DREADED FESTIVITIES

DREADED FESTIVITIES

A Short Fiction

Around Thanksgiving

By

David A. Archer

02/15/1968

11/08/2006

So I finally had a minute to myself the other day and I realized the horror that lay ahead.

Many would suppose that Halloween would hold the deepest horrors ever known to man.... but little will anyone ever admit, especially to their parents... Thanksgiving is usually the most dreaded time of year.

It must have been a sadist that invented a holiday where everyone that could not stand to be around one another for the first years of their lives - having been forced into the same family through some horrible predestined fate, were forced to again gather in a close area... then further around and in a feeding frenzy.

It just goes against the idea that humans are some extension of animal to begin with.

To think that there is a supposed celebration where you have to be around the kind of people you never even admit you know when you are around friends? Really kind of a slight of hand if you consider it.

It most certainly is some sort of social trickery played on the masses. Someone somewhere gets a kick out of it every year. The day itself is punishment enough, but then come the pressures of lying about the food to an aging mother that refuses to let anyone else do the cooking... especially if you happen to be of the male persuasion. Then the fighting over places to sit, which begin in a civilized enough manner during the day... but then progress into near divorce court proceedings when and after it is that people have grown again, far too accustomed to one another.

The male kids check out each others porn and trying to keep it from the tattle tale girls in order to avoid some scene while it is that they all play coy and cool in every aspect of endeavor.... some even tempting the boundaries of their parents a little more each year with ventures out and away from the gathering place - maybe even for a little "smoochie face" with the new acquaintance being the neighbor girl while everyone else pretends not to notice.

It was definitely someones big joke somewhere... but I was going to have to go through it again this year. Maybe I could bring a few new skin mags for the kids? They hardly ever get any new stuff.

We were all expected to bring something to contribute. I thought for a moment and considered that perhaps it was the year to make a statement. Any statement as long as it was something outside of the standard motion within the day.

The guys would talk about the game... and the girls would talk about how they knew the guys had no clue about one thing or another.

Man was I glad for the moment right now. At least I was still far enough away from it that I could breath easy and appreciate the distance between myself and that horrible holiday so misnamed and falsely advertised.

It could be the biggest conspiracy ever to have developed. That much is obvious given how many people participate each year and continue to propagate it as some grand event.

It was most definitely a conspiracy and a conspiracy that I could imagine the government being quite envious of as it didn't seem to have any real direction except happening again every year under the same false pretenses.

Such thoughts served to give inspiration to yet more thoughts.

Just who's joke was it that was important enough to manage in keeping an envious United States Government from shutting down a far too successful propaganda ploy and conspiracy that was not of their own doing and had no real direction, being the Thanksgiving Holiday?

It had to be someone or something huge! Some unimaginable entity that puppets even the United States Government in leveraging the envious pleasures of some uncontrolled conspiracy dangling in their face - happening every year on the same day, just to spite I pressume.....

That kind of power was even scary just to think about. But then again, I was talking about the U.S. Government. These people have been known to lose trucks for crying out loud. It was still kind of frightening to consider though, regardless.

So I sipped another beer and again gave thanks for being so distant from the fateful holiday called Thanksgiving and wondered momentarily just what I would bring this year as a token in contribution?

Maybe I would go out on a limb and bring some fancy dog biscuits for the pooch? Some porn for the kids and some fancy dog treats for the mutt.....

It wasn't like anyone would notice. And maybe the dog treats would go nice with the beer?