“It’s in the air we breathe, it’s in the milk we drink, the clothes we wear.  The alien particles are coming off of us in waves.Can’t you feel it?” asked Kingfisher citizen Patricia Duffy, a UFO enthusiast and long time Christian Cheese fan. Patricia Duffy wore bright red gloves and tinfoil on her head. When I asked her about the tinfoil she told me it was so that the aliens couldn’t read her mind. She assured me that the aliens were for the most part benevolent, however she said one could never be too careful, and she didn’t want “her life history showing up in some Andromeda tabloid somewhere.

“They have been here since the beginning of time, the aliens have,” Duffy told me. “Influencing our lives. Giving us technology to survive. Scientists have known for quite a long time that ancient people could not have possessed the technological capabilities to build Stonehenge, or the Egyptian Pyramids. It was the aliens. It was the aliens all along.”

Duffy paused for a moment to open up her purse and take out a package of tomato basil flavored Christian Cheese curds.  “The aliens have been flavoring the cheese, making it better.  They also cured my cat of catnip addiction. “

Though some may consider Duffy an eccentric character, with her bright red gloves and tinfoil hat, It turned out Duffy wasn’t the only one who believed UFO’s were bringing out of the world flavor to Christian Cheese. Kingfisher Citizens gathered at the fields one Saturday night to go UFO watching, and a strange, revealing picture was uncovered of a UFO flying over the Christian Cheese dairy.

Kingfisher residents catch sight of an UFO approaching just before dusk

“This is nothing to be worried about,” said Harry Harvey, a neighbor of the Christians, “I don’t know why people have to make such a fuss about these aliens. Of course they’re making the cheese better tasting. That’s what they do. They watch after us, make our lives better. I’ve been seeing aliens since I was 7 years old. They made me this wool scarf.” He unwrapped the wool scarf from his neck for me to inspect.

I had to admit, it was a very fine scarf.

I handed the scarf back to Harry Harvey. “Come out and UFO watch with us sometime,” he said before walking off, “we meet every Thursday.”

Stonehenge, Easter Island Heads, Egyptian Pyramids, and Christian Cheese - all alien technology?

Whether or not aliens have come to Kingfisher, few citizens would deny that the Christian cheese has an extraordinary flavor. Though several Christian cheese employees have stepped forward, including Marcos the cat and Jezebel the mastiff security chief, to deny the claims that aliens were involved in making the Christian Cheese flavors, this doesn’t stop Kingfisher citizens like Patricia Duffy and Harry Harvey from spreading the news about the UFOs.

When asked what the eventual plans of the Andromeda aliens were, Harry Harvey smiled wide.

“When the end of the world comes, they’re going to come down and throw us a big party,” Harry Harvey said, “that’s all the aliens ever wanted to do.”

Hughes came under public fire recently when several Kingfisher Citizens accused him of stealing Christian Cheese in what is now known as the infamous “Apeman debacle“. Hughes, a mild-mannered werewolf from Boston who works as a history professor at a local university and is a known werewolf activist, denies the claims.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Hughes said, “I love Christian Cheese. Especially the curds. Why, I even visited the factory when my colleague from the university found that portal to another alternate dimension in the freezer. But I would never break into the store in the middle of the night to steal cheese. I’ve never even been issued a parking ticket, much less committed a felony.”

Tracy Hughes, professional werewolf, has made it his mission to educate the public on negative werewolf stereotypes

Hughes sighed, adjusted his glasses, and looked out the window into the University courtyard. Class had just let out, and several students were milling around outside. Hughes said that the typically Hollywood werewolf, with his brash, angry demeanor and murderous tendencies, is “a completely ludicrous fabrication.”

“I don’t rip my clothes off every full moon,” he said, and then snorted, “Are you kidding? Not on my salary. And I wouldn’t want to ruin my good chinos. Or this shirt my wife bought me for Christmas.”

As for the murderous rampages that Hollywood werewolves are known for, Hughes said that he, “prefers to play golf instead.”

“Us werewolves have a lot of negative stereotypes to combat, and we’re not going to rest until we get equal rights. These accusations that I’ve broken into the Christian Cheese store are because of species stereotyping, nothing more, and I’m not going to stand for it.”

Hughes told me he had a history class to teach in about five minutes.

I asked Hughes if he had any last comments to add. He simply said he was, “sorry for the vampires, who have it a lot worse off than us werewolves after that Twilight movie.”

