Chick Lit

Woo hoo!!! The chickens are sooooo very proud to see that some of us have made it in the big big (human) world. Just look at the huuuuggeee billboard below!

Humans, it’s about time! Ducks, quack out and step aside! Buffaloes, moo yourself! Worms, eat dirt! Dogs, roll over and play dead! Especially you fluffy poodles.

Hush hush. Btw, who are those posing for the billboard ad anyhow? Do we know them? The smaller one on the right is definitely YC, but the other one does not look like The Chicken at all. And where the hen do they think they are going? On a holiday? Looks like it. Together??!?!

Do you think …? YC with another… ??? Nooo… Could it be??? Our YC? Ck ck, naughty YC. Oh, we are so proud of you! [The last comment is, obviously, made by ChickTune.]

It was a serene, quiet and fresh morning in Chickendom. Cockerels, pullets, chicks, and the elders are still half a sleep, swaying their head and body slowly, front and back, side to side. Calm. Quiet. Almost meditative.

Then suddenly. WE WANT MORE! WE WANT MORE! NO, LESS. I MEAN, MORE. I THINK IT SHOULD BE LESS! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? OF COURSE IT IS MORE. IT IS ALWAYS MORE. NO LESS, I MEAN… WHICH ONE IS IT ANYWAY???!! *annoyed*

The youngsters and elders are not asleep anymore. Wide awake, alarmed, and annoyed. It is the International Hen Day.

The productive adult female chickens are on strike. They believe that, as the lawyer and reps put it, they have been treated inhumanely, we mean, un-chickeny. Human should have better respect towards the “professional egg and white meat providers.”

Here’s a handy tip for you. Never ever get the chickens pissed off *excuse the French here*. They have high pride and high solidarity (if and when they want to, otherwise they are simply cheap, aggravating, and totally could-not-care-less-about-you-and-your-mom self-centric two-feet feathery balls.)

You do not want to have the chickens annoyed at you—especially the hens, you don’t want to mess with them. Their beak, really hurts, we tell you—Do you know that there are more chickens in the world than any other bird? More than 24 billion of us around. Yup, this is real statistics, and this is from five years ago. Yes sir, we are popular, huge and strong!!! We demand respect!!!!

We demand SOME SLACK. I mean, come on. Hens produce as many as 300 eggs a year. And you still think it is not enough???!!! *getting emotional.*

We demand STABLE NESTING PLACE. When we lay an egg in one spot, we want that very same spot to be available for our next eggs. Hens should also have priority access to food and nesting locations, compared to those (useless!) roosters who can only crow and flap wings.

We demand chickeny BUSINESS HOURS. A girl got to have her manicure, shopping, chatting, blogging, and coffee hours. Gotta, gotta, gotta.

We demand much BETTER PENSION PLAN. After our egg-laying ability starts to decline, then you just toss us all off. Did not your mother ever teach you anything? *still emotional*

We demand better TRANSPORTATION MODE (preferably by air). Chickens are explorers by nature. We want to fly to explore our surrounding (btw, have you seen that handsome Italian roosters at the barn next door? Mama mia!! Let’s explore!!). And as you know, domestic chickens are, uhm, not exactly the best frequent flier on the planet. So an aircraft or chopper would be good. *pushing it a bit too much*

So there you go. WE WANT MORE! WE WANT MORE! NO, LESS. I MEAN, MORE. I THINK IT SHOULD BE LESS! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? OF COURSE IT IS MORE. IT IS ALWAYS MORE. NO LESS, I MEAN… WHICH ONE IS IT ANYWAY???!! *annoyed*

Sigh. The racket (brit’s for “noise”). Only Mother Hen can put an end to this *cough* ridiculous *cough again* commotion.

Where is she? Mother??!! Mother!?! We need our sleep.

[pics taken from the royalty-free Getty Images and BBC.]

Alright, alright. We promise that this will be our last entry on The Chicken’s disappearance/return. We mean, who the hen does The Chicken think he is, occupying so much space in this oh-so-important virtual world of ours?

Now where were we.

Days go by. All the chickens are getting more and more restless. You can see by the number of feathers lying about on the floor or the corn beads spread across the yard (as the chickens run about haphazardly trying to gain as much gossip as possible from other chickens).

Naturally, Mother Hen is not amused with all the mess caused. “Chirp chirp chirp,” she said. “CLUCK!! chirp chirp.” “CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP!!!” (even mother has her limit of tolerance. Very low, actually).

