Illustrations Omitted from Sections One Through Five

1.

The parrot who pretends to be a chicken does not neglect to talk. Is this a lapse from character?

This chicken is overly self-critical. It perceives feather stubble beneath its plastic when no such stubble exists.

The identically-bearded depressives I sent to my ex-therapist, now boiled and dyed and safe in their carton.

He smashed the eggs all on their crates. With a tiny chrome hammer like this one. And one finger. And one thumb.

Human fingers arranged for flight.

 

2.

How many lumps in this innocent viper?

Stale white bread cut into squares and steeped in urine. Good, sweet butter as big as your fist. A fighter's supper.

Tempered silver fighting spurs passed father to son, hand to bloody hand.

At the fairground, the tic-tac-toe chicken scratches multiples on the sly like a Japanese schoolchild.

A henhouse built on monopiles deep in the ocean floor.

 

3.

Now that we've pruned the farmer's hands, who will caress our feathered buttocks?

The actual hardboiled egg from that urban legend.

The chicken gun. A marvel of engineering, which is a subset of science, to which we turn when we want to understand our world. I am not perverse enough to make this shit up.

So much trouble from a transient swan boner.

Every chicken you ever ate. Just standing and staring.

 

4.

The bully on his huffy seeks revenge. Who egged his girlfriend's tire in a spray of dry salad? Who asked this peach fuzz blonde to kick some ass?

The Devil Bird, La Flèche, hippest of all domesticated evils.

A still from Hitchcock's unfinished film about his fear of hens. Note the laying beds enclosing the protagonist like a hay-strewn amphitheater, the discreet cameo of the Master's nested head.

Yolk stains on a grey lapel.

The chicken and the egg. Coming simultaneously, dear Forum.

 

5.

What is the kosher status of this Muscovy duck?

A correct way to stack chickens. The correct way to stack chickens.

Fidgety hens hatch healthy eggs.

A squab in the hands of a scurvy squab.

A golem of yellow hatchlings strangles its maker with one peeping hand.

 

 

 

Published in Incident Codex from Inpatient Press. The publication is no longer available online.