PECKING ORDER
PECKING ORDER
by Megan Kiekel Anderson
They are bullying the poor gold-laced Polish again. The hen has few feathers left on her once resplendent head; the fan of plumage that haloed her beak reduced to scabs crusted dark brown against her white skin.
I have been lurking on this little urban homestead, where there is plenty to pilfer. I stay in an abandoned apiary. There’s not much to take in from the vantage of my hiding place, so the chickens are my only entertainment as I lie in wait for darkness.
A few days ago, the woman placed the Polish in a run adjacent to the flock. Why so near her tormentors? To keep them familiar with her, so she won’t be further ostracized?
The chickens on the other side of the fence look similar to each other, but for their feather colors. One red, one black, one a snowy white, two a mottled gray. The Polish stands out among them. I know too well the danger that invites.
Today the woman returned the Polish to the flock. Soon after she went back inside, the Rhode Island red led the campaign against the Polish. The red pecked at her, coming from this side then that, backing the Polish into a corner.
The other hens descended. One feather plucked. Then another, opening lesions.
Another day, maybe two, and the flock will scalp her, and why? Because she looks strange? There is nowhere for her to hide, there in confinement.
At nightfall, the hens will go to roost and the coop door will slide down by its automatic timer. Can I shred the hardware cloth with my teeth? It keeps out the raccoons and foxes, but they do not have my strong jaws, my long claws on dexterous digits.
There is no way I can intervene unseen by day. The woman never leaves for long. The coop is in view of the window and she sits there in front of a thin rectangle all day, hardly moving except for the swift movement of her perched fingers and the occasional wistful gaze outside.
It will have to be after nightfall.
When the last of the lights clicked off in the house, long after the sunset, I slink to the coop, probing and testing. I tear at the hardware cloth over the windows, but they don’t budge. The metal is strong.
Ah, the nesting box. The spring-loaded latches may outsmart raccoons that would steal in to tear chickens’ limbs from their bodies. But I have strength. I lift the nesting box to find the Polish huddling there, banished from the roost by the other hens.
I pour myself through the opening, flowing oobleck to the offending flock.
I will make a raccoon’s decimation look like a kindness. I won’t stop until the walls are dripping and feathers choke the air.
Perhaps the woman will be next.
She did this, after all.
Fiction © Copyright Megan Kiekel Anderson
Original Image by Anna Powałowska from Pixabay
