Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road

A hitchhiker contemplates his plight after an odd occurrence.

     It might have been a bad idea for me to tell the driver to let me out here, in the middle of no where, in the middle of the desert, but I’d had enough of his Tammy Wynette eight tracks and his Marlboro cologne so I asked him to pull over. I don’t know if I saw the splintered orange crate on the side of the road before asking him to let me out, but it made a convenient chair. He waved as he pulled off, turning the stereo up louder- Tammy giving me one last encore. I looked at the orange crate with a peeling label that read FLORIDA ORAN... and wondered how the hell it got in the middle of the Nevada desert. I set the crate on its small end and sat down, suddenly wondering the same thing about myself. 

     I didn’t wear a watch, but I knew it was somewhere around 1pm, it felt 1pm hot out. It was cooler in the cab of the pick-up with the windows down, going sixty mile an hour and Tammy Wynette’s vocals blowing my hair back, lots cooler. I fished around inside my backpack and pulled out my denim jacket and placed it over my head like a North American Bedouin. I looked up and down the highway as it tapered to a point in both directions. It was so quiet I could hear  tumble weeds scraping the sand as they passed. They didn’t have any idea how I got here either.

     I suppose if I stayed, tried to work things out, that I wouldn’t be here, sitting on this orange crate. Something changed, me, or her, I don’t know. I suppose if I made a hundred and fifty bucks an hour like the shrink, I might have agreed to some counseling, but I didn’t, on both counts. She was nice and all when we first met, I liked her, she liked me. But somewhere along the way, she just stopped making any sense and then she stopped talking altogether. For my part, I realized I didn’t get her sense of humor, or what the hell she thought she saw in me in the first place. Somewhere in there was the answer to why I’m out here wearing a jacket on my head, hitchhiking toward a nondescript vanishing point. 

     I tried to pass the time picturing animals or circus clowns in the clouds overhead before the sun evaporated them. I thought it would distract me from my thirst, but I just got thirstier. I kicked at chunks of crumbled asphalt around my feet. The entire highway was nothing but loosely connected islands of tar scab. I figured it had been a little over an hour since I got out of the pick-up truck. I looked around and imagined I saw some sketchy lines of purple on the horizon, and west of me I thought a mangy stand of cactus might of been part of an abandoned homestead. Must’ve been a mirage. 

     I pulled everything out of my backpack looking for anything that might have some moisture in it. I’d of been delirious if I found a stick of gum, but I didn’t chew gum. I stood up and turned the pack upside down and shook it until my jacket fell off my head. Nothing but a change of clothes, a deck of playing cards and a snack pack of saltines and cheese fell out. I left it all where it landed. I dumped myself back onto the orange crate. 

     I had no idea what time it was when it happened. But at some point, I noticed some movement behind a rock across the road and at first thought it was a hunk of tumble weed. I was surprised when a red head popped up and bobbed a yellow beak above the rock. Across the scabby road a chicken appeared. I had no idea if it was a hen or rooster, I was told by a suburban backyard farmer holding a can of Coors once that chicken gender is hard to distinguish. It was the scrawniest thing I ever saw. Its feathers looked like they were fashioned from mottled straw and its legs were disproportionately long ending in scaly toe nails. Its beady eyes blinked rapidly in my direction. The chicken paced along its section of road, jerking its head one way, its body in another. I figured its small brain was desperately trying to come to some momentous decision. I sat on the splintered crate, totally transfixed by the animal. Its grainy, flaccid comb flopped about, and every once in a while it pecked at the ground. The chicken was as out of place here as I was. 

    I searched again, there had to be a homestead around someplace. The sun and desert just baked my eyeballs, nothing new was apparent. There hadn’t been any traffic on the highway for hours. I was too hot now to be hungry or thirsty. I imagined the chicken felt the same way, but I knew nothing about how chickens felt. I considered the north vanishing point before I consulted the south vanishing point, neither offered any suggestions. Then the chicken made a noise and stopped its pacing. It stopped bobbing its head and turned profile and starred intently at my side of the road. He and I not much more than bleached, driftwood statues. Another cloud evaporated, and then the chicken began crossing the road. 

     At first his movements were hesitant, one leg stretched out, toes feeling for the asphalt, then slowly descending before the next leg copied the movement. He did that for about four steps. Then he suddenly ran to the middle of the road where he abruptly stopped and started bobbing his head. I waited. Did he forget what he was doing? Did he change his mind about crossing? Was he asking any questions at all. I felt foolish doing all the thinking for him. Then he waddled the rest of the way across the road to my side about ten feet south of me. He turned his head and I swear he looked straight at me, challenging a reaction. I returned his stare. I looked across the road at the spot he came from, then I looked back at the chicken. Was he trying to tell me something? 

