THE SMART HEN BY MARGERY KNORR

April Prompt: How many Easter eggs can fit in one basket?

​How many Eggs can fit in one basket? Three eggs, unhatched and dispatched to the hidden basket. The basket is full.
 
I am solitary, the hen not fitting in, surrounded by two roosters, six ladies in waiting and a waddling of ducks.  The hens despise me, pecking at my tail feathers and pushing me to eat at the block of Irish Soda Bread. That soda bread prevailed, no one could peck through it.
 
King rooster asserts dominance over all, especially the cockerel, who seems purposeless – to the ladies. 

​Number two rooster furtively acknowledges me. He does not claim popularity just accepts the deigned permission to strut around the wire fence. He is treated as harmless, hapless, extraneous to the flock.  
 
The Forms come daily, spreading grains and the occasional failed baking project. They only notice the laid eggs in straw and whisk them away. The ladies in waiting have not hatched offspring since the grass turned green. 
 
There are ducks in the yard who have tentative ownership of the water trough.  They refuse to stay in the pond, returning after the Forms took them one by one to the glorious pristine water. They flapped their wings, flew out of the pond and waddled up the hill, back to the enclosure, faster than the Forms moved.  The Forms have given up looking for the beautiful duck eggs.  Ducks do not seem to lay eggs or act like real ducks at all.  Maybe they imprinted on a Form when hatched. Every morning they move in a straight line to the Form house, banging their beaks on the metal pail outside the bedroom window. A wild, military like formation, breakfast call.
 
I found a lepers corner, and an old, covered basket behind the water trough, to lay my eggs.  I am banished, no one notices me there, keeping the offspring warm. The eggs are safe. My social standing will change once they hatch. The cockerel and I will reveal our version of West Side Story – two outcasts creating a family of five. Then who will be the cock of the walk? 

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​Margery Knorr is a fledgling creative writer.  This is her first writing sent for public view. Years of writing reports for use by law firms and corporations has honed an obsession to step outside the self-imposed boundaries of correctness. I am discovering creative non-fiction.  Recently completed an online course through the Alexandra Centre and am hooked.

Note from the Author:
This was fun to write.  Years ago, a gaggle of goofs lived on my hobby farm. I baked the soda bread which the chickens left to sit in the middle of the yard, for months.  I finally, embarrassed, removed the almost complete loaf.  I have not made soda bread since.  

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