by Katie Lundebjerg
There’s a hunger that reaches out from the depths of my consciousness, scraping at the ends of my mind, crying out to be satiated. Bugs and grain seeds do not quell the screaming.
It only serves to make it worse. Whatever I eat rarely stays down long.
My parents tell me that it’s natural to be a little hungry, but the farmer’s food is enough. They pet my fur coat with their strange feathers, chiding me to be still as my stomach yearns for more.
Chunks of fur fall off, and their beaks scratch at my ribs when they try to preen me. I don’t know why they bother. Ticks don’t feed on shambling bodies at the brink of death.
They hide me away in the back of the coop, into the darkest corner, whenever the farmer comes to collect the eggs and bring the grains. It’s better this way. To stay in my little hole, the one I sleep in underneath the coop, because the farmer doesn’t share the flock’s love for me.
My paws, with toes and pads, are so different from their clawed feet as I continue to dig deeper under the coop. The darkness of the pit deepens as I continue to dig, consuming me as I hide away.
I am desperate for release as the days drag by.
Until something from the pit of my stomach bursts free. Calling me to run past the farmer and through the metal strings wrapped around poles. Into the woods I go and it falls silent as my feet come to a stop at the body of another chicken.
A creature, who looks like me, had a red stain on his teeth. He looked healthy. Whole. Full coat. Eyes that aren’t cloudy.
I look between him and the body of the chicken on the ground.
The eyes of my family flash before my mine, briefly, before the hunger takes over. I cautiously approach him.
He looks at me with pity and leads me towards a coop with red wood instead of brown wood like mine. I hear the familiar clucking and cooing as I stand outside the door.
My mouth waters. Something primal claws its way up my throat and it’s not grain. The world around me fades as I give in. Bawks, squawks, shrieks. Feathers. Red.
The screaming inside of me goes quiet.
Katie Lundebjerg is a special education teacher and a fencing coach in the city of Albuquerque. She is a graduate student at New Mexico Highlands University in their teacher preparation program. Her written work has appeared in Praxis: A Writing Center Journal and Folk Tales: A Writing Theory Community Zine.