LIFE LESSONS | DAILY INSPIRATION | CHILDREN’S LITERATURE | BOOKS AND AUTHORS | BACKYARD CHICKENS
How the Absence of Love Began to Influence the Chickens
When the smallest and the weakest prepares to completely shift the story path
This week, we are returning to sharing chapters from Volume Two: Over the Chimney. We have used the Seven Point Story Structure for planning each volume. We are currently moving into Pinch Point One before arriving at the Midpoint where Emily completely shifts the story path in a most surprising way. If you are a writer of fiction, you may want to look further into the Seven Points Story Structure. There are resources and videos online.
This structure has a symmetry, and those of you who know some of the Chicken language from previous newsletters already know how chickens love symmetry, particularly in the sound and spelling of their favorite words which are palindromes!
You may have asked “BuH-HuB?” and the answer is “Some things such as palindromes are ancient clues to understanding how a key can defeat The Absence of Love.” (Oh! That should have been a “Spoiler Alert” for you, our Medium fans and friends! But Amelia will want to explain more in another issue! In her travels, she had time to piece together the puzzle that had everyone — even The Living Library — stumped!)
You may wonder if what I write is based on true events. Some events are imagined, but this next chapter definitely did happen, just as it was recorded by The Pages of The Living Library. The only exception is that the actions completed and dialogue delivered by Nate were actually all done by me.
This week, we will pick up where we last left off with Chapters 11 and 12. Here is a link if you missed it:
And now on to Chapters 13 and 14!
Pearl’s sleep was restless that night. She wondered if her life would have been any different if she had been brought up somewhere else with different chickens for a family. She was unsure. She wanted to believe that no matter what the beginning circumstances, her life would work out in the end.
In her dreams, there was always danger and a predator with glowing pink eyes and long sharp teeth. In each of her dreams, she would defend Blanche and the others, just as she had done in real life. Then everyone would love and accept her, and her wonderful new life would begin.
Sometimes the dreams would wake her up. She would tell herself, “Good normal chickens are brave. They tell me I am not a good normal chicken, so I must not be brave. But I was brave with the opossum. I saved Blanche and myself and maybe everyone else too. Perhaps I am simply a different kind of brave and a different kind of good, normal chicken.”
Those thoughts gave her comfort like when Blanche nudged closer to her in the night to share warmth. Surely together, they would be able to handle anything.
When Nate returned home from the grocery store the next morning, Emily rushed to meet him at the door of their run. She was frantic. There was a large section on the back of her head without any feathers. Her skin was bright pink, almost red. Another peck or two and she would begin bleeding which is never good.
As Nate leaned over to examine her more closely, the others joined them, and then Blanche made several pecks at Emily’s head. They were not serious enough to break the skin, but it was obvious who was responsible.
Emily retreated to a safer spot under the coop while Blanche took a few bites of breakfast salad from the spot where Emily had been standing and then went up the chicken ladder to the nesting boxes. Pearl followed her.
We watched as Nate tried to figure out what was going on and what to do about it. He must have known he could not let Emily get hurt any further. Chickens do not like weakness in their flock, and they will turn against one of their own who is bleeding.
He took Blanche out of her favorite nesting box and closed the wire door to the coop, leaving Pearl still inside while he examined Blanche.
“Sweetie, I’m not sure why you did that,” he said, “but I can’t let you do it again.”
Blanche remained calm, and we watched as her body relaxed in his arms.
“I don’t want you to think that I’m mad at you or that I’m punishing you. But I can’t let you stay there with the others. I can’t let Emily get hurt any more.”
She buried her head in the crook of his arm and did not make a sound. He carried her to the old coop and run and placed her inside. The he went back and got Pearl to keep her company along with a water container and food dish for just the two of them.
“This is going to be your new home for a while. It should be just fine for the two of you, and I’m not going to treat you any differently. I promise. We need to give Emily some time to regrow her feathers.”
Then he sat with them for a while to help them understand their separation was not punishment. Blanche was fine with returning to their old home, but Pearl was agitated and would not speak to him.
We wondered if he remembered back to the many months ago when he had heard Blanche telling Pearl one night in their old coop how she was not feeling right and how she might be sick. That was before Pearl had helped Blanche when she had an accident with her ballet slippers and had come up with a new plan of being a comedian.
“I’m sorry, Pearl,” he said. “It looks like you won’t be able to do any more comedy shows, at least for a while. Emily will need to molt before she will get any new feathers. We may be waiting for quite a while.”
Pearl would not look at him. Her plans of winning over her audience one joke at a time had been ended. Finally, she mumbled, “I hate being put in Chicken Jail.” But that was all she would say to him for many days.
