Wake up at 5 AM.
Feed the cats.
Make today’s coffee.
Fifty push-ups. Fifty squats. Stretch.
Coffee’s ready. Drink a giant cup of black and review emails sent by nervous investors and even more anxiety ridden business partners.
Fifty-push ups. Fifty squats. Stretch.
Ten minutes to expel excrement and respond to important emails, fires that must be put out.
Run on the treadmill for thirty minutes.
Shower.
See wife and children for ten minutes while she struggles to wake them and prepare lunches for school.
Leave for work.
The chicken is in my teeth. It’s been there for a few nights already, maybe longer. I don’t remember when we had chicken. The piece is stuck between molars on the left side. I work at it with my tongue to no avail during the commute.
Arrive at the parking lot of my business. No, I can’t tell you which one. We were new and reliant on some flaky investors. If they found out about the chicken in my teeth, I’d be finished. The business, my dream, would end.
Intend to immediately find some floss in the office. I have a toothbrush in my desk drawer but haven’t managed to get the chicken out with it. I need floss or a good toothpick.
Enter the office foyer. Be assailed by the receptionist sheepishly dancing around a request for a sick day.
Grant the request. Move on to the next room, run into business partner with his arms crossed, and a very dark look.
Tell him, “You haven’t slept again, Jim.”
Listen to the many reasons why he couldn’t. Note inwardly they are the same reasons from yesterday and many days before that.
Lie to him. “Everything is going to be fine.” Is it a lie if I don’t know it to be true? If I feel like it probably won’t be fine?
Ignore his tears. Keep moving deeper into the nest of cubicles. Avoid the worried gazes and pretend there aren’t several computer monitors displaying job searches.
Enter the corner office. Lock the door. Stare out the window. Nice view of the lake. Wonder if I could swim to the United States on the other side.
The chicken is in my teeth.
Search the desk. There’s a plastic sword toothpick from the celebratory drinks handed out on opening day. Go to the mirror on the back of the office door.
Poke the chicken piece with the sword.
“Ouch,” it says.
Drop the toothpick. Do not retrieve it. Look at the chicken in my cavernous mouth.
“Ouch?” Wonder if I said it. Think that I didn’t.
“Don’t poke me,” the chicken says, though it has no mouth or head. It is a shred of meat wedged tightly between molars.
Stare in the mirror. What the hell is happening? Begin to sweat. Stress.
“Calm down,” the chicken says. Its tiny shred bits vibrate when it speaks, which tickles the tip of my tongue. “Don’t do that.”
Roll my tongue to the other side of my mouth. Mumble an apology. “Sawee.”
“No problem. Listen.” The chicken vibrates. “I’m an apotropaic chicken piece.”
“A what?” Sound like I’m talking to a dentist with my mouth hanging open while sharp tools scrape and poke.
“I ward off harm that might befall you.”
Think about its claim. “Uh huh.”
“I’m also alive.”
“How are you alive?”
“How are you alive?”
A fair question. Admit, “I don’t know.”
“Your company is in trouble.”
Agree.
“I can help, but you have to follow my instructions no matter how strange they might seem.”
Stay quiet. Listen. But agree to nothing. Remember, there is a tiny plastic skewer sword on the floor. I should end the life of the chicken in my teeth because this is insanity.
“Don’t,” it says. “I want to live. Yes, I can hear your thoughts. Put the sword down and hear me out. You have to go into the kitchen and find a paper bag lunch in the fridge. It’ll say Jim on it. Put the lunch in the microwave for ten minutes.”
Jim is my friend. He started this business with me. We’ve known one another since university.
The chicken in my teeth doesn’t respond.
“Why should I do this to his lunch?”
“Because it will save the company. It will change everything.” The chicken in my teeth has the voice of a soothing doctor. It is the voice of reason and empathy.
Realize there’s no other choice. The fledgling dream of a business is on the verge of collapse. Listen to the chicken in my teeth.
March to the lunch room. Avoid gazes and conversation and the stream of concerns.
No one in the lunchroom. It’s early morning. Open the fridge. Remove Jim’s lunch. Note the heavy weight. Put the bag in the microwave.
Tap the flat buttons. Beep. Beep. Beep. Start for ten minutes of heating. Watch the bag spin in the dull interior of the microwave. Bag catches on fire. More than food there.
A pop. Tiny hole shatters the glass. Feel pain in a rib and a burning sensation. Watch blood soak through my dress shirt. Confusion strangling reason. How could this happen?
Put pressure on the wound. Note the staff crowding by the doorway.
“What was that?”
“Are you okay?”
“Oh my god, you’re bleeding.”
Chicken in my teeth, why have you forsaken me?”
“Wait,” it whispers quietly.
Sit on the floor. Back to the counter, let Farah look at the wound.
“It’s not bad.” Is she a doctor? A nurse? “Hit your rib.”
What hit my rib?
Greg, the college kid, looks in the microwave. “There’s a gun in the microwave.”
They look at me.
Tell them, “Jim’s lunch.”
