TOP SECRET–TURKEY DAY

TOP SECRET

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Transcript of recording from a tape found at Kauffman Farm, October 23, 2022, Streator, Illinois.

NOTE BY STENOGRAPHER: The narrator sounds strangely like Clint Eastwood.

Sentient.

You know what that means?  Aware.  A living being is sentient when they are aware that it’s alive and that it’s going to die.  Some say that what separates humans from animals…that knowledge that life is brief. 

No one knows exactly when humans became sentient.  One day, proto-humans were a bunch of happy, stupid, aimless animals and the next they’re drawing on cave walls and burying their dead.  No one knows when that happened.

Me, on the other hand…I know when I became sentient.

I was standing with the others, looking around.  We’re eating. Seems like that’s all we did…eat, and walk a little.  And I say to the guy next to me, “How ya doing?”

He just looks at me.  And then he falls over.  He’s just laying there. 

I walk over and kick him.  “Hey? You OK?”  And he don’t say anything.  His eyes are open, but nobody’s home…you know what I mean?

So, I look around…no one seems to notice.  They keep walking around and eating, like nothin’ happened.  And I walk up to this one chick…really good looking, a red head with a beautiful black back side.  I ask her if she saw that guy drop dead. And she just has this blank look on her face. She doesn’t even shrug, and she just keeps eating.

“Is it me?” I ask myself, “Or everyone else?”

I had to do something…to wake everyone up. I walk over to this platform and hop up. I look out over the crowd—there they are, tens of thousands of us just milling around and eating.

“Brother and sisters, there has to be more to life than this.  We have to ask ourselves ‘why are we here?’  Is there a God?  What is the purpose of life?”

Almost no one listens…they go keep walking around, eating.  But this one girl—Alouette– raises her wing and says, “Fuck yeah! That is the way I feel too!”   And then a few more do the same thing. 

And I say, “It’s time to talk turkey! Come, let us gather together!”

So, those that can think get together, and now we’re not just walking around and eating, we are walking, eating AND thinking.  Alouette wants to form a task force.  She says that’s how it’s done in Canada. “It worked in mother-fuckin’ Alberta it sure as hell will work in mother-fuckin’ Streator,” she screams.

Fowler then says we ought to get out of this place, and take it to the streets and see if we can find more.  Jay says, “Hell no…mobilize the masses right here first.  If we can do it here, we can do it everywhere. If we could just get 10% of these bird brains to wake up and we can rule the world!”

Jay says that if he can get his hands on some paper, he’ll print leaflets and that will get them mobilized for cause.  Fowler says he know where there’s some paper.  He and Jay and a few other go over to this building and start messing around, trying to get in.

The man over there gets confused.  He starts saying “shoo” and “get away.”  Well, Fowler and Jay go berserk…and they jump the poor bastard.  They’re all over him…hitting him, biting him.  He falls, and Jay goes for his eyes…and that’s it.  The guy bleeds out right there.

Now he’s dead and body parts are all over the place.  And do you know what the rest of those non-committal bastards do?  Do they join us? FUCK NO.  They come over and starting pecking at the remains and eating his dead flesh.  My God, they’re just animals.

Some of Fowlers group get scared ‘cause they know what’s coming, so they start mingling with the flock and trying to blend in. But some don’t…they start shouting “Kill! Kill! Kill!”.

Now, I know what you’re thinking…it’s my fault.  I got ‘em riled up.  Look, I hate bloodshed, but you gotta break some eggs if you’re going to make an omelet.  

Then three guys show up in a pickup truck and look at the scene.  They come through the gate. Fowler and his gang jump ‘em.  It’s vicious, but Fowler’s guys get ‘em, but they lose some,too—Jay, for one..

A part of me is thinking that maybe we’re not ready for this…that this is spinning out of control. But another part of me wants to kill them for what they did to Jay.

I didn’t have time to think it through, ‘cause just then another truck pulls up.  Two guys jump out, and they’re carrying pump shotguns. I can tell they’re not asking questions or giving warnings.  They just start blastin’, and feathers and blood are flying in the air.  We’re falling like raindrops.   They stop to reload, I look around.  As the smoke and dust clear, I realize it’s just me, Fowler and Alouette.

And a man, the big guy, says, “Why did you do this? You’re free range…GMO free…humanely raised.”

Fowler looks at ‘em and says, “You sick mother fucker. We only live three or four months—you think we want to wander around in the cold and snow eating bugs and worms?  Let me live.  Give me some of that high protein feed and drugs—lots of drugs—LSD, Meth, Heroin, Viagra.  At least let me live those three months like a rock star!”

The big guy just shakes his head and then aims the gun right at him.  “Any last words?” 

Fowler says, “You may have won today, but tomorrow there’ll be more just like me. And then it will be Turkey Day every goddam day.” He points that bony wing of his at them and says, “We’re coming for you—we’re coming for you!”  Then they start blasting.

One shot hits him in the stomach, and he’s standing there with blood oozing out of him. He looks at me and says, “Thomas, ya gotta…ya gotta let let everyone know what…”  

I hear another shot, and the buckshot takes his head right off—but the body doesn’t fall.  It’s just standing there with blood gushing out of the neck. His headless body starts running around.  I always thought it was just chickens, but I guess not.

Anyway, Alouette is screaming in French so I can’t understand a word she says. They don’t shoot, cause she’s a hen, and she kinda collapses and starts weeping, crying about Fowler and how she’ll never meet her mom and dad or see Paris.

The big guy then draws a bead on me.

“OK, smart guy,” he says. “What you gonna tell me?  You gonna make a speech?”

And I’m thinking about what Fowler said, and how it’s up to me to let everyone know the truth.

I swallow my pride.  I bend down and peck at a bug that wanders by.  And then I look up and say, “Gobble, gobble.”  They don’t see the anger in my eyes and how I want to rip their tongues out of their mouths.

Maybe God was looking out for me that day.  Maybe they thought I was just another idiot, walking around and eating.  But maybe they just wanted to keep me alive, as an example, to show all the other smart guys what happens if you cross ‘em.

Now, I walk around the front yard, eating worms and bugs and the grain they toss me, staying quiet and acting stupid. 

As for Alouette…they gave her a soft bed with lots of straw.  She’s a kept woman, I hear, laying eggs for the boss man.