Nate went to check on Emily, and she seemed fine and much more relaxed. Without warning, he heard a ruffling of feathers and flapping of wings as Pearl was jumping back and forth in front of Blanche.
“Why did you do that, Blanche?” she screeched. “you have ruined everything for me! Everything!”
Blanche sat motionless looking out towards the street.
“I finally started feeling just a little bit like I might have a chance to fit in. Then everything would be good for me, and for you too, Blanche. They all love Emily. She is the littlest and the sweetest and Amelia’s friend.”
Blanche continued to ignore Pearl’s ranting.
“You’re nothing but a big bully. Why do you have to be so selfish? Don’t you ever think about anyone else?”
Finally, Blanche took a deep breath and stood up. She leaned forward and looked Pearl in the eyes. At that moment, everyone thought she would go after Pearl as well. Pearl must have thought the same thing because she tucked her head under her wing to shield herself.
Instead of pecking, Blanche went up to their old nesting boxes, but Pearl did not follow her.
From the darkness of their old coop, we heard Blanche moving the straw around to make it comfortable for laying her egg.
When she had gotten herself settled in, she spoke softly to herself what she had wanted to tell Pearl but did not. “What you do not realize is I may have saved your life, Pearl. Your life and my life — or at least given my life a little more time.”
There was a long silence. Then she said even more softly, “Everything I have ever done, I have done for you.”
The only ones to hear those word were us songbirds on the branches of the camellia. If Pearl could have heard those words, she might have remembered how Blanche had told her several months before about not feeling well and possibly being very sick. If Pearl had heard Blanche, she might have understood and had time to prepare for what was to come.
As I’ve shared before, Volume Two: Over the Chimney focuses on Emily and Amelia. This next chapter shares more of who Emily is, and who Amelia is through Emily’s eyes. In Chapter 13, Emily was at a physically low point. Now in Chapter 14, she is at an emotionally low point.
“Why do you always draw me small? Like I’m still a just-hatched chick?” asked Emily as she peered over my sketch pad.
I thought about this for a moment because I wasn’t completely sure how to answer.
“I draw everyone as a just-hatched chick sometimes, even Gracie.”
“Yes, I know, but you have never drawn me as a grown-up hen with my comb and wattles.”
“That’s true.”
“So why not?”
Emily is seldom persistent like this. She only gets this way when it’s something really important like when everyone else isn’t giving her space to eat breakfast salad or mealworms. It is not always easy for her because she is the smallest.
“Maybe part of the reason is I never really saw you growing up every day like the others. I used to visit you and Amelia when you were little. You probably don’t remember because the world was so new to you then, but I did visit you, Emily.
“There were twenty-four of you in that huge brooder box and playpen. There was so much going on all of the time. It was tough to keep track of who was who, except for Amelia. She liked to fly up to the top of the play pen and walk around.”
“Yes, I remember. There were a lot of us. There were many more than I could count. But I did not stand out from the others did I? Not the way Amelia did.”
Her heart would have loved for me to say I had picked her out right from the beginning as a very special baby chick, but I had to be truthful.
“What matters is how you stand out now. Even with people, it’s not easy to see who is special in a crowd. It takes time and time together.”
“So it’s not because I am smaller than all of the others?”
“No, not at all.”
“Is there anything else?”
“Well, when I draw you so young, It’s not because my eyes see you as just a little chicken. It helps me imagine you as if you had always lived here with me from your very first day. Sometimes I truly do wish you and Amelia had been here with me from the beginning.
“But if you had been here with me from the beginning, I would not have been able to choose you. What makes you special to me is that I was able to choose you because of who you are rather than who you might become after you got here. I didn’t get to choose Amelia, but I did get to choose you to come here with her. That is what makes you different, not being smallest.”
She seemed pleased with all of this and turned to look for sunflower kernels.
“And Emily, to be totally honest, I’m not sure I can draw your grown-up hen feathers as beautifully as they truly need to be drawn. I don’t know how to draw iridescence, and everything about you is iridescent.”
She stood a little taller and poked out her breast a little farther. “You always know exactly what to say.”
“I just speak from my heart, Emily, and my heart adores everything about you.”
It must be rare for chickens to receive compliments, but I could see Emily’s comb and wattles blush just a little. She had likely been so concerned about being the smallest that she never took time to notice the many good things about herself. She had lived most of her life in the shadows of larger chickens who had much grander personalities. She must have felt even smaller next someone like Amelia. And yet Amelia never boasted about herself.
“You know, Amelia looks up to you, Emily.”
“How do you know that? Has she ever said that to you.”
