by Paulette Hampton
Lamborghini was an Ayam Cemani Rooster, my uncle’s prized cock.
“Its feathers are black, its beak is black,” Uncle Rob smiled proudly, “even its internal organs are black.”
Uncle Rob named the rooster Lamborghini. He said it cost as much.
The other chickens on Uncle Rob’s farm were jealous of the metallic sheen emanating from Lambo’s ink-black feathers, spreading rumors that he was strange and held mystical powers.
Lambo heard the hens’ gossip as he walked the farmyard. Their narrow eyes followed him as their small brains concocted outlandish stories of his upbringing and misadventures.
It was the talk of the farm when Janie, one of the older hens, laid eggs after a rendezvous with Lambo. The eggs weren’t black but cream-colored. They chattered that the eggs were black as night, but Lambo’s mystical powers cloaked them to resemble normal eggs so as not to worry the mother.
When Janie fell ill and died, the other chickens blamed Lambo’s mystical powers for infecting her bones, her life taken as punishment for falling under his unearthly spell.
No hen would warm those eggs. They lay uncovered and vulnerable to the chilly night air, the embryos denied the essential energy needed for their development. It was whispered that if a chicken sat on those eggs, they would fall ill just as Janie did.
As the chickens watched the eggs, waiting for entropy to claim them, Lambo covered their beige shells with his shimmering ink-black feathers, hoping to warm the beings inside into existence.
The hens flew into a frenzy, insisting that they were right all along. That Lambo was indeed strange and mystical. Why else would a rooster kill the mother hen and warm his own eggs?
Each day, Lambo willed the heat of his body to encase the chicks inside the shells so they would grow, and soon chip the eggshells open with excitement. Lambo was patient, sitting day in and day out, waiting for movement beneath his wings. But none came.
The chicks never emerged and the rumors about Lambo’s mystical strangeness died because his fatherly dedication bored the chickens.
Closing his shiny black eyes, Lambo passed away, still sitting on the nest. The chickens say he never left it, hoping to hatch his chicks so that, at last, he would finally be loved.
Paulette Hampton is a multi-genre writer who writes paranormal, memoir, and sci-fi novellas. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines such as Typo Magazine, Disturb the Universe, and Suburban Witchcraft.