I talked to Dr. Anne Hawkins, expert cryptozoologist and treasurer on the Kingerfish Cryptozoology Society’s board of directors, about the possibility of a dinosaur living in the Christian Pond.

“We believe this to be a photograph of your common plesiosaur,” Dr. Hawkins told me, “which is a dinosaur rumored to have gone extinct in the Cretaceous Period around 65 million years ago. Of course, cryptozoologists have always harbored the possibility that isolated individuals from a species may survive for extended periods of time.”

I asked Dr. Hawkins why sightings of the plesiosaur had not been reported before.
“Many people are embarrassed to admit that they have seen a creature like that,” she said, “these are good people, hard workers, not nuts. So they keep quiet. Also, we believe the plesiosaur can go dormant for large periods of time, which is why it has survived for so long.”
“What would cause a plesiosaur to come out of its dormant stage?”
“We’ve found that visitors to the Christian cheese plant started fishing in the pond using Christian Cheese as bait only days before this photograph was taken. “
“So you believe that Christian Cheese woke up the monster?”

“I’m not allowed to say,” Dr. Anne Hawkins said in a hushed tone. “But I will get to the bottom of this,” she said, “the Kingfisher Cryptozoology Society will uncover the truth.”

She left, leaving me alone.

Is this peaceful pond home to a 65 million year old monster?

I went back to the Christian Pond to do some investigating of my own. It was about midday, and I found several people fishing around the pond using Christian Cheese as bait. I talked to Kiki Foreman, a regular Christian Cheese customer and fishing aficionado.

“I haven’t seen any dinosaurs lately,” Kiki said, “but we sure have caught some big catfish.”

At that moment I saw a ripple in the waters, and thought I saw a large creature move right underneath the surface of the pond. Whether it was my imagination, or the prehistoric monster, I couldn’t say.

April’s cow of the month, the elegant black and white spotted Sasha, came to the photography shoot surrounded by her entourage. I offered to pet Sasha’s nose, but she just took off her glasses and gazed at me reproachfully while chewing her cud in a thoughtful manner.

“Sasha does not like to be touched. Sasha just came back from filming a movie in Belize,” her manager said, though was quick to add while I was withering under Sasha’s icy stare, “Sasha is very happy to be here.”

April's Cow of the Month with her penetrating stare, surrounded by her entourage

Name: Sasha
Age: 3 years
Breed: Holstein
Likes: fresh rye grass, cleanliness, playing the romantic interest in movies, cool sunglasses
Dislikes: Being petted on the nose, stalkers
Favorite Christian Cheese: Wine Cheddar
Ideal Romantic Date: An expensive dinner next to the hay barn followed by a full background check conducted by her manager.

“I checked the security cameras and reinforced the perimeter and didn’t see anything unusual,” the security chief mastiff Jezebel informed me in her office, “and there wasn’t any kind of mistake in the record books.”

I asked Jezebel if it was possible the mysterious ape man could be responsible for the missing cheese.

“I don’t want to hear anymore about that mysterious ape man,” Jezebel said, “do you know how many calls I’ve had to answer from the cows in the middle of the night about that ape man? Every single time, it was a cow scared by her own shadow. Every single time. No more about the ape man.”

I thanked Jezebel for her time and left her office. Later that night I received a call from one of my anonymous leads that a man wearing a grass skirt and playing a wooden piccolo had been caught wandering outside the Christian Cheese plant. I grabbed my tape-recorder and notebook and ran out to the Christian Cheese plant, only to find a disgruntled Jezebel alone.

“Yeah, there was a man out here,” she told me, “He spoke a language I never heard of, and smelled of Jalapeno cheddar cheese. When I barked at him he ran into the freezer and disappeared. Just like that.”

The scientist Melville Sykes came from a nearby university to investigate the strange phenomenon. He went into the freezer and disappeared. Expectant Kingfisher citizens pitched tents outside the factory with thermoses of hot chocolate. Christian Cheese employees passed out cowboy cheddar to visitors and waited for the scientist’s return.

Melville Sykes reappeared in the freezer nine hours later wearing a stately crown made out of tree bark and holding a scepter made out of Christian Cheese.

“Yep,” Melville Sykes said, “Looks like you got a portal in there. Standard quantum physics, really.  The dimensions of space time were warped to create a relativistic time dilation that opened up a parallel universe. Happens all the time.” Sykes held up the scepter made out of Christian Cheese. “Oh, and they made me king.”

