The story of when my chicken flew away!
(from a closed building with no windows)
Now, have a clear mind while reading this cause it might not sound sane but I am having 3 am thoughts about the time I had a chicken. I just suddenly had this thought pop up in my head whether I ever named her or not?
So, imagine this; it’s a sunny day and my gran just took my 6 maybe 7ish-year-old self out, hand-in-hand walking onwards on a mission to buy some chicken for dinner, I of course am on the inner side of the road and walking — looking at everything around me with utter astonishment, the road, the cars, the people and reading all the hoardings and banners and shop signs around me (I had a thing for reading all billboards, papers, posters, banners literally everything, even number plates on road trips, that is how my dad taught me which car is from were) with my gran speaking non-stop the whole way to the chicken shop. The moment we reach the chicken shop I see eggs stacked in trays, some slate boards with prices written with chalk; boiler, poetry eggs, and whatnot reading them with my newly developed stunning reading skills, and then my gaze fixes on this absolutely marvelous white fluff ball with a reddish-pink beak, like Rudolph’s shiny red nose out in the air, hand still clutched tight in my grans I turn to her, pulling at her hand and tell her “I want that”, she for obvious reasons asks me “Kya chui zorath?” (What do you need?) and I point out at the fluff ball that I had just gazed at (and apparently she was looking at me too, at least that’s what I told myself) and said “I want that”
I’ve never seen pester power working so well, at this moment now I realize, what my marketing professor taught me in grad school was completely and utterly not bullshit but an absolute Lakshman Rekha for marketing, a child pestering a parent to buy something unreasonable in a public setting always gets the salesman money.
That day I walked home with a 1.5 kg chotu, round, and white chicken, absolutely LIVE must I add. My mother was livid but could she even do anything at this point? Although, for technicalities sake she never let her in the actual house, but I somehow convinced her to let me keep her outside our door (I have pictures as proof!) made her bring me a tokri to keep her in so that she doesn’t run away and fed her religiously thrice a day gave her water to drink.
But, every story has an end, and this had too. I was completely heartbroken when after a week of pampering her she flew away to god knows where. I remember crying and throwing a fit, but as I grew up and came to my senses, I was the one livid, now pray tell HOW in lords (holy) name does a chicken FLY AWAY from the 6th floor of a building complex stairway with no windows?
PS. This sounds like complete nincompoopery but I will add those pictures once I find them
Alsooo, I know it is a hen when alive and chicken only after it isn’t living anymore but in somebody's plate or pet (look what I did there). But, since I always referred to her as “Chicken” we’ll go with that.
If you’ve had a similar slightly bizarre tale, do let me know! And then I might talk about how 5 cats adopted me
Correction: (June 17, 2021)
it was 2002 and I was 5, my brother was very freshly born. My father after reading this quickly came to point out that I wasn’t 6 or 7 at this time but 5 to be very specific
