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Full disclaimer - this has to be one of the weirdest stories that I have ever written, and I have written a LOT of weird old stories.
Just imagine you walk into a cheesy old greasy spoon diner, the kind that ought to hand out anti-acid along with a napkin, knife and fork.
You ask the waitress for eggs and bacon and she brings you a plate with a live chicken on it. I mean, feathers and beak and the whole bonanza. Just think about a mix of Kafka and O'Henry and you are somewhere close to the mark.
If you want to find out just what comes next, then you ought to pick this story up and give it a read. I guarantee it's cholesterol free.
Go ahead and read this story.
I dare you.
Are you a chicken?
"If Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson and Robert Bloch had a three-way sex romp in a hot tub, and then a team of scientists came in and filtered out the water and mixed the leftover DNA into a test tube, the resulting genetic experiment would most likely grow up into Steve Vernon." - Bookgasm
“If Steve Vernon were a drug, he would DEFINITELY be illegal!” – Some Anonymous Book Reviewer, Most Likely My Cat.
The Last Few Curls of Gut Rope
This is how life falls down around you, sometimes.
One day you are a chicken, and the next day you are nothing but feathers and grease, so where better to end my days, but in a greasy spoon restaurant.
I am sitting on a round restaurant stool, in a diner called The Greasy Onion, turning, turning, and waiting. I have a pistol tucked into the pocket of my rumpled grey business suit. The revolver was a snubnose .38 Special, with a half a dozen steel-jacketed eggs nestled within its compact brutal darkness. I purchased the weapon earlier this morning from a local all-night pawnbroker, after waiting out the mandatory waiting period.
He had tried to sell me a .357 snubnose.
“It has more power,” he assured me. “A .357 cartridge can take down a fully grown bear.”
“I don’t expect to see any wildlife today,” I replied.
“You never know what will happen,” he said, with a wry sort of smile.
I haven’t decided just exactly what I am going to do with this revolver, but somehow or other I intend to say goodbye. It seemed to me that a meal was called for before I made my final decision, which is why I am sitting here thinking breakfast thoughts before I get around to saying my final goodbye.
I stared out the greasy restaurant window at a dark nothing sky. Birds hung upon the clouds like pairs of lonely scissors.
The birds told me nothing at all.
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French
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Already translated.
Translated by DIANE GUILHAUME
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Portuguese
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Already translated.
Translated by Bruna Cristina Lima Nascimento
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Spanish
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Already translated.
Translated by Sara Pacheco
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