This little gem was submitted by Evengeline Hose.

Warning: the following story contains graphic imagery, horrific animal abuse,  rude words and scenes of terminal peril. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Smacking Cracking

I’m smacking Julia’s chicken’s face into a wall, because she hasn’t laid eggs for weeks. I’ve been craving eggs, craving protein, raving hungry, starving hungry, denied eggs by the hungry chicken. I’m smacking the clucking bitch’s fucking face into the wall of my house – outside – in the garden where she normally clucks.

The chicken is dead but I bludgeon her brains against the wall, bashing the bollocks out of her bloody brain, furious that this clucking animal couldn’t fucking lay an egg and keep me from starving for another day. Sub-clinical, the slaughter has been brutal, bloody, and a terrific release, I’m relieved, feeling relief, finally relieved of the tension I’d been feeling. It’s so easy to kill a chicken! It’s so easy to kill anything. I can kill anything. I’m free from anxiety about killing – I can kill anything. It’s too easy to kill things. The chicken is bleeding all over my hand. Crushed bone, smashed brain, leaks up my arm, staining my jumper, sticking soggy wool to my pale skin. Dead bird – I’ll cook tonight. You can get many meals from a single chicken, I think as I bash the bird against the wall. I’m driving the chicken into the wall.  The bloody splatter creates a pattern: I’m making a mural. It’s a warning to trespassers. Fuck the fucking fuck away from my fucking property, or I’ll fuck you up and smash your brains against my fucking wall. This is a warning. It’s modern art. I’m making murals, creating movements, generating buzz. I’ll fuck you up. I’m eating chicken tonight. Chicken tonight, chicken tonight. Tomorrow, chicken soup. Chicken sandwiches – I have no bread. Chicken stew, the chicken is you, I’m squashing your head. If I can kill Julia’s fucking chicken with my bare hands I can rustle up some bread. If you have bread I will smash your head against this wall. This will be my killing wall. I’m protecting myself. I live, you die. We can’t all live. We’re all going to die. You might die sooner than I.

The chicken wriggled in nervous spasm.

I smash and smash, thinking of Delia Smith recipes. She’s very uptight, Delia Smith. Her recipe for poached eggs is terrifically precise – the fascist cunt. Poached eggs, I’m not having poached eggs from this hen ever again. The hen is done with eggs. She’s gone meta – I don’t know what that means. My hen is dead – God won’t mind because she’s only meat. I have helped her reach her destiny. The hen is meat. Meat is the best she could ever hope for. I’ve made her meat. Meet your maker. Maker meat her maker. Meat maker. I am the meat maker. I make you meat your maker. I make meat meet its maker. Making meat, make meat meater. Eating eggs, she could live forever. But she had no eggs, so I made her meat. Meet my meat.

Killing could have been cleaner. Killing in the name. Killing in the name of eating. Bon appetito – enjoy your fucking chicken. The bird is dead – that’s what I wanted. I’ve killed my chicken so I can eat; it’s survival of the strongest – the chicken was never going to win that battle. The chicken is like plankton for people – they just exist to be gobbled up in huge numbers. I can’t feel bad. I feel stronger, less restricted. This is a good first step. It’s a gateway crime. Tomorrow I’ll be killing whores, smoking crack and raping your grandmother. I’ve popped the limiter off my moped’s engine. I’m a menace, a nuisance, I’m getting an ASBO, a tag, a record, a history, a reputation, a curfew, I’m known by the police, I’m a statistic, I’m broken, I’m broken Britain, I’ve broken your Britain. You break it, you buy it. I can’t afford it. I’ll nick it. I’m nicking your Britain. Fuck you. Get your own fucking Britain. I’ve broken this one, I’m pissing on your mother, I’m nicking your Britain. I’m mental. I’m bored. I’m killing your chickens and nicking your Britains.

Julia is going to ask me how I killed the chicken. Julia works in a call centre. Julia hates me, I hate Julia. I’ve killed her pet chicken. Julia likes chicken. Julia likes pets. Pets are pointless. Why pay for a pet, only to clean up endless poop from the pet? Pets equal poop. Julia is full of shit too, but differently. I’m smashing the chicken, thinking of Julia, and our wonderful love affair. Star crossed lovers, we really just fucking hate each other.

The Smashing Wall, my wonderful wall is covered in blood, my hand is gushing blood, my hand is ripping flesh, a reminder that I’m real, my hand is bloody muscles mashing mushy chicken into my red brick wall. My hand is torn and tired, blood pumping from my heart to my hand, flipping out of the rips in my skin, pissing blood onto my wonderful wall, my Smashing Wall of blood and guts, leaping blood jumping from my body, desperate to escape: it’s going to a better place. The blood is free of my bloodstream, escaped from my life’s stream, it wants something better. My blood mingles with the chicken’s blood. It all looks the same. We’re all just the same. We’re all just chickens waiting to be eaten by the greasy-fingered cunt that looms over you, ready to devour you, eating your heart, munching buckets of battered bastards, swallowing your children, munching everything you care about… I’m suspicious… This chicken didn’t know I was going to do this. It thought I was offering corn. I had some corn in my hand. My other hand was planning to fuck it up, fucking the fucking bird to fucking smithereens. It’s all fucked up. I’ve fucked up.

Killing is too easy. We’re all moments from death. It’s a thin line. Living, dying. Alive, dead. You’re here, then you’re there. You go from alive to dead in how long? Seconds. You could live for a million years but suddenly: pop! You’re gone. You could live to ten, to eighty. Any day, you could die. Today, tomorrow; we die. The chicken was alive, then dead. It died because I bashed its brains against my wall. I chose to kill the chicken. The chicken was alive, then dead. There was nothing stopping me from killing the chicken, Julia’s fucking stupid chicken. There’s nothing stopping us from killing any chicken. There’s nothing stopping us from killing. What’s stopping us from killing? Who will stop me from killing?

It’s ridiculous – what have I done to this chicken? Why am I killing a chicken? I’m waking up to a bad dream. I’m killing a chicken, bloodied, guilty, red-handed, and inescapably culpable, the culprit, the suspect – I would probably have to confess – I’ve also touched your gerbil. Your baby was never safe in that cage. I’m awake, standing, outside, murdering Julia’s chicken. She called it Helen. It’s fucked up, wings flapping as though it could fly. I never saw her fly.

Everything is close, nothing is far away. Everything is around every corner.