by Rebecca Stansfield
They might live in the house with her, those four-legged hairballs, but I am her favourite. My dinosaur claws try to scale the carpeted stairs, before my entrance is impeded, that damn dog always comes out of nowhere with his dopey face. She’s happier with me, in the garden, pottering about, looking for eggs, and if it were up to her I’d be inside by now.
The cat teases me with her long tail, flicking it at my beak from the log-store roof, just out of reach. She goes in and out of the house with her feline derision, taunting me from the upper steps which I have never reached.
It used to be me and the duck, but he died. I apologise if that seems blunt, we poultry tend towards a quiet stoicism regarding these matters. In those days it was the three of us, ambling from the bushes, to the pond and back to the coop. She adored us, still adores me, what a wonderful woman.
It’s a hot summer day and the men want to leave the door open. They fashion a barrier that is supposed to fool me, a curtain over a pole, so that idiot dog can come and go as he pleases. The cat leapt over the whole thing, seeming almost bemused at the idea that she could be in any way detained.
Not long after, I discover the flimsiness of their attempt and make my first break for the stairs. I am intercepted by my woman and she gently reminds me that we are both going outside. Therefore I am placated, temporarily. She also has some seedy breadcrusts which are the perfect amount of peckable stale, apparently the young man works in a bread factory. He goes up in my estimations for this.
All further attempts are also foiled, although I do have a new personal best: five steps! Later that night, as she shuts me into my coop, I fluff my feathers up around myself and look around my empty home. A chicken shouldn’t be alone, I cluck softly.
Rebecca Stansfield writes: “I was born in West Yorkshire but live abroad now. Throughout my childhood and adolescence we always had chickens which inspired me to reflect on their social behaviours and individual personalities.”