Naked Lunch

Naked Lunch

They seemed very proud birds - ugly, but proud. With their long necks
protruding from short bodies and the ugly looking sack hanging
underneath their chins. Still they were proud, those necks did stand
tall and they fixed you with a stare that said 'go on - look at me,
what do you see?'
If only they knew what the men did see. They didn't see this fine
specimen standing tall before them, they didn't even see a fine example
of where evolution had seemingly gone hideously wrong. No, they saw a
fine accompaniment to the roast vegetables and a nice bottle of wine
that would be served tomorrow. The two children that accompanied the
men might be poking fun at these ugly creatures now but tomorrow they
would be poking forks into them.
The men approached the creatures slowly, not that there was much room
to move anyway. Then in one, swift movement a sack was snaffled over
the bird's head, down its long delicate neck, enveloping its short,
stout body. The sack was then carefully lifted from the bottom and
swung over a shoulder so that the bird not only suffered the indignity
of being blinded but was also now facing the world with its worst
feature. This didn't last long however as it was bundled into the boot
of the waiting car.
As the car headed down the small dirt road, the bird's little head
rattled around inside until it was practically knocked senseless. By
the time the boot of the car was swung open and the sack roughly hauled
out and off the bird it lay, a crumpled mess of feathers, neck and
beak, prostrate on the ground, blinded from the light and giddy from a
mixture of sucking up the fumes from the car and the pounding its
little head had received on the journey.
The man then slowly wrapped the sleeves of his flannel shirt up his
short, thick forearms and his huge hands enveloped the birds delicate,
spindly neck.
In one swift, short, twist of violence, the bird's neck was torn in two
directions and let out a loud crack that could only be the sound of a
bone snapping in two.
In one slow, graceful movement the bird's head lulled forward. You
could almost see its life leaving it with the sound of the crack and
its body collapsed on the ground. A lifeless, feathered bag of
bones.
Quickly and efficiently the man removed the feathers from its body so
that it looked even more stranger than it had before. If anything it
seemed to resemble a shorn testicle with some strange shaped phallus
protruding from it. That didn't remain for long however as it is dealt
with, with the swift blow of an axe. Blood oozes rather than gushes
from the wound and is caught tidily by the bucket placed there for that
purpose. The blood smells but it is not a repulsive smell, rather a
curious , warm, sweet smell.
Now the man produces a knife and this is put to work slicing into the
naked, white prickly skin to reveal a pink flesh and multi-coloured
gut, These too are dispatched into the bucket and soon the bird is
cleaned and sitting ready for the roasting dish.