Plucky Mrs. Cluck

Contributor: Danica Green

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Mama kept chickens in the yard all through my childhood. Every few days she and I would go out together and collect the eggs, feed the chickens, check the cage wires, and I would say hello to each chicken individually. Mrs. Cluck was my favourite, we adopted her from a shelter and she'd been the only survivor of a fox attack on the coop she lived in as a chick. It had left her mother and siblings dead and her wings torn off so she looked a bit like one of those New Zealand kiwi birds. It never phased her though, she produced just as many eggs as her coop-mates, ate fine, slept well. Plucky Mrs. Cluck.

Since papa left the house two years earlier, money had been tight. I'd often go without fancy birthday gifts so that we could feed the chickens and I didn't mind it at all. Who'd want a stupid cassette player when they could have walking, talking toys, right? One Christmas I spent the morning playing with my paltry gifts and watching tv before mama called me to the kitchen. I loved Christmas lunch and it was always fair, I liked the legs, mama liked the wings and we'd share the rest between us, so when I saw her reaching for one of my drumsticks I got pretty annoyed and went to snatch it out of her hand. That's when I looked down and saw the wingless chicken carcass on the table. Mama stared down at her plate. I let go of the drumstick and did the same.


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Danica Green is a UK-based writer of things that make no sense. She hopes to burn your eyeballs out with her words, or at the very least, make you smile awkwardly.
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