Postby dave-brown » Sun Jun 20, 2021 2:00 am
Fuck books, I am house sitting for my Polish/Silesian friend out in the country. He left his Facebook page open like a fucking amateur, so naturally I had to amuse myself. I put a poem up on his page, under his name, one for every day. Really weird ones, to make all his mates think he lost the plot under covid restrictions.
Anyway, one day, the poem developed into a short story, it isn't a book, but fuck you, only three of you pricks use this site anyway, so have a dabble (all three of you, you cunts.)
Der Chochlik auf Faraday.
Faraday plays host to a small gathering of rural properties, several of these back on to one and other, all meeting at a low gully.
The gully is fringed with tall gumtrees that dance slowly in the breeze keeping a watchful eye on the lands. There is a thin waterway run through the centre, it feeds the trees that watch over her, a beautiful symbiotic display. The earth is fertile and the tree line stands splendorous and strong, laying home to many cockatoos and galahs alike. A mob of kangaroos is often found gathered, grazing or drinking from the water. It is a grand place in the wetter season, a sight to behold, how lucky one is to live within this low lying splendour.
But the ‘roos and the birds aren’t all that dwell down in the gully, there is something more sinister to be had. The waterway feeds the farmlands, but the irrigation jets into a hill, a bluestone tunnel cuts in at the end of the gully. In this tunnel lives a small creature, a Chochlik.
Chochliks are not common in Victoria, nor Australia, or even the Southern hemisphere for that matter. This Slavic mythical creature has followed me here, a reminder of the life I left behind. I tried to escape my old life, start a fresh and moved to the other side of the world, settling in rural Victoria. But this mischievous creature hunted me down and haunts me very existence. I thought I had outsmarted them, I changed my name to Johnny Kangaroo, and even started dressing a bit like Steve Irwin for some weird reason, but alas comrades, this was not enough.
Chochlik’s aren’t inherently evil, but they are certainly one for causing a stir, this one is hell bent on making my life more difficult than I would like. I first noticed the chickens weren’t laying as many eggs, none for days and days, weeks, over a month. Then one morning before venturing into Castlemaine to perform basic Handyman tasks for the village people, I went to check the mornings lay. And there they were, hundreds, all from the prior weeks, a huge pile of perfect eggs. But something was different, I cracked one open, then another and another ...they had all been hard boiled. Who would do such a prank, steal my eggs over a series of weeks, then hard boil them all and put the back. That was when I knew, only a Chochlik would set upon such a pointless endeavour. No other creature has time to waste on such pointless pranks.
Over the next few weeks it returned performing similar bizarre antics. The chickens starting acting peculiar, like someone was spooking them, I heard the dogs barking in the night, and then mysteriously hushed in an instant, in a fashion only I can do. As if something had appeased their wildest desires in an instant, coaxing them back into a dreamy slumber.
Some mornings I would find my chickens dressed up in small costumes, they would have small wigs on, and little shirts. Some mornings one would be dressed up as an office worker, with a collared shirt and a little tie, even little glasses. Other times they would be dressed up as famous sportsman with little shirts with numbers on the back and little chicken related names, once they were all dressed up in Manchester United theme, there was ‘Wayne Rooster” and “David Peckham”.
I would find the dogs in the morning happy as larry, but they had been given small haircuts, and sometimes they would have rude words shaved into their fur. “Tits” and “Fanny” or odd outdated german insults like “Schmutzfink” or “Saftsack”.
But this wasn’t enough for the Chochlik, after 6 months of harmless horseplay with the farm animals it stepped it up a notch. I first noticed it one morning in lateJune, the breeze blew through the house. The back sliding door was a jar and faint dirty little footsteps led to through the house.
It had been into my bedroom and opened up my sock draw rearranging all my carefully folded and paired socks into mismatched pairs. All of my undies are always folded systematically with the days of the week printed on the elastic band so I know which pair wear on what day. All seemed to be in order...except one pair was missing, “Mittwoch”. That bastard, what was I to do? Go commando on Wednesdays for all eternity?
I then went into the kitchen to find all my canned goods had the labels removed, I couldn’t tell what was my tinned tomatoes and what was apricot halves. I ended up having chickpeas on my toast and eggs instead of baked beans.
I opened the fridge to find all of my yoghurt pottle’s had the vaccum sealed lids removed, licked and loosely placed back on the pottle’s, even the “Choco Dairy Yog Pottles”, those are my favourite, I was saving them for an end of the week treat. This little bastard had gone too far.
