Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-34823985-20181115065841

"Meat analog? What the fuck is a..." it suddenly dawned on Henry what his daughter was talking about, "no fucking way am I eating any of your soy shit for Thanksgiving! Your mother was so embarrassed last year when you brought over that hippie crap. God rest her soul. She asked you to bring a squash casserole and you showed up with stuffed squash with acorns in it. Do we look like squirrels to-" The old man's whole body tensed up. "Oh... shit!" he said in a strained voice as he clutched at his chest and gave his daughter a frightened look.

The added pain in his neck and jaw was all the confirmation he needed. He'd had three heart attacks before, so you could say he was an expert at recognizing the signs. His doctor had warned him he probably wouldn't survive a fourth one. "Dad, what's wrong? OMG, are you having a heart attack?"

"My nitroglyc... get my..." Henry stumbled to the kitchen table and fell heavily into his chair.

His daughter rushed to his side, "Nitroglycerin?" She turned to fetch his medication, but quickly spun back around, "Is it in the medicine cabinet?"

Henry was leaning back in his chair at the head of the table, clutching at his chest when the absurdity of his daughter's question put the final nail in his coffin. She was standing there in a near panic, waiting for an answer when he jerkily turned towards her and said, "You... are a... moron." Those were the last words Henry T. Jankowsky ever spoke.

Sally Anne Jankowsky wasn't the son Henry had always wanted; she wasn't even the daughter he had wanted. No, she was someone he just didn't understand. She was fine up until her twelfth birthday, but not too long after that she started saying and doing the strangest things. "Greenpeace", "Save the Whales", and "meat is murder" were just a few of the inane things that came out of her mouth in a constant stream of what Henry could only interpret as idiocy.

It would be unfair to say he was a bad father or that he hated his daughter, but he didn't like her very much. Henry and Beatrice Jankowsky were in their forties when their miracle baby came along. It's safe to say she wasn't planned. Henry had come to terms with never having children. Beatrice was another story, though. A sadness laid hold of her heart when she edged toward the forty year mark and slowly over the next few years squeezed the will to live from her. That all changed one day at the doctor's office.

Beatrice's absolute joy at the wonderful news totally eclipsed Henry's utter surprise. He was forty-four years old and just beginning to settle into his ways. It may be hard to believe, but it wasn't unheard of or even impossible for a parent to resent their child. He did love Sally and he provided her with everything she could need or want as a child. It was her teen years that really rankled in his mind.

Almost seven months after his wife of fifty-four years passed away, Henry was laid to rest next to her. The space of time between the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Jankowsky isn't even a speck in the greater scope of things. It's less than a speck of a speck of a speck, but if you count every hour, minute, second and filter it through the complicated circuits that comprise the human mind then it can seem quite immense.

In that infinitesimal space of time, Henry, lost in grief, began to feed that dark corner of his mind. That little area that houses every perceived slight, resentment, and immoral consideration. An agitated, foaming sea of baleful thoughts dashed again and again at the already heavily eroded shore of his mind. In those last months of his life, the old man became meaner and meaner in ever-increasing increments.

Sally, who stopped by every chance she could to check on her father, put it down to old age and wondered if he was becoming senile. She hadn't ever really gotten along with her father, but she knew he cared deeply for her. She came to terms at an early age with his inability to express his love for her and instead interpreted it in how hard he worked to provide for her and her mother.

While Sally filled his refrigerator with healthy meat alternative foods he'd sniff once and pitch in the garbage, he was convincing himself, one thought at a time, just how despicable she was. "What sane person doesn't eat meat? Man is at the top of the food chain. If she tells me how many years it takes for a plastic bottle to decompose one more time, I'm going to lose it. Oh, of course, her ringtone is that 'Anything you can do, I can do better,' song."

In the last month of his life, he said some pretty awful things to her, much worse even than his final words. Unbeknownst to him, Sally had begun to look into elder care options. She was working up the nerve to mention the idea to him and searching online for ways to break the news gently. If the rage-inducing invitation to have a meatless (joyless) Thanksgiving with her and her husband hadn't stopped his weak heart then the conversation about old folks homes probably would have.

Sally eventually came to terms with losing both of her parents in her early thirties. That first Thanksgiving without her parents was hard for her, but at least she didn't have to listen to her father's meat positive slogans or see her mother's polite but weak smile every year she brought over a vegan dish to add to the table. Sally and her husband moved into her parents' house not too long into the new year.

Time went by and Sally began to have cravings for meat and other foods she had completely written out of her diet nearly a decade and a half ago. It made her a bit uneasy and reminded her of her early forays into the often confusing world of vegetarianism. Her mother had tried to be supportive; her father had been anything but. She didn't know it, but her husband was having those cravings as well and giving into them regularly. He was already on his second run through the entire off-limits section of Arby's menu. The first shift employees at the Snow Road, Cleveland location knew him by name.

Through willpower and a discipline she had spent years developing, she managed to stick to her dietary way of life even though some days were quite difficult. Her husband, Jim, just shrugged every time she asked him about the few pounds he had gained. She decided to cut back on the amount of non-dairy protein shakes, vegan chips, and cookies she brought home until he slimmed down a bit.

The Death of her father had cast a shadow over the last Thanksgiving, but she had actually been looking forward to the coming holiday. She had made all of her and her husbands favorite holiday dishes with a few adjustments to accommodate the new diet she had him on. It was really quite puzzling; he continued to put on weight and yet he never seemed to be very hungry. By the time Henry had been in the ground for a year, the employees on both shifts at the local Arby's knew Jim by name.

