Posted by Sawney Beane on June 14, 2006 at 22:01:46:
The Collected Works of Sawney Beane: Volume #32
THANKSGIVING
by Sawney Beane
24 April 1996
1,364 words
DISTRIBUTION NOTICE and DISCLAIMER: Sawney Beane requests that any distribution of this work of fiction remain within the realm of social responsibility. This story is suitable neither for minors nor for the seeming majority of adults who have difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality. It is pure fantasy, which means that, for whatever reason, someone has found it interesting to think about the events depicted herein. It does not in any way mean that the author would like to see this fantasy become reality, so if you are the type of person who might be swayed into doing something irrational by reading a work of fiction, the author respectfully requests that you decline to read further.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sawney Beane, originally a native of Edinburgh, lived for twenty-five years in a cave on the coast of County Galloway, subsisting on the flesh of unfortunate travellers, roughly a thousand of them all told. He and his wife raised a large family of eight sons, six daughters, eighteen grandsons, and fourteen granddaughters. Eventually, the family was captured, and the whole lot was brutally and unjustifiably tortured and executed without trial. Since his death in the early 17th century, Beane has reformed his ways and now confines his atrocities to his literary endeavours.
WARNING: This story contains scenes of ambiguously consensual female snuff and gynophagia. If you find such things offensive, please steer clear; you have been warned.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This story marks my second venture into the unusual world of the American Thanksgiving. A nice bird with her neck on the chopping block and a hayseed old man with an axe make for a quaint pastoral scene. The story doesn't seem very remarkable, but I am very fond of it for some reason.
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"Could you hand me that axe?"
The girl obeyed silently, pulling the axe from the stump in which its head was embedded and handing it to the old man. Her face maintained its distantly solemn demeanour throughout the act.
The man did not thank her for the favour but began sharpening the axe on the wheel in front of him and whistling a merry tune, as the girl waited in silent patience.
After a few minutes, the old man noticed that she was unoccupied and, without turning away from his work, directed her. "You can kneel next to that stump."
The only sound she made was a slight scuffling of the feet, and the man had the blade honed to a shiny sharp blade before turning his attentions to the girl. He smiled as he saw that she was kneeling next to the large stump with her arms wrapped around the wood, her hands clasped tensely on the opposite side. But there was something wrong.
"Damnation, do I have to tell you everything? Take your darned clothes off first!"
The girl winced in fear of his disapproval and scuttled to her feet in compliance. The old man leaned on the axe and watched as she disrobed. It didn't take long, but she moved with a slow deliberateness that suggested someone trying to perform a task without attracting attention. She let her denim cut-off shorts slide down her smooth legs and slipped out of her sandals. She carefully pulled the solid blue T-shirt over her head and was done; she wore no underwear. After neatly folding her discarded clothing and leaving them in a small pile at the base of a nearby fence post, the girl presented herself to the man for further orders.
The man's lecherous smiles increased as she exposed herself to him, but she herself seemed indifferent to her nudity. The same distant solemnity adorned her face throughout.
Her age was difficult to guess. There was a certain innocence and naiveté in her face that suggested youth, but her figure was well-developed with a slim waist and full but not overly-large breasts. She was perhaps close to twenty years old, but the short boyish bob in which her blonde hair was cut made her look younger. The light tan that was characteristic of her kind covered her body from head to toe; and, also characteristic of her kind, she had no tan lines where a bikini would have been.
"OK, try it again," ordered the old man.
The girl silently resumed her kneeling position next to the stump and again clasped her hands in tense anticipation. The man couldn't resist running a hand down the length of her back and feeling her smooth flawless skin. He felt her body trembling under his touch, but it was uncertain whether this was provoked by fear or by the cool November air.
The man placed a hand on the girl's forehead and another on the back of her neck and gently guided her head down to rest with outstretched chin on the flat wooden surface of the stump. Her slender neck was thus fully extended, and a cloud passed over the girl's features before being replaced, perhaps by the force of will, by her standard distantly solemn expression. A band of pale skin across the nape of her neck betrayed the fact that her short hair was a recent phenomenon.
