A Poultry-Ghost Story
When your pet becomes dinner!
The smell of blood seeped through the cellar door. What had happened in the dirt floor basement in the night I wondered? Sure, there had been other times the chemical smell of iron permeated the kitchen but last night there had been nothing going on. Too quiet—it had been too quiet.
I glanced at the rusty lock on the door and noticed the latch was partially open. Not enough space for a person to come through but clearly it had been tampered with.
It could only have been one thing and it would have had to move right through the solid wood door. Nothing human could have squeezed through.
What’s that smell, I asked my brother when he came down for breakfast.
Aw, that’s nothing, just the rooster hanging from the rafter down in the basement.
But, the latch, I said.
Probably the old chicken’s ghost coming back to haunt us, he said as his fingers reached out and crawled up my neck.
Did we know when we got the chicks as pets at Easter, they would become dinner someday? That our mother and brother would chop off their heads in the basement? That the smell of burning feathers would seep through the cellar door and overpower us with the strange smell?
Did we think milk came out of a tube hanging from a machine? Did we wonder when our friends stood in awe of a glass of milk with a head? Didn’t everyone have a milk machine in their kitchen? Did we clammer at the table for more? More milk, more bread?
We did. And when our rooster was served on a platter, we looked at each other and shrugged.
When I look back, I can begin to understand how feelings get pushed down and hidden inside. I never stood up to my mother and refused to eat our chickens. I did what I was told and swallowed the roast poultry. None of us would dare to contradict our mother. It was food and we were lucky to have it.
The experience, however, for me became a threshold, a harbinger to what would become a lifelong compulsion to hold back my feelings, keep them to myself, making me needless. It wasn’t until my late fifties I was able to feel safe enough to be able to verbalize my needs.
Much later I’d write about my feelings in my novel, Paper Bags. For me, writing gave me the opportunity to put down on paper what I was too afraid to say out loud.
If you had the chance to write about your fears, would you? Let me know in the COMMENTS.
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Remember, there’s no expiration on dreams,
Trish
To order my novel: www.woodhallpress.com/paper-bags
My hubby has a similar story about the pet lamb that disappeared and then after a bite of Easter dinner, his grandfather asked the family, "How do you like Wooly?" When I hear this story repeated I get physically ill--the cruelty is overwhelming to me. And it gives me perspective of how that can tarnish the heart and mind of a child, and be passed on to the next generations. Even now, more than 70 years later, when he tells this story, the betrayal and hurt in his voice and countenance break my heart. My fears were of my father's booming, angry, threatening voice--a sure way for us kids to cower and be silent. Now, I know that his overwhelming stress to provide for his family, and the abuse that he endured as a child, and in the war, were part of that, but it took me more than half my life to come to terms with that and find compassion for the man who suffered such harsh wounds in his life. And compassion for my mom and brothers, and myself. We all bear scars. The grief causes me to weep even now. I'm grateful that you share and encourage stories, Trish. You help to expose pieces of us that remind us of our humanity--both fragility and strength.
Serendipitous. I'm working on a (true) story about a hen who became soup. If it ever becomes readable I'll share it with you.