Content warning:
A party is such a bad idea when you, the Monad that is you, isn't the singular existence that it should be. When the Dyad manifests powerfully and helpfully, it is rare and highly valued. When it manifests obtrusively and uncontrollably: that's the problem.
Roy hadn’t SAID she was having a party. Maybe IMPLIED it with some implications in her speech about how they needed to HANG OUT. Felix (hereafter referred to by their preferred pronouns: they/their/them) is fine with HANGing OUT when it’s just them and un-ideally but manageably one or two other well-known persons. Two people meant they probably wouldn’t have whatever Anxiety is currently afflicting them with the headless clucking chicken. They’ve always got some kind of Dyad that requires intense concentration to Control, not that Controlling the Dyad has ever really worked for them. The FARTING pig butt floatation device, for example, no matter how hard they tried to keep it in, there was always that pervasive smell of internal death seeping out when they were trying to have an important conversation. Yeah, a headless clucking chicken didn’t smell like they were rotting from the inside but the clucking was so annoying, they wished they were.
But.
This.
Is.
A.
party.
A capital P Party would have meant that they were told, WARNED so that they could stay away and at home, aggressively eating wings in an attempt to scare the chicken Dyad that had decided to show itself at the most opportune moments for destroying their conversations. (Hasn't worked so far but this time they had a whole frozen chicken and if they CUT that up, maybe the Message would come across.) This party, apparently unplanned-edly executed, materialized while they were letting out three very close together pees from the black beer that they hated but refused to tell Roy they hated and that they drank with Negative gusto each time.
Ellis showed up after the first pee. Ellis was ok. Roy liked Ellis enough to fuck Ellis when she was high, so that meant that Ellis had patience beyond the deep blue seas and over the edge of a FLAT world. It probably came in handy when Roy was faded and sloppy and kinda numb and sitting on Ellis’ face required Ellis to adapt a very controlled breathing technique to get her off.
Ellis-who-knew-how-to-keep-quiet-with-a-mouth-full-of-cunt wasn't the Worst unexpected visitor that they could have wished for. Five minutes and a longer pee later—it just didn't FEEL like the pee was over and every push let out a trickle and they couldn't tell whether the trickle would be a river that would run down their legs—Marianne and Marianette showed up. Marianne loved to parade her cobra Dyad, ready to strike when the time was wrong. Marianette was actually L. short for Lincon, but she acted like a Marianne except with a Pinocchio kind of air.
1. 2. 34
This pee was short.
5678
Who.
But a motherclucking chicken headless asshole would let in 8. But Roy.
Some chickadee was staring at Roy as they arrived back in the main room. It was the light cheeping yellowy white of the last pee. The cheep was soft and inquiring. It was definitely that “what are you doing after this” chirp that you gave the girl you wanted to fuck when you didn’t know if she was part of the Lavender Menace. The Dyad (what a perfectly pleasant shitting bird) was cheeping at Roy but its prettygirl Monad was looking straight at them.
Outside.
They were climbing down the steps from Roy’s fifth floor (in AMERICAN). Quick QUICK carefully QUICK. The walk home was 25 minutes, but it couldn’t be helped. The Raging City bus number X only ran every hour and a half.
“A Monad. ONE Monad,” they muttered, trying to remove the girl from the equation because strawberry blonde wild curls were definitely the reason they cried in third grade when said curls kicked them in the shin and the reason they cried in tenth grade when said curls stood in the middle of book club and said that gays in stories were hot but [obviously] gays in real life were gross and lesbians were nasty in any format and the reason they cried junior year of college because said curls said that they ate pussy the best but they didn’t date black girls.
A different curl pattern. Maybe a little looser or was the hair just longer? But lesson? Learned.
“Hey. Don’t go so fast, bathroom beauty.”
CluckcluckcluckCluuuuuuuuuuuck
They turned around, chicken at the ready with another cluuuuuuuuuuuuuuck pock pock.
“That’s the clucking but headless chicken that’s currently the physical manifestation of my uncontrolled anxiety.” Take in front before in front takes you, their mother always said.
“It’s headless and it clucks? That’s pretty special.” She smiled and leaned against the banister casually, specifically casually sexy which was a type of casual that never came easy. She must have practiced that day and night.
They practiced round casual in the mirror at home. Supposedly that would help the chicken stay in its coop—their Dyad just happened to currently be a headless clucking chicken, hence the metaphysical coop. Since the dyad sometimes evolved from the human monad, the round casual, according to the “absorbing your dyad back into your monad” subreddit, would hold the monad together in its roundness, close the door to the coop SO to speak. It was the flat casual that allowed the chicken to cluck when it wanted. In the flat casual, the chicken simply made itself 3D and was then separated from the FLAT Monad to do whatever it clucking wanted.