To put an end to this, the elders (minus Chick-A-Boo, he still cannot care less about all this commotion) have summoned Yellow Chickey (YC as she is commonly called by the flock) to investigate whether that weird chicken is the true Chicken. (What’s weird about The Chicken being weird? Honestly, elders. Weird is normal).

So that dawn YC sneaks quietly behind the pillar just beside the Chicken’s spot in the barn. She knows The Chicken has a certain procession for waking up. (Don’t ask us how she knows, she just does). YC sits stills. And wait. And wait. Staring affectionately at her sleeping knight in shining armor. Occasional long sighs come out of her tiny beak.

Until finally, after what we feel like endless hours (12 minutes to be exact), The Chicken moves. Oh, false alarm. He falls asleep again. Grrrgggh. Then other countless hours passed by (6 minutes to be exact), he moves again. Slowly he opens his sleepy eye lids. YC straightens her seating posture (Yogis call this the perfect lotus) and pays close attention to his moves.

Scratch, scratch, scratch. Three times. So far so good. She waits a bit more. Scrattchchchchchch. Yes, the long one. Good. The Chicken spreads his wings, raises his body high high high, and boom. He sits again. Good. Now the final touch. The moment of truth.

The Chicken extends his right wing to under his hays. He takes out a brown bottle. YC smiles knowingly. Then thud, thud, thud. He puts on three dabs of his oh-so-familiar-to-YC CADE youth concentrate lotion all over his face and body. Thumb. Another joyful dab for luck (The Chicken is very superstitious).

YC smiles very very widely. She runs, still very quietly, to the yard, where apparently the rest of the unwavering flock are sitting impatiently waiting for the verdict.

YC shows her face. Beak first, then the rest of the face. Smiling brightly. She does not have to say anything. The chickens know. Cute YC never lies. She is not able to (poor chick, may we suggest a quick lesson of life with Chick Tune). The wide smile says it all.

Y’all know what that means. Parrrr- teeeeeee!!! (we mean, party). The way only the chickens know. Led by the ones and only: Chick Tune and Big Bro Chicken. But the star of the party today is none other than yours truly: YC. Bring it on!

It is that time of the year again, where chickens all over the world celebrate its Awakening Day. A day when chickens–chicks, hens and roosters alike–join all farm animals to commemorate the dawn of their enlightened period and the start of their revolution, as depicted in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. (Yes, good old chap George was not writing fiction. No sir, he was not.)

The chickens, awakened. Can you imagine how impossibly early the chickens need to wake up on that day? *sigh*

At the Chickendom, however, this year’s celebration is pretty somber, as The Chicken’s whereabout is yet to be known. Still, tradition is tradition. The show must go on, as chirpy should-have-realized-their-age-more Chick and Dale say.

So the chickens lazily came out from their own warm fluffy comfy all-natural organic hay bed at wee hour in the morning (if you can call such hours morning) to gather around the holy fire and ponder upon life. Solemn. Silent. With occasional ineffable “zzzzz pfeeew zzzz” sounds.

Then comes the peak of the procession, where each and every chicken makes its symbolic sacrifice. Each chicken plucks out a single gentlest feather from its back (just to make it more challenging) and throws it into the fire.

As the last feather touches the tip of fire, all together, the chicken screamed from the top of their lungs, “coo-ko-roo-cooo…uhuk uhuk” (some just simply try too hard). Enthusiastic bunch, they are.

A procession that is least liked by Chick-a-boo. (Chick-a-boo: “Try living for hundreds of years, where every single year you have to pluck out one feather from your body.” Of course, understandable.) The rebellious elderly continues to crawl like a fragile baby chick at his corner. The top right corner of the barn attic, just above the Chicken’s bed.

Owh, The Chicken. Everybody starts to acknowledge (silently in his/her heart) that they miss him. Awakening Day is not an awakening day without him. Nobody can make fire like he does (he always manages to get his own tail on fire) or play banjo like he does (everybody else is better, even the one-day year old chick).

[Hey, the scent. A familiar scent. Can it be The chicken has returned? Perhaps.. Then the wind blows. And the scent vanishes. Hope is just what it is: hope.]

As all return to their own coop, Yellow Chickey slips to hers. She takes out what seems to be old dilapidated feathers– they are Chicken’s. She keeps them tucked safely under her bed for good luck charm and tingling sensation. Everybody has to believe in something, a (rather) wise human once said. Even if it is old scruffy ramshackle feather of a no-good chicken. *strange*

The murky mystery still lurks from the dark corner of the barn. Where is The Chicken?