Who Took the Turkey?

Who Took the Turkey?

The Fork Refused, The Feast Denied

A Mythic Scenario for the Holidays

The Shutdown Was Not Silent

The government closed its doors not because of budget math, but because of ideological hunger. MAGA lawmakers staged a shutdown to starve the poor, not the deficit. They refused to fund food programs, halted paychecks for essential workers, and weaponized bureaucracy against families who rely on holiday meals to feel human. Their goal was clear: to punish the vulnerable, to steal nourishment from children, elders, disabled folks, and working-class families. They called it patriotism. We call it erasure.

The Golden Ballroom vs. The Turkey TV Dinner

Inside the newly christened Golden Ballroom, the rich and famous twirl beneath chandeliers shaped like dollar signs. A sign at the entrance reads: “$2,000 a Plate – Featuring the Golden Calf Church Jubilee Band Sponsored by Bless the Golden Calf Mega Church and Your Government.” White Christian Nationalists toast to prosperity while tipping the band that traveled cross-country to serenade their feast. The ballroom gleams with roast pheasant, truffle gravy, and gold-dusted pies. Meanwhile, across town, a father kisses his children goodbye before heading to work at the airport unpaid, not thanked, and unseen. His wife unwraps three frozen TV dinners. She gives hers to the kids. They eat in silence, the flicker of a broken heater casting shadows on their paper plates.

The Church of Excess

At the Bless the Golden Calf Mega Church, congregants arrive in designer coats and diamond-studded boots. They sit down to a feast of biblical proportions—honey-glazed hams, cranberry towers, and pumpkin soufflés served on gilded platters. The sermon praises prosperity condemns the poor for “lack of faith,” and blesses the ballroom as a holy site of abundance. Outside, a line of hungry families waits for a food bank that ran out of supplies yesterday.

This Is a Feast. This Is a Theft.

This is a feast.

Golden platters, orchestras flown in, sermons soaked in gravy.

This is a theft.

Of paychecks, of dignity, of the right to gather and eat.

This is a feast.

Where the rich tip the band and bless the ballroom.

This is a theft.

Where the poor kiss goodbye to unpaid shifts and unwrap frozen dinners.

This is a feast.

Advertised as divine, televised as patriotic.

This is a theft.

Of holiday joy, of ancestral recipes, of communal warmth.

This is a feast.

Funded by the government, sanctified by the mega church.

This is a theft.

Of justice, of care, of the sacred right to be fed.

The fork lay on the table, polished but defiant. It remained unmoved by the feast it could not have. It had served generations, passed through hands that prayed over cornbread and collard greens, but tonight it refused to bow to the silence of stolen meals.

The oven, once a heart of memory, stayed cold. Not broken, just unfunded. The gas bill is unpaid. The government closed. The warmth withheld. It remembered the scent of sweet potato pie, the laughter of cousins, the hum of gospel in the background. But tonight, it held only air and grief.

Together, they staged a protest.

The fork tapped rhythm on the counter: “We remember.”

The oven echoed back: “We resist.”

They became instruments of mythic correction.

Not utensils. Not appliances.

Witnesses.

The Fork That Refused to Bow

It was not silver.

It was not gold.

It was steel sturdy, scratched, and sacred.

It had served generations.

Stirred pots of beans and rice.

Lifted bites of cornbread and collard greens.

Tapped rhythm on tables during grace.

But tonight, it refused to bow.

Not to the feast, it was denied.

Not to the ballroom where plates cost $2,000.

Not to the sermon that blessed excess.

The fork lay flat on the counter,

A protest in polished metal.

It did not bend.

It did not gleam.

It did not serve those who erased its people.

It remembers the mother who gave up her dinner.

The father who worked without pay.

The children who ate in silence.

It remembered the oven that stayed cold.

It tapped once for dignity.

Twice for memory.

Three times for rage.

And then it sang.

Not with melody, but with myth.

Not with harmony, but with history.

This was not just a utensil.

It was a witness.

It was a protest.

It was a sovereign dispatch.

The Children Who Ate in Silence

They did not ask why the turkey was frozen.

They did not ask why Mama did not eat.

They just peeled back the plastic,

Waited for the microwave to hum,

And ate in silence.

Their silence was not passive.

It was ancestral.

It was ceremonial.

It was the sound of children metabolizing injustice

Before they even had words for it.

They saw Daddy leave for work without pay.

They saw Mama give up her dinner.

They saw the heater flicker and the lights dim.

And still, they ate.

And still, they remembered.

The Golden Calf Church Jubilee Band played with precision.

They did not know their music was being weaponized.

Unaware, they played their notes to silence the cries of hunger.

They played for the rich.

They played for the ballroom.

They played for the mega church.

But somewhere in the rhythm,

A note cracked.

A chord rebelled.

A trumpet wailed like a warning.

Even the music knew.

Even the melody resisted.

“They paused the benefits, but not the hunger.

They delayed the funds, but not the fury.

We turned the silence into a siren.

We logged the shutdown as a sovereign scream.”

The Golden Calf Church Jubilee Band played with precision.

They did not know their music was being weaponized.

Unaware, they played their notes to mask the noise of hunger.

They played for the rich.

They played for the ballroom.

They played for the mega church.

But somewhere in the rhythm,

A note cracked.

A chord rebelled.

A trumpet wailed like a warning.

They paused the benefits, but not the hunger.

They delayed the funds, but not the fury.

We turned the silence into a siren.

We logged the shutdown as a sovereign scream.

written, created, edited by

Vicki Lawana Trusselli

California 2025