“Have you ever noticed how she lets you have first choice at breakfast salad — even when it includes some of her favorites? I asked her about it once, and she said that was because chickens don’t have much of anything to give to each other. But giving someone else first choice is a kind of gift. It’s a gift for those you admire and look up to and appreciate.”
Emily seemed surprised. When she finally spoke, she said, “You know I love our garden home. I love watching things bloom and grow.”
“Yes, I know. Whenever we have free-range time in the backyard and garden, you’re always the one who walks down the garden paths and surveys everything before searching for any bugs.”
“The bugs will always be there, but the flowers are only with us for a season.”
“You know, Emily, you are a bit of a philosopher.”
“I don’t know what I am other than a chicken. Everyone else has a special interest. Gracie has ballet. Bessie has cooking. Pearl has comedy. Blanche has eating. I don’t have anything.”
“You didn’t mention Amelia.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“Because she wants to be an explorer and fly away. She is going to be the first chicken to fly to the moon and back.”
“And she will leave you behind?”
Emily looked down at her feet.
“I am worried that she is going to leave me forever when her sign comes. That is what she is waiting for now. She has been with me from the day I hatched. It is not easy for me to make new friends. I am small.”
“I know. But as hard as it is on you thinking about Amelia maybe leaving, it could be even harder on Amelia. If we love her, we can’t stand in her way or make her feel guilty.”
Emily sank to the ground. It was as if the weight of all this was more than she could bear.
“This may be the most difficult thing you and I will ever have to do. But we will have to do it for Amelia.”
Emily raised her head and looked high up into the camellias where we songbirds like to build our nests. “Sometimes I want to tell her not to go,” she said, raising her voice almost in anger, but she held back.
“Sometimes I want to beg her to please take me with her,” she said softly, almost as if to cry.
“But I know I can not go with her. I would not survive. I am not as strong as she is. I would not be able to keep up, and I would only hold her back. She would be so worried about protecting me that she might lose her focus and get hurt. I can not let that happen.”
She rested her head on my shoe, and we sat together for a while, neither of us saying anything.
“Emily, it is a beautiful gift and sacrifice you are willing to give Amelia.”
“What do you mean?” She looked up at me, unaware of her own goodness.
“I mean if you asked her, she would take you with her, and you would be happy. But you know it would risk her life. So you don’t ask. You are giving up your happiness to let her do what she must do to find her own happiness.”
“I love her so much.”
I nodded in silent agreement.
“She will always be our Amelia. But we must remember she must always be her own Amelia first.”
After a long silence, Emily said, “I like the daffodils. Can we plant more for next spring?”
“They really are bright and cheerful, aren’t they? Are they your favorite? We can plant even more of them if they are your favorite.”
“I’m not sure if I have a favorite.”
“Yes, I know what you mean. A big part of designing a nice garden is putting different things side-by-side so everything looks like it belongs together. One plant compliments another one, just like you and Amelia compliment each other even though you look different.”
“Do you think we can plant more of everything? And make it so there are flowers blooming all of the time?”
“That sounds like a beautiful idea. But why blooming all of the time?”
“So maybe when Amelia has flown up to the moon, she can look back down and see all of the flowers here in our yard. And so maybe she will discover she misses them. I don’t think they have flowers on the moon.”
She took a deep breath and whispered hopefully, “And so maybe she will discover she misses us, too.”
“Emily, I think she already misses us, even though she hasn’t left us yet.”
She considered this carefully and said, “Then I think all of the flowers will help Amelia find her way back to us. She will know which house is ours by all of the flowers everywhere.”
She had a more determined tone in her voice which was good to hear. I stood up and reached for my shovel.
“Emily, you can help with adding more flowers, whatever kinds you’d like. Maybe gardening is your special interest. For today, let’s divide and transplant the Japanese Iris. Now is the time for them to establish new roots before blooming.”
Emily seemed happy to be doing something to help move forward in her own way. She began searching for a new, perfect spot for them where they would be easily seen from the moon during the day, but especially at night.
“I think the Japanese Irises are one of Amelia’s favorites. They are beautifully tall and slender. They reach for the sky just like she does.”
“You’re right — ” I agreed.
I started digging and Emily started scratching in the spot she had chosen. It was nice to see her putting her worries aside for a time.
“ — And Emily, I can guarantee there are absolutely no Japanese Iris blossoms on the Moon.”
Emily was delighted to hear this.
Still ahead in the next newsletters: Amelia’s amazing Map-Making Ability (which poses a moral dilemma of which there always seem to be quite a few for someone like Amelia) and Emily’s even more amazing Drawing Ability (which poses a need to suspend belief in how the world works even if you are a chicken).
Until Next Time
Thank you for reading!
John, Gracie, Bessie, Blanche, Pearl, Emily, and Amelia
