The God Of The Chicks

The spring is morphing slowly into summer up here in the northern climes. Sól is riding her sun chariot across the sky, radiating her warmth, joy and light, forever pursued by the two wolves, Sköll and Hati. So, in honour of my favourite Norse Goddess, Sól, this week on The Crow I’m offering you a moment’s respite from all the madness with this fable of love and transformation. I hope you enjoy :)

1.

Nobody noticed when she disappeared. It wasn’t until chicks started piling up that anyone said anything, where’s that girl, they said, pointing to the gap in the work flow, which, in no time they filled with another girl, and then got on with things.

Although some people did think about the young woman’s disappearance and felt a deep dread at the loneliness of their own insignificance, others felt a malicious pleasure at the young woman’s disappearance and how easily she was replaced because they couldn’t cope with the pain of their own insignificance.

People began to tell more and more elaborate stories until the whole thing became far more dramatic in the telling than it ever was in the living. Some said being remembered was a consolation and others said the remembering had nothing to do with what really happened. But no one really knew what happened. Except the girl. She knew.

2.

She had been grabbing chicks as they flowed past on the conveyer belt, unconsciously grabbing chicks, sweating in the heat, noise cancelling earplugs numbing the world, grabbing any chicks that looked strange and throwing them into the catcher, their tiny black and shiny eyes reflecting her approaching hand as they stood there like tiny yellow tumbleweeds being grabbed and thrown into the darkness of the Catcher where they rolled down, down, down to their fate.

She was God to the chicks. Her, a flesh and blood God on minimum wage with an aching back and itching eyes, her, a bored, desperate God yearning to be free of this place, hovering above the belt of chicks, blindly grabbing and throwing, grabbing and throwing, her, a God trapped in the bricks and mortar of the factory, trapped by the low wage and the high price of everything, a God of her own Hellscape.

The previous night this God Of The Chicks had been floating on her back in the midnight sea, staring up at the stars as the salty water held her in a state of conscious bliss, floating below a trillion stars, staring back in time to the ancient specks of light, lost in the immediacy of it all, seeing the glow of the town rise and fall, rise and fall as she lay in the warm water, holding on fast, so that she might remember each second, smuggle every moment into her memory so that she might use them to blot out those chicks rolling past day after day after day.

So she was grabbing chicks, throwing them into the catcher, trying as she might to bring the peace of the previous night to mind, to evoke the tranquility of floating in the dark ocean instead of being where she was, in the clunky sweaty factory reeking of chicks, weighed down by the extraordinary gravity of her God-like grabbing so that her heart beat like a eel in a bucket, slap, bang, slap bang, slap bang, until it suddenly seemed to stop, and out of the blue, her hand reached for a chick, gently enveloping the small yellow thing, not throwing it but keeping it, and her breathing slowed as she tucked the tiny yellow tumbleweed into the pocket of her hoodie and turned away from the conveyor belt without signalling to her co-workers, just getting away so that all of a sudden, it seemed, she was outside the factory and yanking out her earplugs and throwing them to the ground so for the first time she could hear the tiny extraordinary force of the chirp, chirp, chirp, coming from her pocket as she walked away from the factory without looking back, not once, not one single time.

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3.

She had expected someone to come looking, for sirens or a line of people with sniffer dogs, but none came. She had expected the chicken to die, but it actually thrived, as if it enjoyed her company, as if it loved her. She had expected people to prey upon her, a tasty young woman alone with a tasty chicken, but people helped her, peeking from the corner of their eyes, not asking the questions she had expected but smiling as if they were witnessing a strange miracle that was briefly passing through their lives, as if this young woman and her chicken were a living poem for which we should all be grateful.

For the first six months they crossed the country, the chicken bedside her, running along with it’s funny gait and bobbing head and looking so serious with it’s little red comb protruding from its beautiful head so that in the beginning she wondered if she might be falling in love with the chicken, but later, after some months she knew that she had fallen in love with the chicken as the little wet bells in its throat trilled its happiness.

