by R. Renee Bembry

Created on: November 10, 2009   Last Updated: May 21, 2010

I have my whole life ahead of me. Understand? My "whole" life! Not a cutup and eaten life inside multiple human bodies. Not a hand me down table scrap life for dogs and cats to lick their chops over. My whole life. My intact life - and I want to live it!

"What was the point in cracking out my eggshell?" I asked my hen mom after entering the world, drying my feathers, and finding out my tom dad was gone. A human had taken my dad to the big house, mom told me. But not until after the man bled dad, plucked all his masculine feathers out, and fished out his insides.

"But, why Mom," I asked.

"It's the human way," she said. "It's just the human way."

"But what does that mean?" I pleaded.

"It means that turkeys eat grains and humans eat turkeys," she said real matter of fact like.

Well, as anyone could guess, I didn't like the sound of that turkey eating statement. No... I didn't like it one doggone bit. I didn't agree with it either. Nope. Didn't agree with it all. Didn't want to listen to it anymore. Which was quite befitting for me, because I don't know why, but for some reason, I was born with a bit of a hard head. Yeah, I know it's small. But it's hard just the same.

After my mom finished telling me all about how turkeys eat grain and humans eat turkeys, I told her I was going to make those humans love me so much they wouldn't even think about eating me. Needless to say, Mom told me there was nothing I could do about it - that I was too small and frail and too helpless against tall two-leggeders with weapons that swing, stab, and shoot.

Needless to say, my hard head would not let mom's words sway me one bit. No...not one bit. The way I saw things, I had nothing to lose for at least trying to live a turkey lifetime. I put my thoughts to thinking and hashed up a plan to make those humans just as grateful to have me as they were to have their dogs. Since wild turkeys could live as many as ten years, just like dogs, I didn't see any reason why I shouldn't get to live ten years instead of a mere two or three - granted I would be lucky enough to live that long if I didn't fight back.

A few months passed by and I got big enough to run near as fast as a dog. Then, one day that tall human with the deep voice and dirty scrappy hat came outside and told that four-legged Fido to round-up the sheep. I'd seen Fido round sheep before so I knew just what Scrappy Hat meant. Next thing I knew, my little legs were spinning like that roadrunner character all the Turkey Club

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