The clock ticked and tocked, the shadow of the ever-moving second hand stretching out alongside the afternoon sun’s light so that it left the clock completely and touched the adjacent frame. It belonged to a painting, an expensive-looking renaissance piece that Joey’s aunt had probably bought at the peak of her much acclaimed wine empire.

It had always hung where it was, opposite the dining table in the kitchen, nothing new there, but at this moment, it was trembling so much it almost fell off its hook and landed on the floor.

That could only mean one thing: Joey had woken up and was now running down the stairs with his great, thudding footsteps and would be in the kitchen, any, moment… now.

“Jenny, you’re already up!”

Jenny cocked an eyebrow and smirked. Joey looked absolutely ridiculous. His shirt was half tucked into his boxer shorts and his hair stood every which way, almost like a character in an anime cartoon. Now that she thought about it, he would probably make a good anime character. He was as ridiculous, if not more ridiculous, than Goku himself. All he needed was a monkey tail and muscles.

She shook her head free from her over-tired thoughts and took a sip of water.

“Yes, Joey. Of course I am. I’ve been up since this morning, actually. It’s four in the afternoon.”

“Oh, is it?” Joey’s eyebrows shot up so high they reached his hairline and he bolted for the window. “Oh…” he released a disappointed sigh. “Haven’t caught any chickens yet. Smart little buggers. I think they know.”

“Know what?”

He stood at the window and bowed his head, staring at the ridiculous contraptions that littered the back yard and immediate forest.

“Well, there hasn’t been a single chicken sighting in daaays,” he whined. “Obviously they know that I have plans for them. Delicious plans.”

“Or, they went home.” Jenny shoved her glass to the side and slumped over the table. “They’re domesticated chickens, Joey. Not wild wood-cocks.”

Joey waved a dismissive arm at her, and didn’t even react to her usage of the word ‘cock’. That was disappointing. Instead, he remained fixed by the window and stood there, waiting for some form of prey to wander into one of his traps.

“Honestly, you’re more likely to catch a cat than a chicken.”

“That’s fine. Plenty of cultures eat cat, too. I’m sure there’ll be a recipe for it on Google.”

“Joey!”

He shrugged, but didn’t budge from his position by the window.

Jenny groaned and slumped further over the table, relishing in the touch of the cold wood on her face. She was so very tired. While the couch was comfortable for sitting on, it didn’t make a good bed. Not to mention, every time she had managed to drift off to sleep, one of two things would happen: either her body would surge with adrenaline and force her awake, or, even worse, that disgusting pop-pop-pop-bang would echo in the distance, across the town, and intrude upon her attempted slumber.

If the crepitus didn’t get to her, the lack of sleep soon would. She had heard stories of people dying from lack of sleep. And if not die, they certainly went crazy. It wouldn’t be long now, surely.

She squinted up at Joey through her tired eyes and watched as he stood at the window, absent-mindedly scratching as his butt. He had not a care in the world. He had his backyard wine brewing venture to keep him mostly occupied, and now he had these chicken-or-cat traps. He wasn’t at all perturbed that the people of the world — the people of their town! — were dying, exploding in a disgustingly gruesome manner all thanks to a rotten mushroom some delusional chef decided to infuse into a penne ai funghi. At least, that was the going story. Ground zero: an Italian restaurant. Who woulda thunk it.

“Jenny,” Joey said, still staring out the window. “When you’re in the shower…” — oh, great, this could not end well — “…do you ever bend over, let the water run through your butt cheeks, and fart?”

Jenny blinked, then blinked again.

“Excuse me?”

“When you’re in the shower! Do you ever bend over, arse in the air, and let the water run through your cheeks? You know, so you can do a bubble-fart?”

“That’s what I thought you asked.” She sighed, heavily, and closed her eyes. “No, Joey. I have never felt inclined to do a bubble-fart.”

“Oh. You’re missing out.”

“I’m sure.”

There was a long silence. The warm sun swept over Jenny’s face as she lay languid across the table and tried to coax her into a swift sleep. There hadn’t been any pop-pop-pop-bangs for a good couple of hours now. Maybe she wouldn’t be disturbed… this was pretty comfortable…

Clang!

Jenny’s heart jumped into her throat. Leaping to her feet, she nearly fell arse-over-tit as the dining chair got caught between her legs at her sudden movement.

“What the hell was—“

“Yes!” Joey shouted. “I caught one!”

He barged past her as he zoomed away from the window, flung open the back door, and raced outside, releasing cheerful woops into the air as he paraded around one of his chicken traps.