     I bent over and shoved my belongings back into my backpack. With the jacket still shading my head, I picked up the orange crate and crossed the highway to the other side. After placing the pack and crate side by side I sat down and looked across the road at my former location. The chicken scratched the sand a few times, pecked once or twice and then moved further off into the desert until he was no longer visible. I contemplated my different perspective. The new location seemed eerily similar to my last location. I ran a dry tongue over my teeth and wished I had a stick of gum. I began feeling the heat less from the sky and more from my earthbound surroundings. My perspective changed. 

     The sun flirted with setting when I thought I noticed a brief, sharp glint on the road to the south. In a moment, the flash happened again. I counted to fifty by one thousands before I could just make out the dulcet wailing of a country song. Tammy had come back for me. 

Author's Note

Hope you enjoy. Critiques and comments welcome.

Reviews

[JE Falcon]

Well, --- I never suspected Tammy's return. My mind raced ahead and all the while it was making up endings for this curious story of a man who apparently had made more than one bad choice in his life. --- Alas, Tammy overcame the best of my best, country singers in desert settings do that every time. --- Kudos and two thumbs up from my side of the road. :)

[DidIWriteThat]

This line is awesome!!!
"I felt foolish doing all the thinking for him."

The story is absolutely nothing, but yet it is completely engrossing! Keep writing.

[roarke]

You know, a lot of my stories are about absolutely nothing…lol…there’s gotta be a pattern here. Hahahaha

[barleygirl]

This starts out a little slow, dragging on about how this guy is in a quandary. Maybe a couple paragraphs could've established this, but you drone on for twice that amount making sure to establish that empty futility is the gig here. The only reason this works is becuz you have a knack for including so many bizarre details to fill out a scene with hot air we simply cannot stop inhaling. And then the chicken appearing, as we might expect, gets twice as much fanfare as a scrawny desert chicken deserves. And finally you surprise the hell out of us by ending on a note of symbolic enlightenment after pecking & scratching thru all this rambling . . . who woulda thought this was a parable? *wink! winK!* I love your writing, but nobody is getting away unscathed this morning (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[roarke]

Well, I don’t mind at all, because you just gave me some very good suggestions on how to improve this hunk. Although I wanted this to be desert dry, I see now my chicken and my details need more “character”... so thank you M for your great critique.

[Samuel Dickens]

Yes sir, I like it. Some of your other similar writings don't have the attention-grabbing features that this one does. A vast desert, man alone... well, he was alone until that chicken showed up. Seriously, ANYTHING could've happened. The chicken might have led the guy to a survival pod, complete with ac, cold beer, and a half naked Valerie Perrine. Then again, it may have begun speaking with a Scottish accent and revealed all of life's mysteries. My god, the possibilities go on and on! Sly you, you left it to the reader to complete. Oh, and you shrank the text so everyone would think it was short.
I guess my Twilight Zone influenced grey matter causes me to dig this so much.

[roarke]

Hi Sam, shrank the text? Not intentionally, the WC word processing is a bit deceptive. Heh, I compose my stories in 18pt.. and usually post in 14pt... but when I seen the actual WC post, it always looks smaller. I’ll start posting larger. Now for your impressions. Yeah, you’ve given me LOTS of ideas that would fit not only this story but my writing style. Thanks.. I just may expand later. But for leaving it up to the reader to fill in, it seems thats becoming more and more prevalent, and I DO leave the images and scenarios open, which is the “reality” way things in my life “appear” to me... lol. Believe it or not... I’d say about half my ‘fiction’ writing is actually unsalted truth/reality... yeah, its like that. Thanks for the read and great ideas Sam, mucho appreciated.

[Delmar Cooper]

Thanks for sharing. I like this story, which is pretty much about nothing, because the writer actually makes something from nothing. I like having the chance to compare the chicken to the narrating character. Decisions, decisions, both having an opportunity to make one. I have the opportunity to decide if either is moving toward something, a coop, a woman, a place, or away from one of the same things or an un-named predator.

It is tidy when a story's ending and it's beginning dovetail. It satisfies me as a reader when this occurs. Such endings remind me of a drawing of a snake eating its tail. That thing is called an Ouroboros; you can look it up, I did. (Don't let the spell checker fool you it is Ouroboros.)
I've bothered you long enough. You have another longer story posted. I've read half of it. If I ever finish I'll post you.
Cooper

[roarke]

Hey D.C. thanks for the read, and you’ve summed up the premise wonderfully. I think more people might come to the same relevance about their own lives and decisions if they were dumped on the side of the road. Or not. Lol And thanks for tackling the longer story, sure would like your impressions on that one. Best R.