62. Okay, so the Secret War . . . has stalled. Here are some of my other story ideas. Feel free to run with them . . .

Duane's story ideas:

1. A traveling salesman senses that a car has been following him as he drops off samples to his clients across the country . . . For just an instant, the salesman notices a giant chicken on the side of an old rusted truck. Could this be his stalker?

2. A new retiree who used to work in a small manufacturing plant wakes up one morning to find feathers in his mouth. Aghast that he may have done something terrible, he goes outside to his chicken coop and counts his chickens. All are accounted for. Little does he know that he double-counted one of his chickens . . .

3. A gang of chicken rustlers creeps up to a man's chicken coop one dark and stormy night . . .

4. In a post-Apocalyptic world, one in which Donald Trump became president only to show that our nuclear warheads worked better than anyone else's nuclear warheads and shot them all off during the Fourth of July, mutant chickens roamed the earth, seeking revenge on anyone who ate at KFC, who tried the McNuggets at McDonalds, or even who walked by a chicken coop and called the local hens bad names, such as "Hey, you old hen!" And the like. It was a whole new world, a post-Apocalyptic world, one in which chickens refused to eat the bloated body of the dead president, even though they pecked his eyes out. They had good taste, after all. Their taste was only exceeded by their need for revenge-blood, human blood, and occasionally, a Bloody Mary--some of the post-Apocalyptic chickens had developed a taste for hard beverages . . .

Editor's Note: If you're a strong writer, please submit your short story to duane.hawkinson@gmail.com (a real email address so don't try to SPAM or hack me; I have very little money, and most of it is in bitcoins) and your story may be posted on this blog. No need to say which of the four ideas you're running with--it really doesn't matter. If your story wins--not that there's a competition or anything--you may be put in the raffle to win a jar of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa. After all, that's what this blog is all about . . . in case you forgot . . . or cared.

Thanks for playing along.

Editor's Note: If you like The Secret War . . . well, first, thanks, and second, it's going to continue in June 2016 when the host of this blog is on summer vacation--even though he's pretty busy at that time tending to the responsibilities--and personnel issues--of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa production facilities.

Thanks again.