They shrugged and looked away. “My subconscious imagination’s always been pretty close to my conscious imagination, so stuff like that is pretty easy for it.”
Anti-Flirt 505: boasting and going down hold hands.
Shit.
She laughed though. Hopefully it was an amused laugh instead of a sexy casual laugh; they were too ace for that shit. Unfortunately, they’d never paid attention in preschool to the societal norm sounds that would define the rest of their life, so they couldn’t quite tell. They’d taken classes since then, but after toddlerhood, it was hard to absorb the minute differences that resulted in a gut feeling.
“What are you imagining right now?” She grinned and it looked like she was about to scream through her beady chickadee eyes, like a screaming unnamed but annoyingly terrifying something, but cute.
They pushed the idea out of their head. It would not be fun for screaming yet to be determined something to follow the headless clucking chicken. At least the chicken didn’t break glass.
“That you’ll go back to the party and I’ll leave to go practice my round casual.”
“Round casual. Huh. Isn’t the point of the casual to be flat? My sexy casual just now was pretty 2D. I dunno how that’d go down in 3D IMAX.”
“I mean, I think round only works if the casual is simple, but I can imagine what you mean. To add the sexy to the round would only give the equation too many axes to be able to function in this 3-axes world. It’d warp the whole fabric of causality. Then I’d probably need a cockled casual.”
She laughed again. “You’re funny. I like that. It’s a dry funny, but I’m sure you can get wet if I try.”
They didn’t really like wet humour. All the spit secretion was unhelpful if you wanted to speak properly. But she was probably talking about sex and not a clown spitting on some people’s five-year-olds.
“Showers are as wet as I get,” they said. “Vaginal secretions aren’t really my thing.”
“Oh come on. You look like you know how to get a dick wet.”
Yes, they knew HOW to get a dick wet. What over twenty, (previously) sex enabled person didn’t? “That’s not that special.”
“I have it on good authority that your big, beautiful, pulsing is the real deal.”
They sighed and turned away. “That was a different time,” they said darkly.
“Then stop leading on a Dick with that good yum-yum.” She turned and the strawberry blonde whipped in a sudden wind and slapped them in their Monad.
Might as well round now. They started the descent once more, slightly sideways and slowly QUICK because the stairs were icy and the round was rolly.
A chicken. Clucking. Cluck. Cluck cluck. Pock. Cluuuuuuckcluckcluckcluck. A neighbour’s fist on the wall. 11 p.m. on a Wednesday. Party was probably strong now. Clucking is not music to dance to.
The Dyad squawked. The white, ethereal body of the chicken wriggled and reared back, headless throat moving as though swallowing. They stared at it. Did … Dyad chickens eat? How did it manage without a head?
They had never fed any of their previous Dyads and IT so Happened that no one online had ever said anything about needing to feed their Dyad, or being able to feed their Dyad, or wanting to feed their Dyad, or seeing a Dyad eat or anything else of the like. What would you even feed a thing that was just a physical manifestation of your exacerbated mental health issues? Tears? They didn’t drink enough water to be able to produce enough tears for sustenance, even for a ghost chicken. But what if the clucking was the chicken asking for food?
Fuck the chicken.
Or don’t.
Maybe the chicken crossed the road to get some fucking food. And when it didn’t make it, it became a Dyad that would haunt them until the end of time.
Or maybe it would die. (Though dying didn't guarantee that it would go away. What if it became a ghost ghost-chicken?)
Better to feed it.
They didn’t want to cook, but shawarma from last night was still in the fridge. They too, they realized, required food this night. They warmed it up. Hunger seemed to bond them then. The Monad, the Dyad, cannibalistic for
Other monads, chicken.
Other monads, chicken clueless about what was to come.
They put it in a small bowl—because they were hungry and damn if the thing that annoyed them most would cause them to starve—and placed it in front of the chicken. Headless. How would that work out? Maybe slurping chicken pieces in the hole in its neck. They shuddered at the thought.
They finished, tired and ready for bed. The chicken had not eaten or even paid attention to the food, but they left it there in case their Dyad was shy and unable to eat in public. Some sort of sad Dyad eating disorder. They watched the chicken from bed, still by the sofa, next to the bowl. And they slept and dreamt of a rounded cluckless life.
Wake up in the morning feeling like … they had stepped in the stinkiest horse shit imaginable. Bloody horse shit. Everywhere.
Sheets off. Sheets on. Clothes off. Clothes on (after A shower). This was another WORST DAY that would be followed by another WORST DAY and probably ANOTHER (and ANOTHER).