Six more months passed. On a fine day, warm and clear with the ancient sun god Ra sharing light and warmth, they wandered along a snaking stony road through the mighty redwoods on the wild coast road, the chicken scampering here and there, when a woman on a bicycle rode past, and , turning her head, slammed on her brakes and held her hand to block out the sun.

The God Of The Chicks stopped and hesitated because she was the one being examined, inspected even, and even though she hadn’t felt it in a long time, she was aroused by the penetrating stare, until finally she said, “What are you doing riding a push bike here on this road”, and the woman who couldn’t take her eyes from the amused face said, “Says the woman walking along with a pet chicken.”

“She’s no pet, we’re companions.”

“Right, well if you love birds are hungry I’m cooking for two,” then, nicking her head toward the chicken, said, “Ok, two and a half then.”

4.

Love comes unbidden, like birdsong, at once extraordinary and commonplace, a blessing that forever changes those fortunate enough to be drenched in its boundless symphony. The two women shifted inside their skin upon that road, and over the simple meal, and during the following days and weeks and months, like a story being told to eager ears who have heard nothing but silence and cannot hear enough, they fell deeper and deeper into each other.

Two women and one chicken on a smallholding, conjuring up poems and dreams and laughter and plans, their sun-drenched skin gently kissed, deep breathes quickly taken, basking in shared calmness that only merging souls can muster, as the redwoods inched toward the heavens and the seasons flowed past as naturally as dusk beckoned the dawn. And for two full years they were lost in the lucid dream of each other’s love.

But the God Of The Chicks was forever drawn toward the horizon and could not settle. She felt the ancient kernel of wanderlust that slowly grew into a chronic restlessness. And the Bicycle Woman saw this because her love was brave and could accept her lover’s needs. So one night, as they watched the sun go down, after a glass or two that gave the courage to finally broach the truth, she said, “I don’t suppose you’d want to, well, can you…does it have be this way?”.

“It’s not that I…I’m not…I do…I don’t have any choice,” the God Of The Chicks hesitantly said, feeling fear for upon this ground she did not want to tread.

But the Bicycle Woman persisted because she knew what must be said, “And later on, when you’ve, I don’t know, found, I don’t know, because, who knows, we never know, do we, then what, will you return?”

“I don’t know,” the God Of The Chicks said with glassy eyes.

Like a rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire the Bicycle Woman said, “I hate this fucking life,” and God Of The Chicks laughed as if she were being dragged through all her agonies in that instance.

“You can come too” the God Of The Chicks said.

The silence prompted salvation where none existed. They both knew. The Bicycle Woman did not speak because once the words were said the world would change forever.

5.

The young woman and the chicken headed south, toward the big city, where the urban world invented its own truth and any madness could be worshipped as sanity. The chicken pecked at the road but found less and less as they headed into the private domain of money and power. Outside of the city people saw the pair as a living poem but as they entered the city people began to cast judgemental eyes upon them and draw colder conclusions. As they walked through the shadows cast by huge buildings she thought it was strange that in a place where people were so tightly bound to one another they looked so lonely, like wounded creatures, arrogant and cowered, isolated in their crowds, lost inside themselves.

She felt vulnerable, like standing beside the conveyor belt in the chick factory, worthless in some essential way, as if dignity and choice were offered only to some and withdrawn from others. She found herself picking up the chicken and holding it tightly to her breast and looking for a green space, a tree, or a river, or long grasses, or anywhere that would accept her as kin.

Eventually she saw a carefully curated park with plants and trees and benches where she and the chicken sat. As they sat there, hungry and tired, she was struck by the thought that “In this place I am nothing more than what I have in my pocket,” and she felt in her pocket and there was only a small flat stone the Bicycle Woman had given her as a love token picked up on a beach one fine day.

