Chicken on the Run
“A hapless chicken with big dreams and crippling gambling debts is forced by gangsters to steal eggs, but when he’s double crossed and left holding the bag, he must re-cross the road to redeem himself and his family’s name.”
Nestor is a supervisor at the henhouse. It’s his job to keep track of egg inventory, productivity quotas, etc. Just your classic clipboard-toting middle manager. Who still lives with his mother, by the way, who is also an egg-layer at the henhouse. But Nestor also has big dreams. He secretly thinks eggs are on the way out; ground flaxseed egg substitutes are the future. He wants to operate his own flax farm, but his attempts to convince the rich and powerful to invest in his operation haven’t gone well.
Comic by Arthur Trope
So he turns to gambling at The Den, a casino populated by foxes and wolves, to try to raise cash fast. While there, he befriends (and falls in love with) the roulette table operator — an alluring duck named Ana. Nestor gets hot at Ana’s roulette table — he has enough money! He should walk away! — but he can’t stop. He bets it all…and loses it all. He asks for credit from the house to try to win it back. He keeps gambling. He loses that, too. He is waaaaay in the hole. And Mr. Carmine, the fox proprietor of The Den, is not pleased. How can Nestor pay off his debts? Is Mr. Carmine interested in the unlimited commercial potential of flax? He is not. No, Mr. Carmine has an idea for how Nestor can pay back what he owes: The Den has been looking to get into the egg business for quite some time. Perhaps if Nestor can help provide The Den with a few eggs from the henhouse…All Nestor has to do is leave a door unlocked after hours. Mr. Carmine’s henchmen will take care of the rest. At first, Nestor says no; that would be a gross violation of company policy. And what would his mother say? Maybe there’s some other way to repay the debts? Mr. Carmine calmly explains that it’s either this, or Nestor’s mother might find herself turned into a new pillow.Gulp. Nestor reluctantly agrees. At first, he helps the foxes smuggle eggs out of the henhouse (and falsifies the accounts so there’s no record of the eggs ever existing). But after the police catch on and begin heavily patrolling The Road (like a DMZ between the chickens and their predators) for any suspicious foxes, Mr. Carmine tells Nestor there’s been a change of plans: Nestor himself will have to start stealing the eggs from the henhouse and transporting them across The Road. Nestor complies; the excuses he gives to the chicken sentry at The Road for why he’s crossing late at night are simple at first (“To get to the other side”) but eventually get more elaborate (“I’m a uh, pastor at an interspecies church: Our Lady of the Biosphere. Tonight I’m giving the, ahem, Eggs Benediction.”)
Nestor starts to feel incredibly guilty about all this. By his tally, he has paid back his debt. He tells Mr. Carmine so. Nope, says Mr. Carmine. He needs Nestor to keep stealing the eggs. Or else…
Meanwhile, the two detectives investigating the case come to the inaccurate conclusion — through a series of misunderstandings — that Nestor’s mother is the culprit. They arrest her. That’s the final straw. Nestor tries to tell the police that he did it, but they dismiss it as a son trying to protect his mother. Ana tells Nestor they should escape. Start a new life somewhere. Nestor’s mom will eventually be cleared of wrongdoing. They should use this time to break free. But Nestor can’t do that. He knows what he must do: break into the vault at The Den where the eggs are being kept and steal them back and bring them to the detectives. Even if he is arrested for stealing the eggs, he knows it’s the only way to clear his mother’s name.
He asks for help from Ana. A heist ensues, where Ana helps Nestor get access to the heavily guarded egg vault, they use Nestor’s flaxseed egg substitutes to trick the foxes, and they smuggle out the eggs just as the foxes catch on. Cue a fun chase toward The Road. Once at The Road, Ana gets the eggs safely across, but Nestor is nabbed at the last minute by Mr. Carmine and the foxes. They are about to eat him when a crew of eagles swoop in and carry away the foxes to certain doom?
The wronged hens launch a counterattack? I’m not sure. Something! Either way, Nestor’s mom is cleared of wrongdoing, the eggs are returned safely, and, yes, Nestor goes to jail. BUT while he’s in there, he receives good news during a visit from Ana: the flaxseed egg substitutes he used to sneak the real eggs out have been catching on. She has investors lined up to help Nestor launch his flax farm once he’s released in six months. Ana tells Nestor she’ll be waiting for him…on the other side. -JW