Cursed with this formation of Monad, if only changing a body were easy and cheap. More like 10k and weeks of bed rest. Did they have enough sick leave for that? Much less money? To make the Monad, body, mind come together sure cost a helluva lot. And that was all after the months of psychiatric and psychological care to prove that they were FIT to be themselves. But they didn’t like to dwell on all those Complications. That was a bridge still being built so CROSSING would happen at some later date.
The chicken bowl was empty. The chicken was inside the Dyad coop somewhere, ready to cluck again. It was possible some sort of rat had broken in, ATE the food, and then gone away locking the door behind it.
A POSSIBILITY.
Or the chicken ate it. Which was a much more comfortable thought than giant rats with opposable thumbs. Which meant that chickens eat even when they’re Dyad clucking assholes.
It didn’t make the WORST DAY better, but it was something to think about while chugging water down the throat after two ibuprofen before the work that was boring and tedious fun. Boring and tedious mail sorting at the Raging City post office at the intersection of Rouge and Terra was also anger inducing when the WORST DAY rolled around, which it had in a world war trench type fashion. Fun came in the form of Rachie’s attempts to bring the chicken out by flirting, so that customers would wonder why the post office kept a chicken in the back with the mail.
“For protection,” Rachie said when she worked the counter.
It helped that Rachie was a plump, soft blackgirl goddess who liked to hug and actually talk to them. 100% descended from black heaven to stop the black nb at the post office from jumping in front of a postal truck to end the pain of mail sorting and their perpetual anxiety.
Rasharelle Little: Goddess of Postal Worker NBs
and Ironic Names
They like liked people a lot, but as a rule didn’t like like like people. Too many likes and the Monad gets it into its head that the other person needs to know about the like like like and a parrot Dyad that can only say “I Love You” becomes your companion for 1 yr. 6 d. 6 hrs. 6 min. (Don’t worry, the 1 yr. gets Satan behind thee 100%, trickytrac856 the Satanist knew her shit, she said. But if Satan HAD sent the parrot, they would believe that 100% too.)
The point though is that they like like liked Rachie. Who wouldn’t like like Rachie? Unless you were aroace with no desire for a qpr. Or a homophobic straight girl. (Only one of those is valid by the way. Here’s a hint. It’s the first one.) After all, Thick Thighs died on the cross for our sins. Amen.
Rasharelle Little: Goddess of Postal Worker NBs
and Taking Long to Pull Your Pants Up
Rachie was sick though. 🙁 text message. (Satan 100% got in front of everyone.)
WORST worst day.
They awoke the next day to the chicken CLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKing. And a fist on the ceiling. Bread for breakfast. Some starchy comfort for the second WORST DAY that was hopefully not another worst WORST DAY. Maybe if they fed it, the chicken would shut up and they wouldn’t get a visit from Harrmond, the guy who needed to sleep the fifteen minutes past 6:30 a.m. exact but complained at 6:37 a.m. instead of buying earplugs.
Cluuuuuuuuuck
Cluuuuuckcluckpock
Cluckcluckclu—
Silence.
6:35 a.m.
They didn’t want to watch the chicken eat but something about confirming that the head was indeed missing and not just transparent sat so unwell that they had to watch the chicken regurgitate shadowy stomach fluids onto the bread to soften it enough for the neck to slurp it down. No wonder it hadn’t done this bleeeeerg-squuuuu-ing when they gave it the leftovers. It could have kept that to itself as far as they were very unfortunately concerned.
More like Vomit for breakfast for Both of them.
Rachie was not sick. 😊 Mild diarrhea rectified itself in time for Friday Raging City post office at the intersection of Rouge and Terra sorting.
“I missed you, sweetmonad,” Rachie said. A hug of comfy boobs and against boobs and a little neck nuzzle for good measure. “You ain’t bring me no medication, though. Ain’t that what my bae ’posed to do? Do we need to break up, Pretty?”
They got a hot face straight away. This was chicken flirting, but even knowing that, it was embarrassing that other people were listening. Everyone knew it was a joke. Rachie had ex-boyfriends, not ex-femme nb partners. It still made them nervous and blushing and any form of anxiety meant
cluckCLUCKcluckcluckCLUUUUUUUUCK
from its ethereal coop.
And thinking “shut up, shut up, shut up” while they round, round, rounded their energy only made it louder.
Rachie was laughing. If only they had oatmeal for that blackgirl brown sugar, wrinkles on the side of her squeezed shut eyes and a little snort or two for good cuteass measure. What a double-edged clucking chicken.
If it was eating, it might shut UP, but they didn’t have food. Maybe some water? Did chickens drink water? Well, what else would they drink? They grabbed, no, snatched—no, that’s not violent enough—“something violent and related to grabbing”-ed an empty sorting bin and poured the contents of their water bottle into it, placing it on the ground and hoping the chicken would come out for a drink.
Cluck?—a question.
Cluuuuuuuuck.
