The Middlesex Chicken Murder Mystery
The Place – a quaint village veterinary surgery somewhere amid the grassy knolls of Middlesex.
It’s 9pm, thunder and lightning continue their volatile love affair in the skies above, broiling and mashing the skyline. The rain lashes the windows of the surgery, inhabited at this informal hour by the emergency doctor and his trusty assistant, the lolloping Joe Jordan. The Dr has been battling for hours to maintain a chicken’s life. The heartbeat tails off, the numbers all reset to zero. This fowl is failed. The Dr dips his head, smashes his fist against the table and sighs but then looks over the chart with Joe in order to find why this chicken flew so rapidly to the great big KFC in the sky.
“This chicken has quite a chequered history. It shares the lineage of the oft-mentioned Great Pedigree Chickens that toured the UK back in ‘61. It would seem that the DNA has been watered down somewhat. Farmer Levy first came in to us in 1997, complaining of a Gross smell emanating from its body. Every year since then, just before the Annual Farmers Competition, Farmer Levy has been in with an ailment or illness that the chicken has suffered from.” Joe flashes a gummy grin, saliva pooling in one corner of his mouth.
“Let’s see, ah, yes. This chicken has suffered from Ramos disorder, Jacques-Santinaemia, Pleat-Itis, RedknappaComa and Villas-Boas-narcolepsy. These diseases cannot be contracted from other animals, they have to have been administered manually. These ailments are from all corners of Europe, I don’t think these chickens have been to Europe often, do you Joe?” Joe is busy picking yesterday’s porridge from his teeth.
The Dr goes to his briefcase and pulls out a book that compiles symptoms, he leafs quickly through the cyclopean tome like a human Johnny-5, pausing intermittently and muttering to himself. All of a sudden, he crashes the book to the table and exclaims ”Aha! These maladies are just as I suspected. They all have suspected side-effects that are supposed to enhance the animals. Faster, stronger, glossier plumage etc. It would seem Farmer Levy has been trying to play God Joe!“ Joe glances up from the floor, ensconced in the massive turd he’s just plucked from his rectum. ”Joe, to the Vetmobile!“
The Dr and his bumbling fool of an assistant race through the fens and hills of the village, mowing down small forest animals as they go. After about ten minutes they screech to a halt outside the Farm of Mr Levy, entitled ‘Shite Hart Lane’. The stench of decay and fecal matter cloy the throat of the Dr as soon as his door opens. The ramshackle agricultural abomination is enveloped in the dark of night, save for a lone illumination, courageously staving off the creeping tendrils of dimness. Silence is shattered by a strangled screech, which shakes the Dr out of his reverie. He breaks into a run, knowing that every second counts.
The Dr doesn’t think, he acts. He runs at the barn door that houses the single light and the soul-tearing noise with all his might. He simply bounces off. On the shit-strewn ground, covered in crap, he roars ”JOE! Beat the door DOWN!!“. Joe drops the rooster he was fingering and launches his ample frame toward the door, which immediately splinters through the centre, sending Joe through the aperture. The Dr gets up, runs to the gap and squeezes through. His eyes attempt to acclimatise to the searing light that sends a shock of pain through the centre of his skull, he squints his eyes immediately.
After a few seconds, also noticing that the smell has evolved from a funky stench to a smell that induces memories of roadkill soaked in mouthwash. As his eyeballs manage to struggle through the blinding light, he notices Joe is still on the ground, but with a piece of barndoor embedded firmly in his skull. It would seem the good Dr needs to find a new Asst. No tears were shed for Joe, but a poignant moment will live forever in the Dr’s memory as the last act the massive idiot performed was to aid the Dr.
As the Dr looked around the massive space, the main noticeable point would be the tanks. Massive, metal and glass capsules that were filled with a translucent sludge. In each tank, hooked up to wires, tubes and floating were chickens. The feathered avines were awake, their beady vacuous eyes fixed on the Dr as he walked to each tank in awe and disgust in equal measure, silently judging him. All of a sudden, a meaty arm locked round the Dr’s neck, instantly locking him in place as another arm, no doubt the meaty arm’s brother, unsheathed a hypodermic and plunged it into the Dr’s neck. What followed was black, uneventful sleep.
