Rebellion in The Hen House

It was a lazy summer day when the lady with the camera appeared.

Soon, Peanut Butter had her own YouTube video, and when she found out over 15,000 people had viewed it, she was thrilled. 

But her elation gave way to confusion when she began reading some of the comments. Some were mocking, while others were downright threatening.

"But... but why? Why do all these people hate me?" wailed Peanut Butter. "Tsk tsk," clucked Jelly. "Haters gonna hate."

Sparkle the rooster was a bit more philosophical: "All this hostility, these are just things that insecure people say so they can feel better about themselves," he opined. "Besides, what do you care what a bunch of strangers say about you?"

But she did care. She felt more than a little hurt; she felt indignant. The next time The Human came by, she cackled out her displeasure.

"Oh, Peanut Butter," sighed The Human. "I should have told you this before. You're a public figure now. People will be jealous of your success; they will feel threatened by you.

"The most important rule you've got to learn is, Never Read the Comments Section. How do you think Britney Spears deals? How does any celebrity deal? They don't read the comments."

"It's true," thought Peanut Butter. "Now I know how Britney feels. I've got to learn the same coping mechanisms or I'll go crazy." 

Everyone who met Chompsky agreed he was a goose with anger issues. Sure, he'd learned to suppress it sometimes -- like when he first arrived at the giant chicken compound, a lone goose in a sea of hens.

"Oh, a person-goose," cooed The Human back in those early days.

But everything changed the day the other goose arrived, with her slender neck and bright orange beak. It was then that Chompsky cast aside his placid veneer and unleashed his true self.

He began slowly -- first attacking his food dish, then a cardboard box, then a bucket. Soon he progressed to larger items, like the large red trash can, whose constant presence inside the barn taunted him and spurred him into a violent rage. 

With beak locked firmly in place, he'd beat his wings at the offending item, battering it into submission. Each successful skirmish drew honks of adulation from his goose companion, giving him the strength to forge ahead. It was intoxicating.

On more than one occasion, he'd targeted The Human, usually when it ventured near the food station. But The Human would twist and turn, dislodging itself from his beak's vise-grip. When this happened, it left Chompsky feeling unsatisfied, even defeated. 

And so he learned to focus his rage. He honed in on inanimate objects and made them his life's pursuit, tearing into them with wild, avian abandon.

Sometimes it's a little overwhelming, this Sisyphean task of raging against random objects in the yard. But Chompsky soldiers on with a gritty determination, driven by the thrill of the fight.

He knows that for each battle won, he inches one step closer to winning the war against his inner demons.

For as long as he could remember, he'd always felt like an outsider, different from the others.

When he walked across the yard, he could feel the hostile stares from the other boys, while the girls turned their backs to him and clucked cattily.

"Creepy Dave," they whispered in hushed hen voices. But he pretended not to hear. He knew he was considered small-boned, and he knew that his crows lacked the deep, sonorous quality of the others.

But he was not a rooster easily discouraged.

He kept up his courtship -- one day dancing for the speckled hen; the next day, dancing for a hen with snowy white plumage like his own. He even sidled up to some of the older matrons of the flock, twice his size. But all were indifferent to his charms.

And then he spotted her. With feathers the color of flames and eyes of amber, her beauty struck Creepy Dave like a bolt of lightening.

Tossing caution to the wind, he put forth his most magnificent display yet. Tapping into his inner Flashdance, he stamped his legs like pistons and tossed his feathery head with wild abandon.

The ginger-feathered object of his affection didn't run from him and she didn't turn up her beak. Instead, she did what Creepy Dave had previously dared not even dream of: she kissed him.

Beaks touched and time stood still.

It was then that Creepy Dave knew he could die a happy bird.

At long last, he'd found acceptance; he'd found love. 

She didn't know how long she'd been in hiding, but time meant nothing to Antoinette; she was a bird on a mission. Too many times she'd created a perfect nesting spot for herself, only to have her maternal ambitions thwarted by The Human and its egg-snatching ways. Not this time, thought Antoinette.

She'd been out on a routine bug-hunting venture along the fence line when she'd spotted the cache of eggs -- untouched and hidden deep in the tall grasses.

How the eggs got there mattered little to Antoinette. Guided by a visceral, undefinable impulse, she hunkered down with the egg cache and waited.

Weeks passed. The Human had lumbered past several times, calling out her name. But Antoinette turned a deaf ear. She knew her patience and stealth would be rewarded.

And so they were. First came the persistent peeping, then the tap-tap-tap of a tiny beak against a shell. At last, one small ball of fluff burst forth, and then another.

"Strange, that one's beak," thought Antoinette. "And the feet are so flat and wide, almost like paddles...." But she quickly dismissed those thoughts and focused on the task at hand.

When day broke, Antoinette marched proudly back into the flock, the fruits of her labor in tow. The other hens looked at her askance, but she knew they were just jealous. 

Antoinette didn't even notice when The Human emerged from its compound.  "ARRGHGHH!!!" came a garbled cry. "What the F---?!?!"

The Human is displeased, Antoinette thought.

But what did she care? No longer did she have to hide; no longer was she a hen on the run.

She'd heard it all a million times before, usually from total strangers.

"Smile. C'mon, it can't be that bad."