Jim is among them. Notice his guilt, his anger, and confusion. “Why did you do that?”
Ask, “Why did you bring a gun to work, Jim?”
Look at him. Everyone looks at him. Wait for an answer.
Jim calmly explains, “He needs to die. There’s a new partner with a lot of money and experience. The partner agreement we signed does not contain the typical spousal clause. His shares would go to me. I will sell them to the new partner at an agreed upon high price that will drive speculation and raise the price of shares. You own shares. You got more shares than pay at this point. If he dies, you’ll be rich instead of scraping by, looking for a new job. He has to die.”
Watch my co-workers, my friends, exchange looks, considering Jim’s proposal. We signed that agreement before we were married, before we had kids.
“Your turn,” the chicken says. “Tell them.”
Tell them what?
“What you’re thinking.”
I can’t.
“It’s your only chance. Trust me.”
Clear my throat. Struggle to my feet. Use the counter to help. The microwave is behind me.
Defend myself: “What if Jim, the madman who brought a gun to work, willing to kill anyone for money, dies? Hm? What will happen then?”
“Good,” the chicken in my teeth encourages.
Go on. “Who is this new person willing to step in? I’m guessing they don’t care which one of us dies. Probably hope you do because you’re willing to murder someone.”
“But you’re suggesting the same thing,” Jim says.
Shake my head. “No. This wouldn’t be murder. It’d be self-defense. Some feelings about retribution and justice, too.”
Room begins to rally to my side. Not physically. It’s not a big room. But they’re all looking at Jim.
Gently reach through the shattered glass behind me.
“You always were a fucking weirdo,” Jim says. “So driven, so disciplined.” He mocks me. “Well this time I’m one step ahead.” Out comes the other gun he brought to work.
Everybody ducks.
Don’t duck.
Bring out the glock in the microwave. It’s still a little hot. Fire a gun for the first time. The bullet rips through his left eye.
Jim is dead faster than the present tense.
Screams from co-workers. Pass out. Awaken in a hospital bed. There’s an old man with too little skin wrapped around his skull. Like a latex mask dusted with dirt. He sits in a chair, watching me.
“This is the investor,” the chicken in my teeth says. “Listen to him.”
Chicken! What happened?
“You were overwhelmed by what you’ve done, and feinted. Not surprising due to the superficial bullet wound and blood loss.”
Jim is dead.
“Yes.”
Begin to weep.
“I understand your sorrow,” the old man says. He is wearing a dark suit and hat as if on his way to or from a funeral. “You killed your friend.”
Point out the obvious. “You sent him to kill me.”
“Sh, listen,” says the chicken.
“No,” the man corrects, “we sent the chicken. We are the perfect ones.”
Watch as he slowly opens his coat and shirt to reveal a gaping wound, a rotted hollow where his heart should be. Instead, there are maggots and flies attending them. He grins and presents the new contract.
Sign away Jim’s shares to the Perfect Ones.
“The chicken must stay in your teeth,” he says. “It’s the only way this will work.”
“I am apotropaic,” the chicken reminds.
“That’s right,” the perfect one says. “Evil against evil.” He wheezes because that is how he laughs. The bloodless cavity is hidden again before he leaves.
Take a few days off. Receive bank alerts concerning deposits from companies I don’t recognize. Watch the stock respond very favorably to my business.
Know that I am rich by the following week. Celebrate with my wife and children. She quits her job.
Smell the rotting chicken in my teeth. Consider removing it.
“Don’t,” it warns.
“But I’m going to get sick if you stay. I’m surprised I’m not already.”
“I’m all that stands between you and the others you’ve opened yourself too. Trust me.”
Trust it. Fall terribly ill. Tell no one about the chicken. Feel it decay and wither and remain. Refuse wife’s recommendation to go to the hospital. Lose track of time, the days, the months. Wake up in the hospital again.
Try and fail to speak. Try and fail to feel the chicken with my tongue. Try and fail to feel my tongue with my fingers. It is gone. Most of my face is gone. Listen as a doctor explains how they had to remove my severely infected jaw.
Why have you done this? I can’t feel the chicken in my teeth with my finger. Are you gone?
“I am here,” it soothes. “Alas, I have slipped from your teeth and you have swallowed me. I will stay within you until the time has come.”
What time? What time?!
Sign the divorce papers. Can’t look at my kids being scared of looking at me. Move into the penthouse of a hotel overlooking the lake. Beg for relief from the chicken in my body.
“I can give it to you,” it says, “but you must do as I say.”
Agree.
“Draw a circle on the wall. Use ashes from the fireplace. Blot everything but a circle in the middle. Think of the name I give you. Don’t you dare ever write it. Pray to that name. Give yourself to it.”
Do it. It’s done. It takes all night. Now I’m gone. I am gone.
Get my body back for minutes a day. A prisoner allowed time in the yard. Wake up in places but never know how I get there.
Run at first. Realize it’s pointless. Find your ad in the library, Cleriot. Type out quick messages.
Time is so brief.
Tell my story.
Rot.
Help.
Dying.
Chicken in my body wants me to die.