SPHERICAL CHICKENS
A scientist creates spherical chickens—headless, legless, rolling meat orbs. The world spirals into economic collapse, culinary outrage, and mass executions in France. As markets crash and governments panic, one thing becomes clear: this is only the beginning.
By the time the first spherical chicken rolled into a live television interview and knocked over the host’s water glass, it was too late to turn back.
It all began, as all terrible ideas do, with a scientist who thought he was being clever.
Dr. Herman Blatchley, a rogue geneticist with tenure and a god complex, had long been irritated by the inefficiencies of modern poultry farming.
“Chickens are burdened with unnecessary anatomical features like wings, beaks, and thoughts. What if, instead, we bred the ideal chicken—one that was compact, durable, and, most importantly, geometrically perfect?”
He explained in his now-infamous TED Talk.
Through a mixture of CRISPR, hubris, and a regrettable amount of Red Bull, Blatchley produced the world’s first spherical chicken. It had no head, no eyes, and no way to express the deep existential terror it must have felt.
It was simply a perfectly round, feathered orb, making a gentle cooing noise as it rolled aimlessly across the lab floor.
“This,” Blatchley announced proudly, “is poultry perfected.”
The spherical chickens—or “rolltry”, as the industry insisted on calling them—were an instant commercial success.
Farmers adored them.
- No coops.
- No feeding troughs.
- No fencing, since they had no legs to escape.
- Easily harvested by the bucketful with snow shovels.
“We no longer have to deal with wasteful parts like wings or thighs,” explained Clive Barstow, CEO of MegaChicken Inc. “It’s just pure, unadulterated chicken, conveniently spherical for easy packaging.”
The FDA, caught between moral panic and raw enthusiasm for spherical efficiency, scrambled to determine if the new poultry counted as an animal or simply an exceptionally committed meatball.
Meanwhile, conspiracy theorists went feral.
“What else is round? The Earth. What do they want? Total control.”
But the public didn’t care.
Within weeks, spherical chickens were everywhere—stacked neatly in grocery store pyramids, rolling down conveyor belts, and tragically bouncing through city streets when improperly secured in delivery trucks.
It wasn’t long before ecological concerns emerged.
Birds of prey, long accustomed to swooping down on traditional chickens, were baffled by the sudden lack of limbs and heads.
Owls suffered particularly. One was found desperately attempting to perch on a spherical chicken, rotating helplessly like a doomed circus act.
Meanwhile, nature did what nature does best—overreacted.
With traditional chickens nearly extinct, their predators were left scrambling for alternatives. The Wyoming Incident—an event involving rogue foxes and an unattended petting zoo—would later be referred to in hushed tones as The Alpaca Massacre.
And yet, none of this compared to what happened in France.
France has always maintained that it is not a nation of savages.
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
This is, after all, the country that perfected both haute cuisine and public beheadings. It is a place where a poorly made croissant can end a friendship, and where suggesting that wine pairs with 'whatever' is grounds for deportation.
So when spherical chickens arrived, France did not react like the rest of the world.
There were no memes.
There was no speculation.
There was only outrage.
The first man to die for spherical chickens was Marcel Dupont, a poultry farmer from Bordeaux.
His crime? Possessing twenty-seven spherical chickens with full knowledge of their existence.
The charges read as follows:
- Trahison contre la gastronomie française (Treason against French gastronomy).
- Détention de volaille sans colonne vertébrale (Possession of poultry without a spine).
- Création d'une abomination géométrique (Creation of a geometric abomination).
A swift trial was held.
Dupont, desperate, argued that his chickens were a legitimate agricultural innovation.
The judge, horrified, simply responded:
“Et pourtant, ils roulent.” (And yet, they roll.)
The court gasped. The execution date was set.
When the guillotine blade fell, the crowd politely clapped—acknowledging:
✅ The craftsmanship of the blade.
✅ The commitment to justice.
✅ The satisfying way Dupont’s body did not roll away.
Unfortunately, the markets lacked a guillotine, and the financial world, known for its ability to panic over things far less absurd, did not handle the transition well.
At first, investors lost their minds.
- MegaChicken Inc.’s stock soared 800% in a week.
- Hedge funds declared the dawn of a new agricultural era.
- Startups with names like OrbiMeat and CluckSphere attracted billions despite having no business model beyond the phrase “supply chain synergy.”
Then, as always, reality arrived like an undercooked drumstick to the face.
The sudden proliferation of spherical chickens led to:
❌ A market oversaturation.
❌ A price collapse.
❌ Warehouses filled to the brim with rolling meatballs.
Their emergency solution?
“Buy one, get fifteen free.”
Meanwhile, the global economy descended into poultry-based chaos.
- The U.S. Treasury introduced Chicken-Backed Bonds, only for them to collapse when the underlying assets were declared a biohazard.
- Crypto traders launched CluckCoin, then abandoned it upon realizing that no one wanted to store their wealth in an asset that could literally roll away.
By the time the dust settled, spherical chickens had become the most catastrophic agricultural innovation since the Great Turnip Fiasco of 1843.
And yet, somewhere, Dr. Herman Blatchley sat in his lab, undeterred.
He squinted at the news, tapping his fingers together.
“The problem,” he muttered, “was the shape.”
Deep in his basement, under flickering fluorescent lights, a new prototype awaited.
A cylindrical cow, humming softly.
Waiting for its moment.