just a girl and her chicken

cluck and i made our second trip to college station yesterday morning. my sweet little hen and i got up way before even the roosters do to make it down there for our 7:30 a.m. appointment. bean sprouts and brown rice for snacks, a towel for my lap, cluck rested easily, mostly sleeping while i had one hand on the wheel, the other messing with her floppy comb and petting her silky feathers for the better part of the 3 hour drive.

not having felt very well, her weight was down making her pretty light, not quite as light as a feather, but certainly as light as a whole bunch of feathers. anyhow, we decided there'd be no tedious road trip car songs. no sir. just some cooing and clucking and the occasional sound of a crisp bean sprout being snapped in two. with her head facing east, her warm wattle rested on my bare wrist. the setting moon was over the rear tip of her right wing. in the dark, her shine reflected its light.

she and i had gone a few weeks before to get her initial work up after i realized things had gotten pretty out of hand. for some inexplicable reason, she'd been accumulating a lot of fluid in her abdomen which made her disinterested in eating. when i realized she was not getting around very well and seemed to be physically uncomfortable, i took her to grapevine where the vets at the emergency animal hospital there stuck a needle in to "pull off" 500mL of fluid, which is quite a lot for a little bird. they treated her the best they knew how, did a few tests, kept her over night and referred us to the small animal hospital at a&m.

cluck died today. she was being surgeried on by the best of the best avian specialists at a&m. whatever had decided to take her little chicken body hostage did it completely and thoroughly. there was just too much there, too much for a little bird who weighed only 4 or so pounds anymore. although i certainly recognize my tremendous bias, i have to say she was as good as they come. even if when i got her i could have known she had a 3 year expiration date, i'd have gotten her anyway.

on the drive yesterday when we'd just about gotten there, the sun was coming up, and a low, thin fog settled over farm fields on the outskirts of bryan. it was then she stood up in my lap and put her head close to mine and just looked at me for a while. i wonder if she could tell she was not going to come back home. perhaps she knew. maybe i did as well.

i imagine i'll find feathers around the yard for a while, under leaves when i rake or in the beds if i decide to put flowers in. i'll likely find some on the back porch, too, where she'd stay most of the winters in her ultra deluxe chicken bivy worthy of dwell magazine, sleeping bags wrapped around her sleek stainless steel metro shelf/roost. it will make me sad to see these feathers. with any luck the spring winds will take care of the remainders.

vestiges.