HENRIETTA AND THE EGGS OF DOOM.

She was only a stainless steel chicken – or was she? Her new owner, Dolores Cluckmeister, stared in disbelief at the handy egg holder that occupied pride of place on her kitchen worktop. It was glowing with some eerie yellow light in her darkened kitchen, and appeared to be not quite there – she was reminded of that old film version of the Time Machine. Dolores stood stock still, her arm still outstretched for the fridge door. It was four a.m. and she’d got up for a cold drink to alleviate the gathering hangover that was threatening to make more sleep impossible. She rubbed her eyes, almost sure it must be an hallucination. No, the metal hen was still glowing and now the very air around it was getting blacker and visibly vibrating. Dolores began to feel a strange nausea as she watched in horror as the creature’s form became more blurred and with a strange ‘plop’ simply disappeared taking with it all nine of the Safeway extra large free range eggs that Dolores had lovingly placed inside its metal belly earlier, leaving behind a black ‘hole’ in the space it once occupied. There was a faint smell of sulphur. Dolores was suddenly galvanised into action. She fled upstairs and tried to wake her snoring partner, Lionel, from his alcohol induced coma. He wasn’t having any and simply rolled over, emitting a loud fart. Dolores was already beginning to think she’d dreamt everything. She crawled back into bed and told herself it was all a figment of her fevered imagination. Stainless steel chickens don’t glow in the dark and then disappear………….

She woke the following morning, later than usual, after an amazingly dreamless and satisfying sleep, to the smell of bacon and eggs and the dulcet tones of Lionel singing ‘Old Macdonald’ in the kitchen. What the hell was going on? Surely this wasn’t him tripping lightly up the stairs with breakfast? Was he ill? The last time he’d done anything like this was the morning after he’d made a complete fool of himself in the pub with a woman of ill repute. The infamous Carrot Incident, that was – she still cringed in embarrassment whenever she remembered it. As far as she could recall nothing comparable had happened last night – so why was he behaving like this? And the singing! She’d never ever heard him singing in all their years together. He hated music. She pulled the duvet over her head as he burst enthusiastically into the bedroom with a tray full of food and face full of beaming smiles.

“Wakey, wakey! Breakfast fit for a princess!”

She peered over the duvet at him, convinced now that he’d lost his marbles overnight. Princess?!!

“Come on, eat your lovely eggs from Henrietta!”

Henrietta! She suddenly remembered what happened.

“So she’s still there, then?”

“Course she is, sitting on the worktop, smug as you like, full of the biggest eggs you ever saw. Where did you find them? They’re double yolkers and they taste out of this world!”

She sat up and took the tray from him and as she did she swore she heard him cluck gently. She looked at him. His skin was covered in small lumps, a bit like gooseflesh and even as she looked feathers began to sprout from them………………as she screamed the house shook and dear old Lionel disappeared, leaving a black hole in the space he’d just occupied. This time the sulphurous smell was stronger….