The Starving Artist: Hunger Games 2015 Contest Entries

Task 5: Fairytale

                                                                            A Chicken's Side to the Story

I went to sleep last night as myself. I wake up as something quite different. I have a beak. If I cross my eyes and look down, I can see it protruding out of my face where my nose and mouth should've been.

Are the remnants of Jimson weed in my body still playing with my mind?

I try to move my arms. There's a weird flapping sound, so I turn my head to look. What I see scares me so bad that I try to run from myself. This only ends in slamming into the bars of a cage. Panic washes over me. I'm in a cage... I have wings, feathers, and a beak. What happened? Why am I a bird?

Some shriveled old hag hobbles up to the cage and peers down at me with red eyes. She leans heavily on her cane and gives me a toothless grin. If I wasn't a chicken, I'd be shivering in abject horror right now.

I glare up at the woman in helpless fury, but she seems unaffected as she continues to smile and works her way over to a table.

My cage is on top of several others, so I can see everything on the table. A giant knife lies there, gleaming maliciously in the warm light of the candles. I wonder why she's using candles.

Stupid bird. I can't stay focused with it yammering on like it is. Being a chicken is very confusing. It's like having an identity crisis on a whole new level.

My eyes zero in on the steel butcher's knife, and I can't control the fear that overwhelms both the chicken and I. I've decided that the knife is a threat, and so has the chicken, apparently. So naturally, I start trying to escape the cage. I frantically slam against the bars of the door.

The old woman looks over at me, her craggy face amassing more wrinkles as she frowns. "Oh, stop that... I'm going to eat you anyway." Her creaky voice paralyzes me.

She's going to what? Horrified, I let out a timid cluck and move back towards the other side of the metal cage. I step in a pile of chicken poop on the way back, and realize that the bird has made a mess. This is wonderful. I mean, how could this day get better?

With another toothless grin, the hag turns back to her table and starts to hum a song. She goes about gathering spices and herbs for a while, just humming in that nasally way that makes you want to grit your teeth and scream. After she has everything she needs, she goes back to the table and starts chopping things up.

Her cracked voice begins to softly echo through the house as she starts singing. I don't like the words, either. Everything has to do with eating chickens and little children.

Little children? This is insane. If I'm not already on drugs, I need to be put on them, because this isn't normal. I'm pretty sure that the crazy asylum would gladly take me to keep me from being a danger to society.

The old witch's head pops up, and she sniffs the air. The image is disturbing. She hobbles off into the tiny parlor adjoining the dingy kitchen I'm in. Chickens must have good hearing because I can hear everything that's going on from here.

"Nibble, nibble, gnaw... Who is eating my house?" The old woman's shrill voice startles whoever she's talking to.

Eating her house? This doesn't look like an edible, life size house to me. Also, I'm fairly sure that brick and mortar don't taste very good. However, the chicken's so mindless with terror that nothing is registering with its brain.

There's a gasp, and then a girl's voice answers, "The wind, the wind — the heaven born wind."

That is officially the weirdest answer ever. It makes perfect sense, right? Wind would definitely talk and eat her house. If I could roll my eyes, I would.