The rain was coming down in buckets. He offered to bring the chicken from his house. We tried to talk him out of it, but he was quite forceful about it. He quit his job, he told us, in order to raise chickens. He forgot, however, that you had to feed chickens twice daily, and so they all died. He suggested that I write a how-to book on raising chickens in an urban environment. He looked forward to collaborating with me, he said, and he was sure that the book would be a bestseller. He was having a hard time coming up with a good title, but he had a few ideas: Don't Count 'Em Before They Hatch, and his personal favorite, Fowl Play.
Later that spring he allowed us to visit the gravesites. He kept the tombstones graffiti and weed free. Each tombstone was engraved with the single word "Chicken" followed by a number. He seemed particularly saddened when we passed the grave marked with "Chicken #7." He explained that we were required to get down on our knees and offer up a prayer for #7's soul. When we had finished, he instructed us on how to flap our arms and utter "bok, bok" to ward away the evil chicken spirits. We were not allowed to "cock-a-doodle-do," for that was sacrilegious, it seemed.
That night I had a really strange dream that my mother and I were taken hostage by a flock of evil chicken spirits. The chickens ordered us to discuss the merits of using the dehydrated blocks of chicken broth versus genuine chicken soup. I did the best that I could but the chickens refused to release us because we missed a key point: Cubes are easier to carry on long trips. I'm considering converting to the chicken lifestyle, my mother suddenly exclaimed. I reminded her that this was not really possible, as she lacked feathers and a beak. I did encourage her, however, to delve into her inner chicken and explore it through sculpture and modern dance, like she had always wanted to. She denied this strongly, insisting that she couldn't manage the dichotomy of fowl humanity.
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