Dreamland

Dried Turkey Rock

I’m at a party at a friend’s house out in the country. I just flew in from Boston; I’m staying at a hotel in town. Another friend picked me up and drove me to the party.

We’re all standing around outside by the barbeque. The host of the party says he’s found this strange fungus growing on the rocks behind the house. We walk out back to take a look. “It’s the damndest thing, the fungus eats into the rock and turns it into this stuff that looks, feels, and smells just like dried turkey,” he says.

I pick up a chunk of the rock, sure enough he’s right. It looks like a solid rock, but it’s lighter in weight now. And I can peel it apart with my thumbnails. It looks just like dried turkey meat, smells like it too. I lick it; it even tastes like turkey. “I wouldn’t eat that if I was you, Bills dog ate some and was sick for three days!” the guy says.

“How long has this fungus been growing here?” I ask.

“Oh, maybe a week. I keep trying to get rid of it, burning is the only thing that works. When it rains, the stuff turns into this stinking slime, and it spreads into the other rocks nearby. I was just getting ready to burn this patch. I figured I’d save it to show to you first, to see what you think.”

“Does it attack anything else besides rock?”

“Not that I know of,” he replies.

I bend down and look at the edge of the driveway near the turkey rock. The edge of the asphalt has the fungus on it; it’s starting to transform…

“How fast does this stuff spread?” I ask.

“Pretty quick. This rock here only had a little patch on it a couple days ago, now the whole top of this ridge has been transformed,” he replies.

“And now it’s spreading to the asphalt. I bet it’ll eat cement too. Can you imagine what’ll happen if this stuff starts transforming all of our roads, houses and bridges into dried turkey? And then when it rains everything rots into slime?”

“I hadn’t really thought about that, we could be in deep shit here,” he says.

“ I’ve got to get back to Boston, tell someone about this before it’s too late.” I respond.

I get one of the guys at the party to give me a ride. On my way back to the hotel, I’m trying to figure out who I should report this to in Boston. I wonder where it came from? Maybe outer space, or more likely some type of germ warfare experiment cooked up by our military scientists. I chuckle to myself: I know it sounds kinda stupid, but this dried turkey fungus could cause the end of civilization as we know it.

My friend drops me off in front of the hotel. The clouds are getting heavier, and it looks like rain. I’d better get moving…