Breathless, Jenny stumbled to the door and watched as Joey dropped to his stomach in front of the box and mocked the chicken for being caught. At least, that’s what she assumed he was doing. She couldn’t hear a thing but it seemed like something he would do. After several long minutes had passed, Joey reverently leaned forward to open the trap and retrieve his catch, then climbed back to his feet, holding the chicken aloft in both hands as though it were a grand trophy.

He had actually caught one. She blinked, then continued to wordlessly stare. She didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. This chicken was someone’s pet! And Joey wanted to eat it. Well, she wouldn’t mind some chicken too, but she didn’t want to eat someone’s pet.

The chicken didn’t move at first, evidently used to being handled in such a fashion, but then Joey, complete with big, cheesy grin, started moving towards the house with it. It apparently did not like that idea. With several offended clucks, it flapped its wings as fast as possible and squirmed out from Joey’s grasp, clucking wildly as it ran off into the forest.

“Stop! Come back! You’re caught!”

Joey ran after the chicken and disappeared behind a wall of trees, only to reappear ten seconds later, racing out of the forest as fast as he could as a flock of chickens chased him out. It was like something out of Zelda… it was actually quite impressive. Revenge of the Chickens.

Joey fled into the basement and slammed the door closed, and the fowl flock skidded to a halt. They turned in unison and eyeballed Jenny as she simply stood at the back door. Raising both hands into the air to prove she wasn’t a threat, she stepped back through the door and closed it.

That was definitely something Joey could deal with. She had no interest. None at all.

Leaving Joey to his fate, Jenny wandered into the loungeroom, walked back and forth for a bit, uncertain as to what she should actually do, then planted herself on her couch-bed.

It was doubtful there was going to be anything of any interest on the television, but she might as well have a look. There sure as hell wasn’t anything on the laptop and the internet was only working half the time. She wished she’d bought a gaming laptop before her departure from the working world, at least then she’d have something to do. It was surprising that Joey didn’t have any consoles, but then, he did do a lot outdoors. He probably had no interest in such things.

Flicking through channel after channel, Jenny was greeted with more snow than substance.

So many channels had shut down, their studios probably long closed, and they just didn’t have the content or money to bother keeping things running. There were kids shows on ABC, of course, parents would be going insane without that to babysit their monsters, there were sitcom repeats on another channel, and then, news reports. More news reports. And more. How often could reporters report on the same thing day-in, day-out? There wasn’t any change. Things weren’t getting better. More and more people were dying. Soon the reporters would die too.

They were all doomed.

 

 
Helloooo! It's Day Ten of a sudden onset of Writing Madness -- a NaNoWriMo-inspired challenge that uses the daily #freewrite prompt to help create a full story within the confines of a mere month.

 

@mariannewest's prompt for today is ~ picture frame. And it reminded me of a freewrite I had done once before... here! So I decided to include a bit of that freewrite in today's writing. 😊

I didn't really know where to go after the chickens sought revenge... hopefully tomorrow's prompt guides me a little further. Ultimately, I know where the story as a whole is going to go, but I want a little bit of amusing filler before shit really hits the fan. Thinking of having an in-story month of silly little scenarios like what was written today, then, 𝔦𝔱'𝔰 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔟𝔢𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔢𝔫𝔡...

 

This is a very rough first draft of an upcoming book and will be tidied up and polished after this Month of Madness is finished. 😊 It might read like fast-paced-rushed-word-garbage at the moment, but it will be refined! (I over-edit like a madwoman.)

Title is a placeholder and will probably not be the final name of the book. 🤣 This story has nothing much to do with whistling but the local pub is called the Whistling Fart, things will go down there, and there will likely be a terrible amount of fart jokes. Because I'm uncultured and farts are funny. 🤷‍♀
 

Today's wordcount is 1,430

Total wordcount is 21,810 / 50,000

 

📝 A Quick Blurb 📚

Genre: immature adult comedy, reverse coming-of-age, apocalyptic silliness
Warning: irreverent, offensive humour

Jenny is a young lady in her mid-20's who finds herself out of work, out of home, and out of luck. An old friend from school has invited her to stay at his house until she gets back on her feet, but she just can't seem to land on them.

Every job opportunity she finds goes spectacularly wrong. The Great Fungus is spreading across the world and consuming all in its path. Then, to top it off, a solar flare renders electricity a thing of the past.

Faced with the end of the world as she knows it, Jenny has a choice. Will she embrace this apocalyptic madness... or will she, too, be consumed by the fungus?
 

 

Thank you for reading! 📚😊

See you tomorrow for Day Eleven! 📝🤓

 

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_{Header image is courtesy of Pixabay, and was manipulated using the Deep Dream Generator.}