Chicken Tales

At my first meeting, we got talking about chicken crossing the road stories and I remembered I'd written one (without the road) ten years ago when part of another writers' group. Here it is. Looking forward to the road ones...

The Yellow Chicken

The yellow chicken sat on the mantelpiece, yellow feathers arranged in permanent plastic ruffles. It dug in a plastic claw (only in its mind of course!) and contemplated the living arrangements for the fortieth time that day.

"I'd sit in the middle of the room," it mused. “On a medium-sized perch, with the odd jewel strategically placed. There'd be all sorts of birds of the highest order mingling. Every now and again they'd glance at me and dip their beaks in admiration."

As you've probably already guessed, the yellow chicken was not lacking in arrogance. A lifetime of confused mantel-perching had left its mark. The longer he sat there the more elevated he imagined himself to be. Having no bird society to compare himself with only exaggerated this tendency.

That night the room was full (of people not birds!). The yellow chicken had long ago mastered English. In fact he preferred it now to his native cluck, which seemed a little hoarse in comparison. From his vantage point on the mantelpiece, he saw Mrs Musson secretly brush her breast against Mr Donahue. “And he's not too averse either!" thought the yellow chicken, slightly judgementally. It was not the morality of the act that caused the yellow chicken such refined pain, despite the fact that Mr Donahue was, after all, married to Mrs Donahue, now in the next room. Oh no! The yellow chicken thought himself far too intelligent for such plebeian morality. Rather, it was the coarse physicality of the act that offended him. He had long since discovered a mystic streak and considered a higher state of spirituality to be incompatible with lust or physical pleasure.

He swept his gaze round the room, secretly hoping for attention in the form of a rapt discovery.

It turned out that he was not to be disappointed. Before long such praise was pouring over his shiny body that he feared he might slide off the mantelpiece. Of course, being so unusual an object in such a setting, the yellow chicken had received remarks before, but tonight seemed the culmination of years of longing for his own view of himself to be confirmed by an external source.

"That yellow chicken," he heard. "Unique, haven't seen the like."
"Ask Hettie," a deep-voiced man told the speaker.
"It's from Africa," shouted Hettie from across the room, "made from plastic bags."
"Beautiful! Unusual!"

The yellow chicken felt singled out, like a jewel in an otherwise dirty room.

It was thus that he found himself in a strange house. He sat high up on a shelf in a small alcove among delicate sprays of Japanese irises. He waited and waited but nobody ever came. Eventually he stopped waiting.