Greetings readers! Welcome to another Flash Friday.
This week I’m joining in the age old debate about whether or not it’s okay to start celebrating Christmas before Thanksgiving. Personally, I’m a little more team-Turkey Day than Christmas, but I’m not a purist. I’m all for Christmas lights after Halloween. I’m okay with a smattering of Christmas songs before December, and while I feel strongly that the tree shouldn’t go up before Black Friday (my tree that is).
All of that being said, I asked my 6 year old niece what this week’s topic should be and her answer was “A turkey getting ready for Christmas.”
Well, I don’t know about you, but I can’t say no to a kiddo.
Thus was born this week’s Flash Piece. I hope you enjoy it!
A Very Turkey Christmas
Jill N Davies
Fredrick Gobblor, third of his name from the same hatch (because turkeys are woefully uncreative and like repetition) had a problem.
He had no idea how to pick out a Christmas tree.
Turkeys aren’t known for their Christmas spirit any more than they’re known for their taste in unique names for their offspring, but Fredrick thought himself to be quite the spirited old bird. After all, a surviving bird needed something to live for and it turned out that spring mating season wasn’t enough. It turned out that Christmas was the thing that Fredrick needed to give his weird and prehistoric-looking life purpose.
“If the coyotes don’t get you than Thanksgiving will,” his mother had told him on the first week anniversary of his hatching. Turkeys were faced with the harsh realities of life in the wild on a daily basis. There was no use in a mother turkey shielding her chicks from this truth any more than it was useful to ignore the preen and puff of a strutting male.
“Why have a brood of chicks at all if the outlook is so bleak?” Fredrick asked. (He was the thoughtful one. Perhaps because his egg was on the far edge of the nest and exposed to the world.)
“Snakes, boy. Snakes,” his mother purred. “If there are no more turkeys the snakes will take over. It’s the reason for everything. It’s why we mate. It’s why we hatch, and it’s why we eat the disgusting creatures.”
Fredrick joined his kind in the war against the snakes. He ate the small ones as soon as his beak was big enough. He rooted in the tall grasses that stirred the large snakes from their slumber then stood by to watch the ancient dance—snake versus a rafter of toms. He called out in the ancient gobble as they beat the beast to death with their wings, then feasted.
He was ready when the first hunt came. Though young, his tailfeathers had come in and he put on a confident enough strut to know he was a target. When that hunt passed, and the coyotes grew hungrier with the dropping temperatures he again readied himself. He ate the hard mast that covered the ground and scraped up tubers until the sun rose earlier and the grass grew again.
Surviving the first year was remarkable enough. He fathered several hatches and joined the snake dance before the second hunt. That winter he faced the coyotes and lived to tell it to another season of hatches.
He was known in his region as the living Fredrick Gobblor (third of his name from the same hatch) and by the season of his third hatch he led the others in the snake dance. He should have been proud. So many snakes had fallen to his beak and his wing. So many hatches carried his great, snake killing line. He named them Dotty, Beth, Harold and Fredrick, for those were the only names that turkeys had, and when he gobbled others stopped to take notice.
Fredrick’s life was a good one—a life fulfilled by any turkey’s standards.
Any turkey, that was, except for himself. Fredrick needed more.
The winters were cold. Turkeys were hungry and snakes slumbered out of reach below ground. The idea that he might need more first occurred to Fredrick at the onset of his third winter. The concept of Christmas arrived during his fourth winter.
His old wings weren’t what they used to be. It used to be that he could make the highest branch without a running start, but now he sometimes missed the lowest with a full running start.
To solve the problem Fredrick had taken to hopping onto the roof of a nearby house, then jumping to the mid-level branches reserved for toms of his status.
One night he caught sight of a sea of lights inside the home. The lights transfixed him, as unnatural illumination does a bird of his intelligence. He lingered on the roof until he heard music, carols of tidings and nog and raining deer…
He was moved. Something stirred deep within his turkey soul and he knew that this was the meaning and purpose he’d been missing. Christmas. It was so much better than snakes!
Fredrick resolved himself to be a part of Christmas if he survived another hunt. What did it matter if the coyotes got him if his heart was full of joy and nog? He knew it wouldn’t.
The fifth hunting season ended. The crack of the hunter’s gun’s quieted, the pellets dispersed, and the zoom and thwack of arrows stilled. Fredrick lived; the ancient survivor, wizened snake-killer and eager holiday connoisseur. It was time to find his Christmas tree.
He knew a turkey’s Christmas tree wouldn’t be covered with unnatural light, but that was fine. What he didn’t know was what else, besides the lights, made a tree a Christmas tree.
He wandered the grove, head wobbling and pivoting as he observed the towering growths of pine. They were trees not felled. Like him, they were survivors of the harvest. The other trees, like the turkeys tossed across the hunter’s shoulder, would adorn the indoor celebrations. They would be consumed by the jingle and the Wenceslas and the noels, like they were every year.
After a long, slow waddle, Fredrick found himself at the far edge of the grove. He had no better idea of what made a good tree any more than he knew why he remained standing at the end of each season.
But this was the year.
He looked up at a tree with sparse branches that stood apart from the others—a Christmas tree. Fredrick shook his tail feathers and launched himself into it.
Settling down on the middle branches, he made his claim. Good or not, this was his Christmas tree. He would have his yule and his silver and his delightful.
It didn’t matter that it was the third Wednesday in November.
The End
Don’t have time to read? I’ll read it to you on IGTV!
Want something with a bit more meat on the bones? I write short stories for reedsy. You can check out my entries:
Hungry for more?
I’ve been published in a winter anthology. Check out my short story Shipwrecked Santa in Angry Eagle’s winter anthology, Apocalyptic Winter- Book 2. You can get your copy on Amazon today
If you’ve got an idea for a flash fiction story send it to me at author@jillndavies.com
Tune in next week for more Flash Fiction.
Get your copy of Due North Today!
Amazon
Kobo Books
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/due-north-4
Nook Books
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w?ean=2940162951827
Try a Free Sample of Due North Today:
Get your FREE Sample of Due North TODAY!
All you have to do is sign up for my mailing list!
Get my copy FREE
I’ll never spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.