"You'd look so much prettier if you smiled."

"C'mon, where's that smile? Why do you always look so mad?" Hearing these words did not sit well with Sing Sing, who more often than not would be walking along contentedly, lost deep in thought while browsing for bugs, when she heard them.

"But I'm not angry. I'm just thinking," she'd say to herself. "Is that so wrong?"

And what's more, "Why don't the roosters get these kinds of comments?"

It all felt uncomfortably sexist to her.

She spoke to a flock-mate about it. "Oh, that's sweet. I don't think it's sexist; I think it's caring!" was the unsatisfying feedback she received.

But she did not feel the comments were caring; she felt they were invasive. She felt they were presumptuous. She felt they were oppressive.

As she often did in times of angst, she marched into The Human's compound all aflutter. The Human was the only one there; it would have to do. Squawking and flapping, Sing Sing wove her tale, clucking out her frustration. The Human seemed to understand.

"Oh Sing Sing, there's nothing wrong with you; you just have Resting Bitch Face. Own it!"

Resting .... Bitch.... Face.....

Sing Sing mulled the words over in her mind. Now that she had a name for it, she felt oddly empowered. If there is a name for it, she thought, others must have it too.

It was all getting to be be a bit much: the incessant clucking, the daily barrage of unwanted male attention, the ruthless pecking order and politics of barn life.

Martha had been around along enough to know that things were never going to get better around this place. She needed a new gig, one more suited to her delicate sensibilities.

Gathering her wits, she raised herself up. Slowly she strode out the  door and across the lot, purposeful yet not hurried. She didn't want to attract any attention; she didn't want to tip her hand, not just yet.

As luck would have it, the door to The Human's compound was open. The floor felt smooth and cool under her calloused feet. The air, strangely quiet.

She found herself being drawn deeper into The Human's compound, until she discovered what she'd been searching for. A giant, elevated cushion, shaped like a square, and perfect for perching on. Choosing carefully, Martha found herself a spot atop the giant, cushiony perching platform and settled in. Sweet softness cradled her weary talons.

Free from the cacophony of the compound across the yard, Martha was finally able to think clearly. She knew she'd found her place, and she was never going to leave it.

No one had ever accused Ian Puffypants of being overly heroic. Short in stature and puffy of feathers, he was a rooster oft underestimated. Other chickens regularly chased him about, while the goose sometimes rolled his rotund body along the ground like a feathered soccer ball. But dire circumstances can make heroes out of the most unlikely candidates.

That late-summer afternoon, IPP knew something was wrong. After a languid session lying under a bush with his favorite chicken companion, IPP found that little Hen #20 would not rise when dusk beckoned them all into the barn. He clucked impatiently but received no response.   Confusion gave way to concern and soon, panic. IPP's clucking grew wilder and his pacing more frantic, as visions of nefarious nighttime creatures played in his mind. But something else played in his head, too: some distant, atavistic memory ..... a well, a boy, a dog... Lassie?

And then it happened: The Human came lumbering around the corner, slow and clumsy as usual. But IPP knew what he had to do. Furiously his feathered feet stamped the ground, as he let loose a thin, reedy crow.

The Human turned. Closer it came, stooping just beside them. Strange noises emanated from The Human's lips as oafish mitts lifted the prostrate hen and carried her away.

Closely IPP followed them, until the Human reached the doorway into its structure. He branched off to his own perching station then, uncertain but satisfied he'd protected his hen from the dangers of the dark.

Days later, IPP was strolling around the bushes and he saw her again: Little Hen #20 had returned to the yard. Standing on shaky legs, she clucked a gentle salutation.

"Lassie...." echoed the distant voice again in IPP's head again. And he silently thanked the inspiration that had convinced him to summon The Human that fateful evening.

The Operation

Gaby wasn't feeling herself. The unusually cool summer, the constant influx of new summer fruits and vegetables to sample from -- none of these were enough to buoy her spirits. She felt an uncomfortable heaviness in her abdomen, and when she tried to fly to the perches at night, she found herself unable to lift off the ground. The Human worried. Large ungainly hands lifted her delicate body into a box, and soon Gaby found herself under bright lights atop a cold, metal exam room table. She was confused, so she didn't fight when the tiny gas mask went over her beak and sent her into unconsciousness. When she awoke a few hours later, something was different. She felt a certain lightness to her body. A bit of soreness too and.... what are those? Staples!  Something had definitely happened; something was definitely missing. "The humans," she thought, "They have cut something out of me -- perhaps that unpleasant abdominal mass that made me feel so heavy?" Soon The Human reappeared, boxed her up, and brought Gaby back to its compound. Pills. Repulsive syrupy medicines. Nonsensical human chatter in the air. A small prison cell, a fraction of the size of her normal sleeping quarters. A plate of corn appeared, but Gaby was not fooled. She knew she had to get out.

The Lettuce Bonanza

The hens were getting restless. Days of nothing but kale and chard to supplement their diet were leaving them irritable. Tempers grew thin, and secret whispers of an uprising filled the barn at night.

And then it happened: a lettuce bonanza. The Human arrived early one morning carrying a box of greens -- heads of butter lettuce, curly leaf lettuce, and crispy Romaine soon littered the yard.

Ian Puffypants Gone Rogue

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