A shining metallic disc, in the centre, a light. Directly in front of his field of vision. A UFO? Then the Dr’s memory started to reveal to him what had happened and he then realised that it was a surgical lamp. He tried to get up, but at once his mind focused on the restraints on his arms and legs. Panic, like a cold wet blanket, snaked up his body and his head rocked from side to side, as he turned left, the owner of the meaty arm stood in front of him. Another gargantuan human being of the same ilk as the dearly departed Joe. No emotion registered on the face of the lump, as he was too busy twisting his own balls.
“The good Dr awakens! Good evening!” The mouth, and eventually the face, the voice emanated from swam into view. It was Farmer Levy.
“Quite the setup isn’t it? I can see what you’re thinking, how can a humble farmer afford such extravagance? Well, I’m well versed in street economics, let’s just leave it at that. Now, I’ve just been DYING to talk to you, mano-e-mano Dr and seeing as you’re at my mercy currently, this time seems as good as any, hmm?”
“I know what you’ve done, you despicable human being!” spits the Dr.
“I don’t think you do, my good friend. You really don’t realise how deep the rabbit hole goes do you Alice? You, my valuable treasure, are the final piece in my life’s work. For years, I’ve been thwarted, YEAR AFTER YEAR, by THAT LOT down the road. Even with my father’s chickens, I couldn’t triumph over them. I’ve tried EVERYTHING! To no avail, so I tried sabotage, which hindered but didn’t get me the Rosette at the Annual Farmers Competition. Now, I have YOU…”
Farmer Levy, bald, short and stout, dressed entirely in the finest Matalan checked suit, turned to the array of tanks.
“Closer, closer, closer still. All my work obtaining the live cultures for the ailments, but the chicken’s DNA didn’t meld successfully. Every year, back to the drawing board. Do you know how frustrating it is, to be bested by someone you hate with every fibre of your being? It is enough to drive you to distraction. At last though, a chance encounter led me to an awareness that I had been looking at it all wrong. If I wanted my beautiful avian friends to vanquish those heathens down at Cannon Farm, I had to BE the enemy. Who better to give the chickens this than YOU, Tim?”
Dr Sherwood, slack-jawed from the revelation, said ”N..no, tell me you haven’t done it, tell me you haven’t…”
Farmer Levy flew over to Dr Sherwood, ripped open the Dr’s shirt cuffs, revealing the double Cannon tattoos, ”YES! YES! YES!!!!! Your blood, as it derives from Cannon Farm, is now mixing with the chickens!! Now, I WILL HAVE MY VICTORY!!! AT LAST I WILL TASTE THE SALTY TEARS OF MY ENEMIES INSTEAD OF BEING BEATEN MERCILESSLY!!!“
A chicken in one of the tanks flickered into life, a swish of one wing cracked the solid glass that housed the genetic disasters, the sludge swayed. another flick and the sludge then cascaded out, enveloping Farmer Levy.
”GRAAARGHGGHGGHGHHJBNHYY”
The owner of the meaty arms bounded over to Dr Tim Sherwood, but not before the ooze enveloped them both briefly. The henchman, wearing a nametag that apparently said his name was Les, ripped open the restraints, before attempting to gather the chicken. Now, one by one, the tanks ruptured open, sending Les, Farmer Levy and Tim Sherwood flowing out of the barn in a wave of filth and shame. The freak-fowl, now free of their glass and metal prisons, able to utilise their freedom, seemed lost. They gathered together in the centre of the barn, looking at each other in a mixture of bewilderment and stupidity. It would seem that the missing link of Cannon Blood was not the herald of change after all.
Tim Sherwood spluttered and coughed. He saw Farmer Levy struggling to his feet and he ran over to him. “No, not the face, not the FAAAACE” screamed Levy. Tim stopped and stood upright, but inert. ”HA! It would seem the liquid has mindwashed you, at least this has worked“.
Farmer Levy stood and surveyed the damage. He had an idiotic bunch of chickens that would surely fail once more, two more neanderthals to aid him clumsily and a ground that would be better suited for bulldozing. Nothing that more money wouldn’t fix…
*
I apologise for this, the story just took me and I thought I’d try something different. It would seem that with the way we defeated Spurs, in such emphatic fashion, that even the news of Theo couldn’t dampen my spirits and this story is the result. I urge you though, if you give feedback, please be honest! Anywho, the match and result was fantastic and I’m still on the crest.