I ran onto the back porch raised my fist and screamed “Chochlik du Fotze, ich habe einen Racheplan fur dich!”
My neighbour looked on from his tractor, took a sip of his beer caught my gaze and furrowed his brow in a concerned manner
I tried to tell the towns folk, to rally support, but no one in town believed me, they all thought I was going mad. Even my friend Ben from Debacle, who’s a psych nurse in town seemed to not take my claims seriously, “Yes, yes”, he said, “Polish goblins are dressing up your chickens, mate, I’m sure”. Then when he thought I wasn’t looking, he pointed his index finger to his temple, and circled it in a “He’s a bit loco” kind of a way.
After a week or so it all died down, seemed to be back to normal, the profanities on the side of the dogs fur had mainly grown out, I had eaten the last of my mystery cans and the chickens seemed less spooked and the adhesive product that held on David Peckhams wig had finally given way. Then one morning I awoke to the barn having been defaced, “Polski Kulaks Raus”, it said in huge letters. All my neighbours had seen it, and I knew that I was the subject of town gossip. Somehow this Chochlik had been radicalised by leftist rhetoric, “That has it”, I said, “I gona catch this little commie bastard, he has made fun of me fairly much”.
I went to my shed and tore the Go Pro off my motorcycle helmet, I had purchased it by not paying for the No Class merchandise I had recently acquired, bugger them, they are just a cheap watered down combination of Rose Tattoo and Acdc, dad rock is for city slickers. Anyhow I set the camera up on my back porch that night , with a kind of panoramic view of the chicken coup and dog kennel and all.
I went to bed feeling pretty smug, “Once I get footage, the townsfolk are bound to believe me”, I thought, all chuffed with myself.
The next morning I delighted, the Chochlik had gone to town on my farm. Everything was covered entirely in Graffiti, rude words in all manners of languages, Germanic, Polish, Silesian, particularly broken English was strewn through out my property. “No Class can’t play for shit”, “Asbestosis is a figment of liberal rhetoric”, and “Dismantle capitalism with a piece of ceramic drainage pipe, (you know, the stuff they used in the 60’s)!” were the ones that really stand out the most. But it wasn’t just that, the dogs had been dressed up like two members of Abba although I wasn’t sure which was which, one of them was the chick that choked on a ham sandwich, that much I know. The chickens were all dolled up in tiny Soviet Union unifroms, and had little pieces of paper that read “Five year plan”, stapled to their uniforms.
“Ive got you now”, I exclaimed, and rang my dear friend Ben to help e upload the footage to my 1980s soviet desktop computer. It was one of the only things I brought over with me, it was quite a Status symbol in my village, (not just anyone could afford a ‘Rasputin 2000 with floppy disk capabilities’).
I don’t remember much from that day, Ben was there, but he was in his work uniform, “Come on mate put this on, you look cold”, I recall him saying, but the jacket was too tight, I couldn’t move my arms. I remember struggling a bit and then falling into a deep state of relaxation. The next thing i was in a white room with padded walls. “Chochlic, der Chochlic”, I said, wide eyed and nervous of my surroundings.
“Yes that’s all he seems capable of saying said a familiar voice”, it was Ben, the psych nurse, he was conversing with two serious looking strangers, a Man who looked mid 60’s and a woman the same age, they both had sterile white coats and clipboards, and discerning looks .
“He showed me some strange surveillance footage of his property”, Ben said, it seemed to depict himself in the dead of night, completely naked, in a vodka induced trance, he was defacing his own property, harassing his dogs and dressing up his chickens in little soviet uniforms. He seems to have an obsession with a mythical creature, a so called ‘Chochlic’. The man raised one eye brow and looked in my direction, the woman had her glasses perched half her nose, peering over her glasses at myself and jotting something down on her notepad. “Hmmm’, she murmured, “He does smell a bit like a brewery. What is in his bag of belongings you brought along with him”.
The man put on a rubber glove and reached into my canvas rucksack and pulled out two items. The first was a crumpled up cloth item, “Mittwoch”, it said on an elastic band which held together a rather sullied pair of undergarments. “Good lord exclaimed the man”, and dropped them immediately, “Burn them”, he said, “and quickly”. He then rather reluctantly reached into my rucksack again, he pulled out a nearly drained bottle of cheap homemade vodka, with the word “Cochlik”, written crudely on the side.
“Chochlik” I managed to say, “Choch.....lik”.
Das Ende, (you cunts).
By Dave Brown.