The Chicken

Have you ever chased some chickens down a hill for no reason at all, ended up slipping on some loose gravel which sent your leg flying through the bottom a fence and ripped giant hole in your leg? Probably not, but, as you may have guessed, I have. It’s quite an interesting tale. Of course you’re dying to know what happened, but let me give you some context first.

I was a wee-little boy. My family was living in Hawaii in a military housing area. One fine day, my neighbor and I saw some chickens walking down the road behind our houses. We thought it would be the coolest thing to round up a few of them. Why? Even to this day, I can’t come up with the answer.

The entire neighborhood had fencing all around its perimeter and the area behind my house was no different. A road ran along side the fence and eventually stopped at a gate. This was the chillin’ spot for all the chickens. In case you haven’t chased chickens before, they’re a little harder to catch than you think. After some time, we miraculously ended up with a couple chickens in my friend’s yard. Not for long though. Chickens are stupid. They would climb up the fence and fall off, squawking as they rolled down the entire hill. They would then right themselves up and stare at you with tiny little chicken eyes as if you were the weird one.

I did not want the feathery fiends to escape, so I pursued them down the road toward the gate. I noticed that there was already a small number of chickens gathered a hole in the fence, and one by one they slipped through frantically. I thought it was a miniature prison break.

By the time I got to the hole, only I and one last chicken remained. He didn’t run or anything. He just stood there with a blank retarded look on his face. That made me angry. I sprinted towards him. I was running and running, then … SHOOOP! I skidded on a patch of gravel. It’s a little vague to recall since it happened so fast, but I ended up on the ground searching around for the bird. In the distance, the feathery flock of fugitives faded into the forestry further towards their fantasy of freedom. Back to me, I sat there with my leg under the fence, disappointed as any nine year-old would be if his chicken got away. You would think that tearing your leg down to the muscle would have you writhing in pain, but in fact I didn’t notice my injury until my friend told me. Then I thought, “Holy (poop), I cut my leg off!”

I was frightened. It’s not every day that a little kid gets to see what the inside of his leg looks like (it’s squiggly and pinkish by the way), and, yes, I cried. Some Good Samaritan happened to be jogging by and wrapped his shirt around the wound. My dad ran down the hill and carried me to the car. It took only fifteen minutes to get to the hospital and get examined by a doctor, but I was there for about six hours. Of course the thought was racing through my head, “This is going to sound so awesome when I tell my friends!”

They mended my wounds and sent me on my merry way with a leg full of stitches. That chicken may have gotten the best of me, but he knows. He knows that even today, at this very moment, I am out there somewhere, stalking him — him and his feathered fugitive friends who feel that they are finally free of fearing the furious fists of Kevin…