the mountain was long and difficult. Dealing with the wind-chill, oxygen starvation, and the fact that one wrong move could mean death.

On the way up, Roger many times almost met an untimely death, multiple times; the climb up Mount Everest is renowned as one of the most treacherous in the world. After almost three weeks, Roger made it to the top of the world, and into the record books. He had been the first chicken to make the ascent, but he wasn’t concerned about that.

Roger searched for the last piece of pizza for the greater part of an hour, until he looked over to the crashed Sputnik. There was a large hole in it. Roger reached inside, and felt it!

Roger thought back to all he’d been through. How much havoc was created, how many friends he’d lost, but now, it was all worth it.

Roger pulled the last piece of pizza out. He flipped it over, and it read: Fin.

Roger was so excited that couldn’t help but shouting out “YES!!”

On the way down, he inadvertently started an avalanche, and found himself in a pocket of snow. “Rats” Roger thought. He put the slices of Pizza together, and the translucent porcupine with a cat in the hat’s hat was back.

“Good job Roger. Your friends can now rest in peace, you have been redeemed.” And just like that, he disappeared.

A great weight was lifted off Roger. He opened up his backpack, and looked inside. He remembered the purple brick, and pulled it out. It read: City Hall, Santiago, Chile. Roger dug out of the snow, and threw the brick off the mountain.

Roger did what anyone in his situation would do; he hunkered down and read some comic books.