Night of the Living Chook!

It started as many of our nights on the road do, sitting round the table discuss the days events. As the light faded and night set in, we were suddenly taken aback as a squawking, clucking ball of fury smashed against our rear window and rolled onto the roof of Bruce...clucking hell! The rooster had arrived!

After we composed ourselves following the initial horror and shock, we held each other and listened as the chicken pecked and scratched along the roof, searching for the weak spot at which to make it's insertion and commit whatever fowl dead he had come here tonight to commit. Backwards and forwards he went, prowling and clucking, for what seemed like a terror filled eternity, before finally stepping down onto the top of the cab. We sensed our moment and jumped out of Bruce ready to face our attacker. He eyed us with contempt as we tried to communicate with it, pleading for it's demands. As if to tell us all he wanted was to destroy us, he simply began to peck sinisterly at the solar panel over which he stood. 

His message was understood, his plan hatched, so we retreated back inside our safe haven. The noise and intimidation continued, exacerbated further when Rhiannon cooked our dinner of chicken noodles and the hydrogonised remains of his long dead ancestors reached his flaring nostrils (Alex - do chickens have nostrils?)

Everything went quiet for a time, except for ourselves as a taste of wine had given us new courage. We became emboldened in our stance against our foe and seemingly unbeknownst to him we had a secret hatchway leading from the interior of Bruce out onto the top of the cab. The hatchway zipped away, leaving only a fly screen betwixt our faces and his, his evil eye staring into our very souls. This was an outrage too far, we unzipped the fly screen so an implement of defence could be thrust out and used to try and lift this siege. Our weapon of choice, a length of wicker (Rhiannon - Don't you mean a stick?).

Alex thrust the weapon out through the hole, tangling with that damned cock, but was unable to dislodge it...his was a poultry effort. Rhiannon seeing her man defeated, took up the stick and strode forward, gently coerced by Alex as he advised her "get your whole arm out there!", along with a small, physical, nudge of support. Our enemy, resilient and wily as ever, edged out of range and as if to offer the final insult presented his rear end in victory. No matter how many shouts of "hit it up the arse!" Alex cried in muster, Rhiannon was fixed in such a state of terror (and giggles!) that she was unable to land the finishing blow. The battle had been won by our enemy, but this terrible, terrible war was far from over.

We changed our strategy to long range weaponry, as Alex consulted the armoury and selected the longest, pointiest object we had, and therefore the most fitting for gently, coercing a dog-sized bird oft the roof of ones carriage...a tent pole. Leaping forth once more from Bruce, Alex took the only source of light with him. Rhiannon, emboldened by his show of aggression, took up the wicker once more and began to prod the silhouette of our enemy. As the light fell back upon the chicken, it was revealed that under cover of dark he had rotated 180 degrees and to her horror Rhiannon was poking it in the face. (Disclaimer from Alex and Rhiannon: We just like to say at this point, that we fully endorse the gentle poking to remove a cockerel from ones vehicle but at no point were we trying to harm this chicken either accidentally or on purpose as we in no way condone Actual Chicken Violence, which shall be henceforth known as ACV).

As Rhiannon screamed in horror at the realisation of her own actions, Alex leapt forward with his spear, embodying the spirit of the Munjibal people on whose land this battle was fought. He thrust it into the space in front of the chicken, sweeping it from the roof with a cluck of protest and a flap of his gigantic wingspan. The battle was won and our heroic couple retired into Bruce, to toast their victory!

Only the had celebrated too soon. Soon a soft clucking could be heard, closer than it had ever been before. Alex took up the flashlight and pulled back the curtain, to reveal their mortal enemy standing proudly on their windscreen wipers, giving them what is commonly referred to as "the stink-eye" through the window. Having just witnessed Alex's success with the long range weapon, Rhiannon once again readied for battle, grabbed the spear-like pole and emerged from Bruce to throw down.

After two attempts, finding her range, she swept the chicken off the front window only for the chicken to rear in anger. To Alex's mortified eyes, the chicken seemed to begin tightrope walking along the pole towards his love! Fortunately the chicken lost this particular game of chicken and ran off into the night. Knowing there feathered nemesis too well by this point they knew this would not be the final denouement.

For within 5 minutes he had returned. He circled the van on foot, sensing for any weak spot and inspecting their spear, which Rhiannon had dropped outside after the labours of her latest avian victory (Rhiannon - which I see as personal vengeance for the great Canada Goose battle of 1988, where I sadly lost a toggle through the railings around the pond, at Mary Steven's Park, Stourbridge to a hissing demon of fury, twice my size). It seemed to be trying to understand this weapon and assimilate our technology.

In the end, like all great sieges, once side must break. The weak spot in this particular saga was Alex's bladder as he decreed "Sod this, I need the toilet". Striding forth from the van, Alex took care of his business and returned to face off, one last time with the Rooster in hand-to-beak combat. Using his signature move of clapping three times and going "chuck, chuck, chuck", the rooster retreated under the face of this new aggression. But it was a ruse, as he led our hero in a merry dance of a single revolution of Bruce.

At this late hour, Alex climbed back into Bruce and stated that it was time for bed. The hour was late and a stalemate reached, both parties exhausted from the long and arduous period of chicken bothering that had gone before. As they tucked themselves in, safe in the knowledge that some sort of accord had been reached with their avian foe, they relaxed. But they should have remembered the first rule of bird based warfare is never relax!

With a final banshee-esque war cluck, the rooster smashed one final time against Bruce and with a mighty beat of it's wings reascended to his perch aloft the roof. Faced with this beaked belligerence, our heroes admitted defeat and retired for the night. A fitful nights sleep followed, as the soft chuckle of the Rooster drifted through the canvas. Yet as the morning broke, a swift reconnaissance revealed their foe had left, leaving a smelly pile of victory on the roof as the final insult (Rhiannon - you could say some cock-a-doodle-do-do!). As we looked round in fury, a mocking cock-a-doodle-do drifted in softly on the wind, a final goodbye from our great enemy. 

Sometimes, when we least expect to, one of us thinks they may have heard that mocking morning call, as if he will always be with us. Watching and waiting to do battle once more!

Ba-qwark!