Chicken Crossing (sample)
For years I advocated that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, insofar as I was qualified to speak of hands. The preponderance of my underwhelming life has been stoic and sedate. I bother no one, my demeanour ever-deferential, free of quarrel, free from reproach. When Mr. MacDonald scattered the chicken feed I’d calmly stroll to a vacant edge of the granulated puddle and did not push or squawk or flap my wings with bombast. Perhaps I’ve endeavoured to take after older roosters, wiser ones, who know better. Perhaps I am simply a stuffy old bird, prideful and pretentious, a clown convincing himself of his dignity. But, standing at this threshold under judging dawn and endless clouded skies, and reviewing the choices which brought me to this crossroads, I posit that at best I am the product of my upbringing and influences, such as they were in my long-penned environment. I am thinking of my father, now—“Bertram,” he told me, “there’s only so much you can hope for. You must try and do well with what you have.” “But surely there must be more than the barnyard,” I said—though no doubt in more hotheaded terms, for I was young and foolish, or cocksure, if you might forgive the pun. How I’d protest, but he never seemed piqued. He would simply crane his neck as if looking to a faraway star. “It’s the ones who accept their lots in life who can truly be happy,” he would say. And, for the most part, I have been content. I have never been one to ask “Why?”
Let me explain what brought me here, or who. Ava. But perhaps I’m ahead of myself already. The barnyard was just off the dirt road, a meager strip of dust in rural but civilised parts; traffic was sparse, but an automobile was not foreign to us.
This concludes the free sample, but you can buy the full story at this link! . . . |