Pete recently attended a meeting where one of the attendees indicted that he was put off by something Pete wrote in a recent article entitled “Remembering Mr. Siggi.” This was that Mr. Siggi had once remarked that he wanted to someday come back as a dog. This fellow further told Pete he was dealing with the occult and that the occult is dangerous.

Hearing this, I thought about my chickens, past and present. I’ve had some great conversations with the live ones, but had never before talked with the ones who passed on. I figured that it was high time I did this, so I tuned in and suggested that we talk a bit. Henny Penny Palin was eager to talk, so I let her have the floor.

Alys: Henny Penny, how are you today?
Henny Penny: I’m just fine.
A.C: How’s life on the other side?
H.P.P: Other side? What other side?
A.C: Well, you flew the coop and are now in another dimension.

Alys and Stubby

H.P.P: Goodness. I hadn’t thought of it this way. I thought that I was one with the universe.
A.C: Well, I’m here and you are there.
H.P.P: Or You’re here and I’m there.
A.C: Sounds like metaphysics to me.
H.P.P: I don’t know anything about metaphysics – is it a high protein feed? We don’t get that here. I’m told shipping costs are too high.
(There is the sound of chickens cackling.)
A.C: Hey, some of those voices sound familiar. I hear Stubbi and Catchi and Snooki
And Henrietta.
H.P.P: We’re all here, all a part of the Universal Flock. There are millions of us, all scattered about the flyways and byways of the intergalactic network.
A.C: You don’t say.
H.P.P: I do say. And if you humans refrained from killing our unborn, there would be even more of us flying around.
A.C: Killing your unborn?
H.P.P: Poach, boil, bake, fry, you name it, you do it to our eggs. It’s a form of murder for which all you heartless, hard boiled fools should be hard boiled.
A.C: I don’t think that there are enough vats out there for what you hope you hope to accomplish.
H.P.P: Well, you could begin by controlling your numbers.
A.C: I think that’s reverse logic.
H.P.P: That’s the pot calling the kettle black.
A.C: No, that’s a cliché.
H.P.P: I know what a pot, and I know what a black kettle is. But I don’t know what you mean when you say cliché. Is a cliché edible?
A.C: Are you saying that poaching an egg that hasn’t been fertilized is sinful?
H.P.P: No, poaching an egg is stealing.
A.C: Sounds to be like you’re working hard at thinking in terms of black and white.
H.P.P: Yes, otherwise, I start thinking in shades of gray and things then get very confusing. All things should remain as they are.
A.C: Are you saying that you’re anti-metaphor?
H.P.P: I don’t know what metaphor is, and until I do I will continue to distrust it.
A.C: Okay. So, bottom line here. You want us humans to stop eating eggs.
H.P: Yes.
A.C: Are you in favor of the death penalty?
H.P: I’m all for it. A chicken that’s done wrong should pay the consequences. No two clucks about it. Can’t have chickens acting like human beings and killing one another.
A.C: If it’s unlawful for chickens to kill chickens, who is going to kill them?
H.P.P: If A chicken does something wrong, it ought not be killed. Rather, it should be executed.
A.C: Is there a difference?
H.P.P: Oh yes. A jury of one’s peers determines if the said chicken is innocent or guilty. Guilty chickens are then done in by likes of Quito, who is an authorized law enforcement official.
A.C: Is Quito a rooster?
H.P.P: Yes. So is his sister.
A.C: I don’t get it.
H.P.P: Don’t dwell on this. It’s a chicken thing.
A.C: Can a chicken repent?
H.P.P: Nope. You don’t get second chances, not in the last life, not in this life, nor in the next.
A.C: That’s brutal.
H.P.P: That’s life.
A.C: That’s death.
H.P.P: Look, you have to start thinking outside the roost.
A.C: Well, what becomes of the bad meat?
H.P.P: Those chickens end up in a galaxy, far, far away. . .
A.C: Can I converse with them?
H.P.P: You wouldn’t want to.
A.C: Why not?
H.P.P: Because they’re all foul mouthed.
A.C: So Henny Penny, now that you’re on the other side, what . . .?
H.P.P: I’m not on the other side.
A.C: Do the others in your congregation, err, flock, think like you?
H.P.P: Oh yes, we’re card carrying Socialists.
A.C: How do you define the term Socialist?
H.P.P: We agree to agree. If someone disagrees, they can leave and join the other girls, who are in another galaxy, far, far away.
A.C: How far away?
H.P.P: Really far away.
A.C: How far away is really far away?
H.P.P: Far enough away so that the rest of us don’t have to deal with their outlandish and illogical ideas.
A.C: Are there any chickens out there who I know?
H.P.P: Yes – Nimby – the one that you named Not In My Backyard. She’s there with the other radical thinkers. I’m glad she went there and not here. I got tired of her talking all the time about climate change. If you all fry, you fry. No matter, the galaxy here is the same temperature all the time. 65°F.
A.C: So how did you deal?
H.P.P: The other birds and I were planning on forming a coo. But then she died in your arms. I would have been sad, but that bird was not a bird. She was a fruitcake.
A.C: So what are your future plans?
H.P.P: I’m trying to reorganize things here so that we’ll have room for all the newcomers when the rapture occurs.
A.C: When is that going to be?
H.P.P: Heaven only knows.

Next: 29. 1/29/14: Fleas and Metaphysics