Tito Turkey lost his best friend Tom one Thanksgiving.
His friend gorged himself every time the farmers came around with food. Tito realized that the closer November came the more the farmers became gracious with the feed.
“Hey Tom,” Tito said to his friend. “You ever noticed that after every November some of us go missing. And it’s always the fattest ones.” Tom never answered Tito. He just kept eating. Tom became on of the fattest turkeys on the farm. And sure enough, Tito awoke one morning at the end of November and his friend was gone.
Tito asked everyone if they knew what happened to his friend.
No one had any idea. Until that night one a turkey Tito barley knew hiding in shadow and muffling his voice with his wing came to Tito and said, “The great turkey under the coop wishes to speak with you.” Tito went under the coop. Two very thin turkeys lifted a rock and Tito was shocked to see small stairs leading down a scratched out hole. He descended into blackness until he came to a large nest and in the nest sat a scraggy, grey, decrepit looking turkey. He stared at Tito with one eye, the other covered in a milky haze.
“Yo friend is dead.”
The decrepit turkey said in a country accent.
“Dead?” Tito said.
“Yeah fool, he’s dead. They ate him. They call it, Thanks Given. But should we be thankful? Fo what? For making us think you love us, given us all this food for a few weeks only to cook and eat us later on, while your slappen each other on the back and thanken each other for what eva. I said naaah. No thank you.”
“So, how did you survive so long? How did you get down here?” Tito asked.
“I quit eating. Except for just enough to keep me alive. Lived on a talon full of feed and a whole lot of water. They thought I was sick, and let me go. I clawed a hole under the coop one night and hid down here ever since. Many have followed my example and took off on their own. Others stick around the farm for my advice. But I ain’t no leader, just a survivor.”
Tito left the great turkey’s lair angry and sad.
He quit eating, and once he lost nearly all his weight he took off on his own upon his release. Tito travels the country, warning other coop turkey’s of the annual genocide known as Thanks Given.