The old man had just raised the axe high over his head when a voice reminiscent of a screech owl pierced the air between the stump and the old farmhouse. "Henry, haven't you done yet! I gotta get that bird stuffed and in the oven before the kids get here. They'll be starved."
"Hush yourself, Ida," the old man responded, "I was just a' gettin' to it. Besides, I don't reckon' Hank, Jr. 'd mind a few minutes alone with this'un afore I snuffs it. That is if that wife o' his would let 'im."
Ida was outraged. "Henry, shut your mouth. Lordy, are you suggestin' that any son o' mine would do...that...with...that!"
"Oh, don't be such a baby, woman; it's only natur'l! It's a' got the right 'quipment, and a young feller like Hank, Jr. needs a little fun."
"Henry, you just get on with it and stop yer foolishness. I don't understand why you must be wastin' all our hard earned money on gettin' the good lookin' ones anyway. The homely ones are so much cheaper an' they tas' jus' as good."
"Yeah, an' they's tough as leather too. Besides, there's more to Thanksgiving dinn'r 'n jus' taste. Ya want one that looks good too!"
"Henry, I'm gonna whack you a good one when you gets in here. Jus' do it an' get it in here so I can stuff it."
"Yes'm!" said Henry sarcastically as he again raised his axe. The girl had waited patiently during the agonizing conversation, but now her features clouded again and did not regain their composure. But she remained still with her eyes closed in anticipation of something bad.
The first strike didn't cause much more than a line of blood across the pale skin of the girl's neck and a look of pain and tears from her closed eyes. Henry cursed, "Gol durn it! Them arms jus' ain't as strong as they used ta be. I'll get it the next time, by gum!"
The second strike seemed to scratch the bone but did not sever the girl's spine, and her look of pain intensified as blood streamed down the back of her neck to her softly alluring shoulders. Henry was livid and preparing for the third blow when he heard a car drive into the barn lot. He was distracted and ran to meet his son's family.
Hank Jr. parked the luxury car and he and his wife and three children gave the grandfather loving hugs. The family walked back to the house full of holiday cheer and talked carelessly until they reached the clearing in which the hapless girl waited on her stump.
Hank Jr. sized up the situation in a moment and moaned, "Dad! Don't leave her there like that!" He seized the axe from its resting place against the wooden fence and lopped off the girl's head with one powerful blow. Her silent miseries ended abruptly.
Hank berated his father, "Dad, we're not coming over any more for Thanksgiving if you can't be a little bit more humane!"
"Aw, Hank, it don't hurt it none!"
"Are you kidding! Of course it hurts her."
"Naw, son, that fancy college education of yourn is jus' makin' you a bleedin' heart lib'ral! Pretty soon you'll be 'a sayin' we can't eat this kinda food like them fools down at the store handin' out papers and things! In my day, nobody complain'd 'bout a good bird! We's jus' happy to be able to 'ford a purdy one like I gone and buyed fer you!"
"Be that as it may, you can at least get it done as painlessly as you can."
Meanwhile, little Billy had seized the girl's severed head and was holding it out of the reach of his younger siblings, Traci and Mickey. The father snatched the cranium from Billy hand and thrust it before his father's face. The girl's tearful look of fear and pain was permenantly etched upon the dead face. "Don't tell me she don' feel nothin'!" said the young father, contemptuously parodying his father's drawl.
Henry was hurt by his son's attitude and changed his strategy. "Aw, son, le's not fight 'bout it. Le's jus' get it inside so's yer mother can make us a proper hol'day dinner."
Hank, Jr. wanted to continue the debate, but was cut short by the arrival of his sister Ellen and her husband and son. He swallowed his arguments and brushed aside Mickey, who was curiously examining the left breast of the dead girl. Then Hank, Jr. lifted the girl's slight corpse in his arms and carried it into the house so that his mother could work her magic.
Little Billy howled as the family gathered indoors, "Can I have the brain this year, Mommy?"