A Fantasy Short Story - Unpublished

One Time in Cudahay's Bar on The Corner.

T'was late one evening down in Cudahay's Bar on the corner, and the usual jovial crowd of regulars was beginning to drift away in ones and two into the winter night. A big silver haired man, his glass empty, stood quietly at one end of the bar waiting for the bartender's attention, and a group of six or so regulars were clustered at the other end. Suddenly one voice rose above the others, the words clear and carrying in the quiet room.

"I tell you all true , and mark me well, there never was and never will be again such a wrestler as Rumgilly McTurk!"

The other voices hushed, and the man doing the talking continued. "Indeed, it was Rumgilly himself who invented the Flying Henhouse, and himself alone who could properly execute it. Some said he did it with such perfect precision that nary an egg was broken nor a feather ruffled from beginning to end of it."

"Aye," another voice chimed in, "a huge bear of a brawling red-headed man he was, come up from the docks by way of a trawler so I heard it told."

There was a chuckle of amused agreement from the group. Indeed, wrestling fans all, they were familiar with Rumgilly McTurk and more than one of them had personally seen the legendary Rumgilly in action in the ring.

The big man at the end of the bar spoke quietly to the bartender, who nodded as money exchanged hands, and the big man sipped his ale as the storyteller continued his tale.

"I was there that night, you know, the night that Rumgilly McTurk won his last match, and oh what a fine and lovely thing it was to see!" He cleared his throat and sipped from his pint. "It was the last and main match of the evening, and as usually Rumgilly was pitted alone against a pair of notorious nasties. Things went right according to the usual run of things until a third man stepped in from the crowd and added his weight and uncalled for viciousness to the fray. In no time at all, the three of them had bloodied Rumgilly's nose and inflicted a heap of hurt on his body before it came to the final showdown."

He paused again; wetting his throat as did all the listeners, quite taken up into the story, seeing it all unfolding in their mind eyes as though they were there. "Now picture this, will you. Three of them, one standing all smirking like in each of three corners and Rumgilly, all bunged up and bleeding from the nose, standing in the fourth corner. All four of them simply standing there quiet! Oh, it was a tense moment and everyone could feel it."

All eyes in the room were riveted on the speaker, and he paused, looking around at them. "And then," he said, "the crowd began its Rumgilly chant, a'cluckin' and squawking like upset cackling hens, making racket for all they was worth, demanding that Rumgilly do his famous Flying Henhouse, though what earthly use it would be against the three of them, no one knew at all." Heads nodded, and even the big man at the end of the counter nodded his agreement.

"And then, for no reason at all, it became silent, suddenly so silent in that huge arena filled with thousands of people that you could have heard a pin drop. One beat, two beats, three beats...and then he did it! Rumgilly exploded out of his corner so fast he was almost a blur, and one, two, three, just like that he executed a triple Flying Henhouse, something that had never before in history been done, and something that has never been done since!"

There was a collective gasp as held breaths were expelled, and the group waited for the climax they knew was yet to come.

"You would have expected cheering enough to deafen you, but it was still quiet in the arena as Rumgilly stood in the center of the ring, slowly turning in a circle looking at each unconscious opponent in turn. Then, his shock of red hair standing up like the comb on a rooster, he did the thing that still brings up the gooseflesh on anyone who was there that night.

His elbows came up and out to the side, he flapped them a couple of times, then he threw back his head and crowed...crowed such a crow of triumph and pride as no cock in his prime ever crowed at a battle well won. The microphone was full on above him and that sound echoed and re-echoed around that arena as still in dead silence, he climbed from the ring, and strutted his cocky walk straight to the exit, and out the doors, never to be seen again in an arena."

There was a collective reaching for glasses as he finished, and the bartender was there refilling them. "Who's standing the round for us?" he was asked, and he nodded and said, "That big bear of a man down at the end of the bar..." Only there was no one there.

There by an empty glass as real as life was a red chicken feather. As they were taking this in, there came drifting back through the crisp winter air coming in through the still closing door the sound of a rooster crowing, as proud and clarion a call of triumph as you could ever want to hear.