The strike started on Monday, after the cats marched into the office of their supervisor and declared that they should receive a larger portion of Christian Cheese out of every batch to taste. When the cats were turned down, they left the office and began to protest outside of the dairy. Marcos, the official spokesperson of the protesting cats, talked with me on that rainy Tuesday while behind him the rest of the cats marched, held signs, sang chants, and demanded solidarity of all members of the working class.

“This isn’t just about the Christian Cheese,” Marcos said, licking his paws, “this is about the integrity of the worker. All of us here have paid our dues to society. We deserve respect. We work hard, we look cute, we get carried around and petted by small children, we sleep 16 hours a day, we taste test the milk and the Christian Cheese. And we’re good, you know, we’re good at what we do. Without the working class, this society would crumble.”

As I stand with Marcos on the gravel path, taking down notes on my legal pad, the cats begin to take up a chant and I’m momentarily distracted.

Marcos confronts a union busting chicken.

When I asked Marcos of the difficulties they faced in the strike, he mentioned that there was a rumor going around that Jezebel, the mastiff security chief of the Christian Dairy, was hiring union busting chickens to break up the strike and ruin cat solidarity. Marcos, however, did not seem worried.

“That dog never liked us cats anyways,” he said, “and those chickens are a wily, flighty bunch. They’ll work for anyone, and they know nothing of loyalty. The cats will stand strong, and we shall prevail.”

Eduardo says: "Siempre tengo pelo perfecto."

“This happens everywhere we go,” said one of Eduardo’s security guard as he tried to hold back the line of enraptured, screaming fans so the glittering Eduardo could get to the door and purchase his Christian Cheese. “There’s something about immortal, cold, Spanish-speaking immortal vampire horses that just makes these girls go nuts.”

It’s not difficult to understand the appeal of the vampire horse. Eduardo has starred in 56 movies, including The Equine Vampire,  I fell in love with a vampire horse, and the cult hit Caballo Vampirico. He has also appeared on the cover of numerous magazines, written 12 memoirs, and recorded a music album. (canciones del caballo vampirico is scheduled to be released in March 2010) He became a vampire horse during the Mexican civil war while stationed as Francisco I. Madero’s personal transportation manager. Eduardo became mortally injured in combat and was transformed into a vampire by a vampire horse known only to the public as “Ignacio.”  Afterward Eduardo became involved in the movie industry and quickly became a living legend.

Minnie Calhill, a self proclaimed "Eduardo Addict."

“He’s just, you know, everyone’s ultimate fantasy,” said longtime Eduardo fan Minnie Calhill, 12 years old. “He has a perfect body and a perfect face and he’s always there to protect you. He listens to everything you say and loves you unconditionally. I hope that one day I’ll have a boyfriend that I’ll be able to love as much as I love Eduardo.”

While the fans continued to stand outside the gate, Eduardo purchased white jalapeno cheddar and cowboy cheddar from the Christian Cheese store for his mortal lover. I tried to ask Eduardo a few questions, but I found myself unable to get past the blockade of rabid fans. One of Eduardo’s security guards told me, however, that although Eduardo could no longer enjoy the cheese himself, as he can only subsist on blood, he does recommend the cheese to all his friends and family.

Eduardo exited the Christian dairy amidst cheers from his fans. “Te amo Eduardo!” screamed someone from the crowd, “Te amo Eduardo!” Eduardo trotted through the path cleared by his security guards, muscles flexing, skin glittering. He tossed his hair back and flashed a smile that made seven girls faint on the spot, before climbing into his limousine trailer and being driven away.

“The women of Kingfisher have already created an Eduardo fan club,” Julie Isle said, “we meet every third Friday of the month at City Hall. Here, have an Eduardo button.”

As I walked away from the Christian dairy with my “Bebe mi sangre, Eduardo” button, I could still hear the screaming of the fans that shook the ground like an earthquake.

Henry Hampton, 39 years old, has been in the dairy business for 17 years, and a lifelong Elvis Presley fan. I found him one afternoon out at the Christian dairy, standing outside the gate where the bull was penned. Henry had a camera strapped around his neck, wore an Elvis Presley T-shirt and held a portable stereo.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years of dairy farming,” he said, and switched the stereo on to play “Heartbreak Hotel.” The bull began to dance in typical Elvis style, with lots of hip gyrating and head tossing.