Rachie’s laughter was calming down now. Oh, the curse of anxiety and chicken.
“What are you doing?” Rachie said.
“It might be thirsty from all the clucking.”
The chicken did show itself, emerging slowly from the Dyad coop’s fold in time-space behind which it lived. Then it dunked the neck into the water and started squlrrrrrg-ing it down. Not nearly as gross as when it ate, thankfully.
Rachie was staring as if MYSTIfied. “I always thought maybe the head was invisible. But it really ain’t got no head.”
When it was done squlrrrrrg-ing as much as it could, it shook itself, droplets spraying them, Rachie, and a few of the letters, and returned whence it came.
“I ain’t know y’all was Friends now.” Rachie looked a bit skeptical of this new development in feeding the chicken.
“We’re not friends,” they said, with some sudden doubt.
“Aight. Y’all ain’t friends. But I guess that chicken your pet now.”
The word “pet” echoed PETPEtPetpet in their mind. Did feeding the chicken mean the chicken was now their PETPEtPetpet? Maybe? … not?
PETPEtPetpetPetPEtPET
A Monad. A Dyad. They could be friends, pet and caretaker, Bonnie and Clyde. But that usually happened with well behaved, helpful Dyads. An intimidating Tiger maybe. Or a flirty kitty that made all the girls swoon with its cuteness. What the hell did a headless clucking chicken that vomited to eat offer?
Despite the doubtful usefulness of the chicken as a pet, they fed it some of the rice and beans and plantains they had brought home for dinner. They tried their best to avoid looking at the chicken eat, though they could hear the regurgitation even over the home buying show on TV.
They practiced the round casual as they ate and watched. Shoulders round. Elbows round. Legs round. Think round or die.
They were laughing at the woman calling the four-bedroom three-bath house too cramped when the chicken clucked. It wasn’t the usual cluckcluckcluckcluckcluuuuuuuuck but more the question cluck?
“You want to know why I’m laughing?”
The chicken neck leaned to the side. They imagined that a head would be staring at them questioningly about now. But without a head, it was just a bent creepy neck.
“I’m watching a show about buying houses.”
The chicken approached, cautiously, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, leftfoot, rightfoot, leftfoot, rightfoot, leftfootrightfoot, jump onto the couch. It settled in a chicken sit next to them, facing the TV. Could it see what was happening? Probably, since it could cluck and eat and drink without a head. They raised the volume of the show just a little and settled in to watch, ignoring that the chicken was acting like a pet, but reaching over to stroke its soft feathers anyway. And the chicken let them and it was a quiet night.
Watch TV with chicken. HGTV.
Play music for chicken. Sandy.
Dance with Chicken. Juicy.
Hug Chicken. Loosely.
Let Chicken sleep in bed. Cuddly.
Round was out. Chicken was in.
“That chicken don’t cluck no more,” Rachie said.
It had been two weeks since the infamous drinking incident and they had gone from hating chicken to loving Chicken. Apparently, that meant that Chicken didn’t cluck much anymore and they didn’t have to feel that embarrassment of ruining people’s days and nights. Actually, they didn’t feel as much embarrassment anymore at all. At least not when Rachie flirted. They knew it wouldn’t rile up the chicken so it was more fun and maybe once or twice they would flirt back, honey.
“Friends don’t cluck out friends,” they said.
Rachie rolled her eyes, slowly so that they really looked like they were going to swivel around in the back of her head.
“Are you jealous of Chicken? You know I only have eyes for you, Rachie,” they said.
Rachie stuck out her tongue and crossed her arms over her chest.
Tables? Turned.
Lessons? Learned.
Rachie?
“Do you want to go to the county fair?” they asked. “I wanted to show Chicken the chickens at the petting zoo.” And go on a date with you, but that part wasn’t really the part they wanted to highlight. It didn’t have to be a date date this time, just like parrots didn’t need to tell people they like like liked people.
Rasharelle Little: Goddess of Postal Worker NBs
and Straightforwardness
“You asking me on a date?” Rachie said.
They were glad they were black and dark because this was that point where white people went red like a half-grilled chicken breast. Chicken came out because as Dyad, it could feel the anxiety in Monad, in Friend-ad. But there was no cluck. Just that curious tilted neck.
“Rachie.”
Chicken came over and rubbed itself on their pant leg. Like a cat but it was Chicken. Maybe Chicken was comforting them. Telling them it was ok to do what they wanted. Or maybe Chicken was hungry and wanted food. But Chicken could only cluck, not talk so ass lotta good speculating did.
“What if I am?” was as close to yes as they could manage.
Rachie pursed her lips like bitch you ain’t foolin’ nobody. “Finally. My ass was almost done waiting.”
Their mouth was ready for flies.
CluckCluckCluck!
Chicken was happy, at least.