Wednesday, September 16, 2009

An undignified send off

So having found Kiev in the coop, in a condition best described as ....... dead, I determined that the appropriate course of action was to find somebody with the requisite skills and experience in the field of deceased-chicken disposal. Fortunately for me, just such a person (Mr P) had recently returned home from work. Not deterred by the fact that he was about to get into the shower, he donned a dressing-gown, grabbed a couple of carrier bags and sloped out to the chicken coop. Mindful of their delicate sensibilities, I let the two remaining chickens out into the garden to be distracted by fresh grass and plants while their erstwhile coop-mate was unceremoniously shuffled into a carrier bag and transported to the 'Bin of Death'.

Unbeknown to us all was the fact that another member of our menagerie, Mr G the cat, had left the remnants of his previous night's exploits on the lawn. This comprised half of a hapless mouse which had been severed across its waist with seeming surgical precision, leaving the back end, complete with legs, tail and insides. We were alerted to its presence when the first of the two remaining live chickens ran past at high speed with afore mentioned half-mouse dangling and swinging unceremoniously from its beak.

Mr P acted with the reflexes of a Ninja warrior to scoop up said chicken in his free arm, use of the other arm being impeded by virtue of the fact it was carrying a huge dead chicken in a carrier bag. Mr P was now in somewhat of a predicament, standing, as he was, in the back garden, wearing a dressing gown, with a dead chicken-in-a-bag in one hand and a live chicken with half-mouse dangling form beak (tail swinging from side to side) in the other. I would like to say that at this point I heroically leapt to his aid but I was hampered in my ability to do so by:

1) not being able to breathe or remain vertical as I rolled around on the floor in hysterics
2) finding myself incapable (physically or mentally) of extracting the half-mouse from the chicken’s beak

Eventually, the chicken with the half-mouse, being shaken vigorously and at length by an exasperated Mr P (who after all, just wanted a shower), was forced to drop his precious find. At this precise moment, live chicken number two appeared out of nowhere and with the skill and dexterity of an international rugby player, scooped up the half-mouse in her beak and ran the length of the garden followed by a couple of victory laps, parading the wretched half-mouse like a macabre trophy all the while.

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