A story taken from growing up on a farm,

Remember, Just Two

                                                         

                                                        Daniel L Austin

My father sent us out on a snowy afternoon to get some farm­-fresh chickens for Sunday dinner. “Pick out the older ones and, remember, just two," he said, pointing his finger and reminding us once again to kill no more than the two. But the warning and the finger was for my brother, because he was the oldest. I only held the hatchet and followed along.

We kept our chickens in a make­-do enclosure in back of the barn – nothing fancy on our farm. Old pieces of wood nailed together and covered with rusting sheet metal. There was an opening in the front that allowed them to run around in a wire­ mesh pen.

I did not have time to count the chickens. They scattered in the fresh snow, squawking and beating their wings in a blur of white feathers and red combs and wattles as my brother hunted them down. He was too quick for them and already had his first, its head lying on the well­-used wooden block that sat in the middle of the pen. Brother supposedly had a way with poultry and cows, according to my father who said Brother knew how to hypnotize them. I believed it. Why else would a chicken quietly offer up its head on a block of wood while a hatchet was suspended over its head?

It happened in seconds, faster than seconds, if that was possible. The steel edge of the hatchet sliced through the chicken's soft, white neck, and its head fell to the ground. Streaks of steaming red blood painted a Pollock­esque scene on the snow as the chicken continued to thrash about. Sharp, throaty noises emanated from the hole where its head used to be.

“How come it talks, it does not have a mouth?” I asked.

“Muscles,” Brother said, and brought down the hatchet again.