Remember, Just TwoDaniel L AustinMy 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.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
A story taken from growing up on a farm,
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Being an old bumpkin, when I first started writing I used Easy Write on a 486 computer at college. I even used a pen and paper most of the time because I could not afford a computer. So I am totally excited how things have changed, Flash Fiction and now IStories of one hundred and fifty words or less. I am amazed at the changes, and I applaud them. I love words, and I enjoy people stretching the limits of writing, change is good, imagine what will happen in another thirty years. Bless you Daniel Gunn for taking me to task. And you Marianne Boruch for daring me to try.
ReplyDeleteThe sun was rising, the water around Fort Wagner a liquid fire. I, along with soldiers of the Third Brigade of General Stevenson, stood in reserve of the 54th Mass. We were dug in some many yards from the fort. I could see the moats and the rifle pits in front of the fort, rebel flags flying overhead. Hell broke loose, cannons from ships off shore bombarded the fort, hour after hour, maddening noise assaulting the air. Death chilling quiet, the cannons stopped. Colonel Shaw raised his sword, and the Negroes were running down the beach into the inferno. I watched as the Rebel rifles picked of those damned fighting Negroes, wave after wave of them continued to their assault on the fort. Colonel Robert Shaw made it to the top of the dunes, raised his sword and pistol and yelled into the air. Bullet after bullet found it’s mark, making him dance like a wooden puppet before he fell. But the damndest thing I saw that day was a burly Negroe sergeant stop to pick up the battle flag from a fallen man and charge forth, singing. Yes, singing to the top of his lungs.
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