“I’ve abandoned my life twice already so fuck these people,” she thought and took the chicken under her arm and walked back toward the crowded street and into the swankiest restaurant she could find. The rich, who are disdainful of anything that curtails their lust, might well display such eccentricity, so when a young woman came sauntering into the restaurant with a chicken under her arm the maître d’ greeted the God Of The Chicks with a broad smile and showed her to a table. He was used to the wanton abandon of this class and wasn’t in the slightest perturbed when the chicken fired a green and white shit across the white linen tablecloth and over the stem of a wine glass. He merely removed the glass and graciously asked, “Will Mademoiselle be dining alone, this evening?”

The God Of The Chicks used two palms to indicate the chicken, pulling a face that implied the maître d’ was possibly insane, and said, “We’ll be dining together,” shaking her head in bemusement.

“Of course,” the maître d’ replied handing over two menus.

The God Of The Chicks took one menu and, nodding toward the chicken, said “She’s forgotten her reading glasses,” and after a quick perusal ordered a bowl of kitchen scraps, a coquilles Saint-Jacques and a green salad.

“And to drink?”

“A large Sancerre and a small egg cup of water.”

“An egg cup?” the maître d’ looked uncertain.

“Good point,” said the God Of The Chicks, enjoying herself thoroughly, “a silver gravel boat perhaps?”

“I’ll see what I can arrange,” the maître d’ replied, amused by this young woman.

When the meal was finished the waiter slid the leather bill wallet across the table the God Of The Chicks sighed.

“I’m hoping you’ll accept a small flat stone once given as a token of love as payment?”

The waiter took a beat and withdrew and within a moment the maître d’ appeared.

“I’m offering a small flat stone once given as a token of love as payment.”

The maître d’ hesitated, and feeling thrown in some strange way, said, “Let me see the stone.” She displayed it in the palm of her hand. A simple stone, like half a finger, dark grey with a slight sheen. A plain stone found on any beach. Nothing special.

“It’s just a stone,” he said.

“A stone given as a token of love,” she corrected him.

Some diners were glancing over.

“So its only got sentimental value,” he said.

“Exactly, something I truly value for just a meal,” she said stone faced.

“Oh, I suppose you’ll be expecting change then,” the maître d’ replied.

The God Of The Chicks smiled and squinted a little and leant forward, “I’d take two embarrassing stories about your past or the promise of a kind deed in the future,” she said.

The maître d’ looked at this girl with a chicken in her arms and felt an extraordinary wave of gratitude. In some fundamental way she was striding right past his work persona, the charade of being a maître d’ and standing right there in front of him, the man, the person, the soul underneath it all. He felt suddenly horribly theatrical in this restaurant, dressed in his smart maître d’ costume, his manner perfected over years of insipid social reproduction, his requirement to extract payment regardless of all context. And now this young woman, a kind of witch perhaps, looking with her direct gaze past all of that and quietly demanding, Can you? Will you? Dare you?

The God Of The Chicks saw this man wrestling with himself and she too felt an extraordinary wave of gratitude. Maybe these wounded creatures need no more than a gentle push and the whole world’ll come tumbling down?

“How about one embarrassing story and a kind deed right now?” the maître d’ said, resting on one hip and slowly shaking his head.

Friendship comes unbidden, like birdsong, at once extraordinary and commonplace, a blessing that forever changes those fortunate enough to be drenched in its boundless symphony. The two of them shifted inside their skin in that restaurant, over the simple meal, and during the following days and weeks and months, like a story being told to eager ears who have heard nothing but silence and cannot hear enough, their friendship grew deeper and deeper.

Eventually more and more elaborate stories reached the town about the girl who disappeared, stories far more dramatic in the telling than they ever were in the living. Some said she was a witch and others said she was nothing but a thief. Some said she would come in the night and steal children and turn them into crazy spirits that followed no rules, and others secretly hoped that were true. But no one really knew. Except the girl. She knew. And the chicken of course. She knew too.