Elliot Steeves, interpreting for an angry turkey-

(The following letter was obtained as a half-torn paper with the hastily scrawled words “Gobble Gobble [expletive] Gobble Gobble.” We hired renowned Turkeeze translator Steve Toill to assist us in transcribing the sudden letter.)

Dear Editor-in-Chief at the resident newspaper, The Gustavian Weekly, at Gustavus Adolphus College in St Peter, Minnesota, the States of America, North American Continent, latitude 48.2 and longitude 100.2 (rough estimates),

Salutations, greetings, and goodwill.

You ate my sister last year. You monster. How could you? Typical human behavior. You treat your vegans like animals and kill and eat the actual ones. I expect nothing less.

Allow me to formally introduce myself. I am the Rev. Dr. Professor Hasting Turducken McFeather XVI. I come from a long lineage (the turkey species) that extends back 11 million years before you weirdos set foot on this continent with your dirty boots and hands.

I have decided to take the most peaceful revenge mechanism at my disposal. Lucky you, for I am equipped with the finest two-centimeter blade in my currently middle-aged brood. (I think you refer to it as a beak, but I might be mistaken). I shall force you to sit through the history of how I became your meal of choice. I know, you’re going to complain of being bored to death. Maybe don’t eat my family members, and I’ll spare you, hmm?

You all think, for some reason, that there was a first Thanksgiving meal between the evil Puritan colonists and the Wampanoag Indigenous population in 1621. There is no evidence that turkey was served there. Nor is there evidence, for that matter, that turkey was even a significant meal for the first European settlers who came over.

The only letter on record that we were eaten is a 17th-century letter from someone named Edward Winslow. As terrible a colonist as he was, he didn’t even specify which bird he ate! He just called me and my related sub-species “fowl,” one of the most insulting words I have ever heard in my life.

By the 1800s, however, you all bred and domesticated us. We were far and away the most populous bird on the continent. (It was glorious. I still hear stories about it passed down by the generations, and most recently from my Great Aunt Cluck-Cluck.) And yet, we were constantly trapped on farms – literally akin to cattle to the slaughter.

Nowadays, 46 million of us are killed every year for your consumption. Including my sister. Ah, Dorianne. I still hear your voice to this day. It brings tears to my eyes…

I’m getting ahead of myself. Hopefully, I have convinced you, O Editor, to stop your ceaseless consumption of my kin. If nothing else, I pray that I have bored you half to death with all of the mundane facts about my species that I could muster.

Deepest regards, and prayers for misfortune,

Rev. Dr. Professor Hasting Turducken McFeather XVI, Lord Of All The Birds In His Flock, and Winner Of Seventeen Dominance Rituals.

(Translator’s Note: For clarification, turkeys organize themselves amongst groups. Males organize themselves amongst flocks and fight for dominance. Females organize themselves amongst a lighter hierarchy, and exchange their children amongst one another.)