Their friends, Beth and Hank, brought a dessert and a vegan red wine. Jim and Hank watched the game in the living room while Sally and Beth put the finishing touches on dinner. They all gathered a bit later in the dining room and sat down before a sumptuous meal. The tofurkey was prominently displayed in the center of the table, surrounded by lots of other dishes. It looked like a cheesy prop alien straight out of some science fiction movie from the fifties. An unknown influence put an unseasonable chill in the air that was palpable to all but Jim who was sporting a bit more insulation around his midriff than the others.

Jim proudly took up the carving knife with a loving glance in his wife's direction. He pinned the fake turkey down with a big fork and edged the knife in close to make the first incision. A red bubbly fluid began to flow out around the knife as it slipped effortlessly through the outer facade of the tofu. He looked up at Sally with an uneasy look on his face but continued to slide the knife through to the bottom of the platter.

The hewn slice fell aside and a curd-like red discharge poured from the lump of tofu that looked sort of like a turkey but never would be a turkey in any world other than maybe Disney. They all stared at the thing even the Blue Fairy could never abracadabra into a real turkey. A moment later they wrinkled their noses in disgust as a horrible stench filled the room like what you might imagine a buffalo's ass would smell like.

Hank, glad to step away from the table for a moment, walked toward the sliding glass door in the den. "I'm just going to air the place out a bit." He stopped before the door, "Uh, guys... which one of you left this door wide open?" Jim and Sally looked at one another questioningly and then turned toward the den just as a coyote rushed through the door and leaped onto the dining table.

Everyone screamed and rushed from the dining room as the mangy beast mangled the tofurkey, scattering the cauliflower stuffing in all directions. Dishes heavy with food crashed to the floor. Wine glasses sloshed their deep red contents onto the walls, lace tablecloth, and newly installed off-white carpet. The four frightened adults ran down the hall and locked themselves in the master bedroom.

Beth wouldn't stop shrieking until her husband shook her. Sally and Jim argued over whose stupid idea it was to insist they have a dinner free of smartphones. Hank grabbed the old rotary phone from beside the bed, but let it clatter to the floor when he realized it was just a decoration. Nobody has a landline anymore. Jim put his hands on Sally's shoulders and looked her in the eyes. The gesture was a sobering one. They turned in unison and moved hand in hand toward the window, their only means of egress.

Sally drew back the curtain to reveal a snarling coyote balanced on the window length planter, hate, and hunger expressed in its yellow eyes. She screamed and fell back onto the bed as it slammed against the glass. Jim quickly slid the curtain shut and yelled to Hank, "Help me get the wardrobe in front of this." While they barricaded the window, Sally rolled across the bed to their dresser and started to push it in front of the door. Beth was sprawled on her knees, hunched over the toilet bowl, puking her guts out.

Her disgusting retching, the frantic snapping, yipping canine, and the scraping and squeaking of heavy furniture moving across the hardwood floor blended together incongruently like an awkward soundtrack to some sort of weird fetish porno. Once the room was secure from the coyote team running rampant through the house, Hank tried to coax Beth out of the bathroom. She slammed the door in his face and blurted out, "I've been fucking your boss for months!"

Animal Control, in tandem with the Police, showed up at the house around two in the morning when the Benning's incontinent neighbor called 911 after witnessing a large pack of coyotes milling around their backyard. The four occupants of the completely destroyed house were escorted out past ruined furniture, food and shit everywhere, and one coyote lying dead in a pool of congealed blood on the dining table.

Beth had years of therapy and nightmares of carnivorous monsters ahead of her. Hank was more than a bit disheveled and well aware that his marriage was over. Sally and Jim were devastated. They felt like their life as they knew it had ended. They had no idea it could get any worse than this. They all felt a grumbling in their stomachs, but none of them had any intention of eating any time soon. Beth suffered a break with reality at the hospital and eventually had to be fed intravenously. She didn't eat solid food for weeks.

Hank and Beth filed separate lawsuits against the Bennings. Neither case got too far, but they were heavily in debt by the time the cases were finally dropped; lawyers ain't cheap. The bank took their house and they were living separately for quite some time. Eventually, they made up and got back together. Jim was out and proud by that time. Back on the meat, that is, and he was yelling it from the rooftops. My bitch of a daughter is still sticking to her hippie diet, but I've got the rest of her life to change that.

That's right, it's me, Henry. I'm the narrator of this little story of terror and woe. Why would I haunt my own daughter? Simple, she isn't. Funny thing about being dead is that once you reach the other side you know everything. Sounds pretty damn amazing, doesn't it? Trust me, it's not all it's cracked up to be.

As soon as I discovered my whore of a wife cheated on me and tricked me into raising a bastard, I high tailed it back to Earth (yeah, we can do that) and I ain't going nowhere until the bitch that killed me is chomping down on medium rare steaks and licking the blood off her plate. That'll show her and her whore mother.

I fucking knew it. I knew she wasn't my daughter. How could she be? She's nothing like me. I always had a sinking feeling deep down, but I was too good of a father/husband and too damn accepting.

Call me evil, sadistic, twisted, or whatever you want, but it fucking feels good and it fucking feels right. I'm going to get mine and she's definitely going to get hers. I think next Thanksgiving I'll walk my corpse right up to her front door. I haven't worked out just how I'm going to do that yet, but I figure if I can sic a bunch of coyotes on her, I can manipulate my corpse like a marionette a few miles under the cover of night.

Why am I telling you this story? That's another easy question to answer, but it has two parts. One, I felt like scaring the piss out of a few people and two, the dead are much more versatile than you think. 