by Emily Eaton
Workaway
If I’m thinking about chickens then I’m thinking about September. A suburb near Perth where the sky was eerily empty – no clouds, like a simulation. Us together, fresh out of Southeast Asia, rocking up to a hobby farm with big backpacks and doses of optimism. How things turned out to not be what they were promised, but honesty was found with the animals. Dogs, horses, cats, and chickens. I’d always been afraid of chickens, although I felt guilty about that. I knew they didn’t deserve it – it’s not their fault they walk like that, and look like that when they’re hungry. I know you think I’m scarier when I’m hungry, and you’re right.
When I first entered the coop alone, I pushed the gate cautiously, clutching kitchen scraps. Tip-toeing in wellies – terrified. A chicken flew up at me impatiently, wings flapping wildly – I dropped the bucket in panic. Pellets and food waste spattered over the ground and I quickly picked up the container in embarrassment. Collected the eggs with fear flaring up inside me.
It took some getting used to – the routine there. There was a lot not to like about the way the place was run and I was stressed sometimes, but we stuck out the month like we’d agreed to. Slept in bunk beds and ate dinner early, because we had to. Really got along with the other Workawayers – united in our complaints. Adored the dogs like they were our own. Got comfortable around horses and took good care of the cats. Ran up and down the road in blazing heat. We gossiped in the evenings, sitting on wonky rocks. I’d stare at the sky with the brightest stars and think about how much had changed. How much I’d changed, getting lost in this “elsewhere” land that felt so far from home. But I had you, and you were home. I’d think about what it meant to be in a bubble characterised by reality – real nature, real obligations, real exploitation, and real living creatures depending on us, yearning for our burning under the strong Australian sun.
We were spinning slowly, using our hands for free where they were needed. Weeding. Cleaning. Reaching round each other’s backs because I needed you. I need you and I always will.
I stopped feeling anxious when going to feed chickens.
while feeding the chickens
revelations crack
open, like runny
eggs. poured into
palms—bursting
yellow yolks.
Emily Eaton is a lesbian writer from Essex, England. She loves Thai food and sunsets and words. She regularly writes on her Substack (https://somewheresoftly.substack.com/) and is building a soft place to land over at https://www.somewheresoftly.com/