During the year that Daisy was about ten year's old her family lived in a house on a lonely empty road outside of the city limits of town. Every day after school, they were allowed to walk home since the school they attended was just down the road. Their dog, Baby, would meet them at the end of their long driveway and accompany them, knowing that they would throw the ball to her so that she can play fetch.
Daisy's family owned cows, horses, goats, pigs...and chickens. There were at least a dozen hens and two roosters. One of the roosters was a Banyan rooster named Pete. He was small with feathers all the way down to his claws. The other rooster, Homer, was a big white rooster that had been blinded in one eye.
One mild Spring day Daisy ended up staying after school to help her teacher put away books. She was maybe thirty minutes later than her sister, but the road was empty anyway. When she got to the long driveway, there was no Baby. Daisy didn't worry about it, knowing that her sister was more than likely playing fetch with the dog.
Her mind was elsewhere, thinking about the exciting new book she had in her backpack, so she didn't notice Homer at first. Homer beat his wings, frantically running toward her.
Daisy had always been afraid of Homer, not because of his missing eyeball and little dark socket, but because he would always chase her. Usually it wasn't a problem because she would just run inside the house and then peek out of the bay window. Homer would be standing there, looking at her threateningly. Sometimes he would just stalk her from the shadows of the tall grass, eyeing her with it's one eye. Daisy could almost feel it's malevolent gaze upon her skin and automatically run her hands down her arms.
Time seemed to stop as Daisy's mouth opened in shock, staring at this normally small creature running toward her, larger than life with it's wings spread out. It was a terrifying sight and Daisy sped off running in the opposite direction from Homer.
Homer continued to chase her as she yelled out for someone to help her. Tears were clouding her vision and she didn't see the root sticking out of the ground until she was face down in a clump of clover. Quickly, she turned to see if Homer were nearby when he jumped on top of her. She scrambled to get away, but her body was not cooperating.
She floundered around, backpack lost and forgotten, tears running down her face, incoherent cries escaping her mouth when Homer ran up her legs and onto her stomach. Eyeing her with it's awful pirate eye, it moved slowly toward her face.
She closed her mouth, moaning, now on her back when he began his horrid and hurtful dominance dance on her chest and stomach; flinching and crying out every time it's back claw entered her skin. Her mind screamed out to grab the rooster and choke it or bite it, anything to stop it, but her body was paralyzed with fear!
She had lost all hope of being rescued when suddenly her Mom was there, cussing at Homer in Spanish.
"Animal estupido! Escapar o te mato!!" Her mom grabbed Homer and threw him aside. As she reached down to help Daisy up, Homer attacked her! He buried his beak into her shin, hoping to peck her hard enough to back her away. The blood gushed out of the wound he'd made in Daisy's mother's shin.
Daisy's mom was no stranger to farm life or vicious animals so she clamped her mouth shut, calmly and coldly grabbed Homer by the neck and spun him round and round, its' neck cracking loudly. She tossed Homer aside, but horror of horrors, the wicked rooster still ran around in circles! I shut my eyes at the sight, hoping without hope not to dream of this nauseating creature.
Daisy's mom helped her to the house and instructed her to shower and take a nap. Her face stern, she walked back outside.
That night Daisy's family enjoyed a wonderful dinner of arroz con pollo. Everyone remarked that it was one of the best dinner's they'd had.
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The urge to peck out of it's tiny confines was instinctual for the little creature. Pecking through, it flinched it's eyes at the brightness. Once it was free of the tiny home, its desire was to peep, loudly and consistently at the rumble in it's tummy. It had twelve fellow nesters and had to peep loudly to be heard. He was the smallest of the twelve chicks and frequently forgotten by Mother Hen. His siblings were voracious animals and would quickly gobble up the feed the huge featherless creature would toss around to them.
The only way he could even hope to get fed would be to shove the other chicks away. Being small, this was no easy task. But he was hungry. Every single morning he would storm at the most distracted of his siblings, startling it long enough for him to swallow up the little kernel of feed.
This tactic worked well for him insuring a meal; so much so that he would use the tactic more and more. He grew to be one of the biggest chicks while his sibling were all of average height and size. His siblings had taken notice of his bullying ways and were understandably fed up with his behavior. They got together and worked up a plan to teach Homer a lesson.
The four largest of his siblings lay in wait for him at the feeding grounds. Homer had just leaped toward an unsuspecting chick slamming into it and making it hit the ground hard. When he leaned his beak down to scoop up the kernel, the four siblings attacked him.
What a deafening ruckus they made. If you were looking on from the sidelines all you would be able to see was dust, feathers, beaks. The squawks were eerie in their intensity.
When the dust had settled, Homer lay sliced and featherless in spots, one eyeball hanging by a thread of flesh, the blood dripping down like a dark red tear.
No one came to help him, not even the large featherless feeder. Homer thought about giving up, but slowly got himself together and was upright in no time. Going to his nesting site, his own since he was now old enough to have his own, he went straight to sleep. He dreamed of his revenge on the four who'd attacked him.
The morning brought many featherless creatures communicating in an alien way that left him unnerved. He was boxed away in a dark box and roughly bounced around until he felt that he would surely die.
When the box opened next, he was in a huge yard. There were several hens, but he was the only rooster. Beaten and bedraggled, he still managed to hold his head high, his red flare of pride standing straight up and to the side.
A small featherless feeder creature, whom the other creatures called Daisy, ran up to him and Homer instinctively showed his anger by bucking up and flapping it's wings. The Daisy creature cowered and ran away. Homer nodded, knowing that he was master.
Thus began his reign of terror until the day he ended up on the kitchen table in a hot casserole of arroz con pollo.
Awesome story KR!
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