Watching over East Leyden

The Eagle's Eye

Watching over East Leyden

The Eagle's Eye

Watching over East Leyden

The Eagle's Eye

Creative Take On A Common Thanksgiving Food

This story is a creative take on the Thanksgiving tradition of eating turkey during this holiday season. Our staff reporter tells a tale of what life may be like from the perspective of those feathered birds many of us indulge in every Thanksgiving. 

Deep in a secret country not known to man live the turkeys, hidden from the hungry humans. Turkeys were allowed to run free, undisturbed for many years. Over time they began to develop laws banning all talk of humans and their customs, mainly that of Thanksgiving, which involved the mass killing of turkeys. Eventually, Thanksgiving became just another urban legend. Its real origins were completely forgotten along with the reality of mankind amongst the turkeys.

Centuries passed and all the turkeys became lazy and fat, living in the comforts of their safe unknown land, at least that’s what they thought.

Trouble began when turkeys slowly started to disappear. The turkey authorities said they were relocated to other places, but the citizens knew better. Rumors arose of an underground turkey trafficking business that the turkey police didn’t want anyone to know about. Others believed that the hospitals were taking the turkeys, claiming their were mentally ill, and imprisoning them away from the public. Whatever the real story was, the turkey population was slowly shrinking which just led to more dramatic rumors.

One of the crazy turkeys escaped and was talking about humans, even though it was illegal.  Such talk of course led to rumors about Thanksgiving circulating amongst the turkeys. Larry Gobbleton, a resident of the country, came across one of the crazy turkeys hiding in his child’s tree house.
“Excuse me, what are you doing?” Larry asked the stranger.
From the dark tree house emerged a featherless, fleshy bird with bulging eyes that stared into Larry’s soul.
“I think the more important question is, what am I?” The bird said in a high pitched, screechy voice.
“Then what are you?” Larry questioned, stepping away.
The sickly bird laughed and stated, “Food! Just like you, Larry!”
“How do you know my name?”
“That doesn’t matter. You should be more worried about the humans coming to get you.”
“You shouldn’t talk about those forbidden things.”
The turkey grinned, “Yes, we shouldn’t talk about the truth, we all know they wouldn’t want us to do that.”
“What do you want from me” Larry furiously yelled.
“I want you to warn the others! Get away while you can! Run or they’ll pluck your feathers, like they did mine before I managed to escape.”
“Who?”
“The humans! They have been watching us, getting us fat and ready for cooking. They’ve been kidnapping us to use as their meals. Now go warn the others.”
Both of the turkeys stayed quiet as Larry contemplated what this mad turkey was telling him.
“What should I do?” Larry asked.
“Go Larry, you need to hide. You will know the humans by their voices, but if you hear the question, it’s too late for you.”
“And what ques—-”
Just then, a human came and captured Larry Gobbleton right there in his own backyard, which had actually become part of a turkey rearing farm.  Legend has it that the last words Larry heard was the humans asking each other, “Gravy anyone?”

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About the Contributor
Jessica Dreyer, Op/Ed Editor
I am a senior at East Leyden and part of the EIV Journalism class; I am also captain of the Varsity Cheerleading team. I was sent to the Leadership Conference last year by my coaches and was on the Mathematics team. After high school, I plan to go away to college, either the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne or Marquette University, and major in Chemistry.

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    Adrian ChavezNov 21, 2012 at 10:04 am

    This was a great story! Great job Jessica!