WRITE ME A LOVE STORY Ch 4

WRITE ME A LOVE STORY

By Janet Baldey

CHAPTER 4

I stood, frozen with horror, a pile of spilt grain at my feet.   There were bodies everywhere.   Pathetic clumps of sodden feathers, they no longer looked like chickens.   And it was all my fault; I’d noticed the gale had loosened some fence posts and had meant to do something about it but I’d been so tired.   Now it was too late.    A hungry fox, competing with humans for his dinner, had seized his chance and was now probably holed up somewhere nearby, peacefully digesting his meal.

I squeezed my eyes shut and stood quivering.   It wasn’t just the loss of the eggs.    I’d grown fond of my birds.   It brightened my morning to see them run towards me, lurching from side to side on their trousered legs, looking for all the world like wind-up toys.  Very early on I’d realised each had its own personality and I’d named them all.  I ground my teeth.

‘Stupid, stupid, stupid.  Whatever made me think I could manage on my own?’

I found the cockerel hiding inside the coop.   Somehow, he’d managed to flap out of reach and had escaped the carnage.   Charlie clung to his perch and stared down at me from out of dull eyes.   He’d lost his tail feathers and was no longer his strutting self.  I looked at the pathetic creature drooping in front of me.   Beaten and dejected, he looked as I felt.

As I stuffed the carcasses into a sack, I thought of the telephone number Frank had scrawled on a piece of paper.   It was still where he’d left it.   I’d ‘phone the camp from the village. 

Copyright Janet Baldey