“You ever seen a bull do that?” Henry exclaimed, “You ever seen such a sight? This ain’t no ordinary bull, this is the king of rock and roll himself.”

Other visitors to the Christian dairy have expressed similar opinions. 68 year old Johanna-Marie remembers seeing Elvis on stage when she was 12 years old.

“Elvis was the most energetic and amazing performer there ever was,” she said, “Lord have mercy, I didn’t want to believe it, but my sister, she dragged me out here and the moment I lay eyes on that bull I knew it was him. No-one else ever had the kind of energy he had. That’s him all right.”

One of the visitors taking a picture with the purported King of Rock and Roll

The bull seems to enjoy the attention he receives daily from visitors, who bring him gifts of fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, Elvis CD’s and records, and shades. The bull loves having his picture taken with the ladies, and will dance for anyone who plays an Elvis Presley song for him.

Skeptics wonder why Elvis would be reincarnated as a bull at the Christian dairy.

“He’s the king, man, and he’s always been the king,” Henry Hampton said, “he’s come back to make our universe just a little cooler. Whether he comes back as a bull, or a man, he’s always going to keep it cool.”

“My team has been talking to the cattle to the east of the plant, who were here at the time of the break in,” she said, “It seems as if the break in occurred at about midnight. Many of the cattle recall witnessing an ape like creature walking across the road to the Christian Cheese plant.”
“What did the ape creature look like?”
“According to the witnesses we’ve talked to, the ape creature was covered entirely with black hair, and walked upright like a man.”
“Have you ever heard of anything like this creature before?”
“No,” Jezebel said, “but in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, you have to be prepared for anything.”

Christian Cheese chief of security, prepared for anything.

There was minimal damage done to the Christian Cheese plant and no one was injured during the break in. Jezebel speculated that the scent of Christian Cheese probably drove the hungry ape creature to the plant. She said she would be setting up a surveillance camera and performing bi-weekly security checks of the locks, as well as setting up a better inventory system so lost Christian Cheese inventory could be easily tracked.

“We’re not entirely sure how much inventory we lost,” Jezebel said, “but we do know the ape creature liked mild yellow cheddar. Lots and lots of mild yellow cheddar.”

When I asked him what he was doing, he said he was trying to catch an offering for the fire chicken.
“What’s the fire chicken?” I asked.
“Why, child,” he said, “the fire chicken is only the fiercest, deadliest animal you’ll ever run across this side of the Mississippi. The fire chicken spent seven years fighting in the Adirondacks as the undisputed fighting chicken champion. One night some kids tried to cook the fire chicken up for dinner, but he wasn’t having none of that. He escaped in a blind furious fire chicken tornado, and ended up in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. To this day he roams the land at night, eyes blazing, seeking revenge.”
“Seeking revenge?” I asked, “for what?”
“For worldwide chicken injustice!” Thomas Nine Fingers said.
Thomas Nine Fingers didn’t catch a catfish that day, but I gave him some yellow Christian Cheese curds to give to the fire chicken instead. He thanked me and left.

I asked the mastiff Jezebel, chief of security at the Christian Farm, if she’d ever heard of the fire chicken before. She said visitors reported multiple sightings of the deadly fire chicken, so Jezebel warned the cats not to leave the barn and increased security across the perimeter of the farm. Any further sightings of the fire chicken were to be reported to Jezebel immediately.

I was still skeptical if the fire chicken actually existed, since rumors spread fast here in Kingfisher. Not even a few years back there were reported sightings of a giant black panther roaming the country. The giant black panther turned out to be a Dalmatian. Nevertheless, I told Jezebel I would be on the lookout for the fire chicken and left her to her duties.

A few days later I saw Thomas Nine Fingers at the Christian Farm, standing outside near the barns with his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face. He told me the Christian Cheese appeased the fire chicken’s rage, and they shared a package of curds outside by his pond. I’d never seen Thomas Nine Fingers so happy. He said there was no need to be afraid of the fire chicken anymore, as long as it was given a regular supply of Christian Cheese. Also, he wouldn’t need to risk losing another finger trying to catch catfish out at Lake Elmer anymore. I gave Thomas Nine Fingers another package of Christian Cheese and sent him on his way.

Perhaps I’ll never know whether the fire chicken exists or not. Some nights I go outside and think I see a flash of blazing red just out of the periphery of one eye, but the color quickly vanishes.