By D.S. Cook for Apostoic Venn.
Dear little ones, settle down and let me spin you a tale. It is a tale that is not about bravery, courage, gallantry, or any of those good things. No. This is a cautionary tale that might well be called “How to Best Go About Getting Manure in Your Mouth.” Imagine for a moment that manure in your mouth was your dearest wish. Well. This tale will help you with all the practical things like speed and quantity.
But it so happens that the tale isn’t called that. It’s called Squawkington and the Perch Purge Uprising, and to tell it, I must ask you to close your eyes and be transported back to that same sunny farm where first we met the great rooster philosopher Squawkington and his favorite frenemy Buckatrice, the Bonneted Bantam.
On this day, Squawkington was up to his usual tricks. A barnyard council had been called, and if we had approached as the dawn’s first rays were breaking over the farm, we would have heard his creaky voice, raised above the bleats and clucks.
“Attention gentle barn-mates!” He crowed, in an impressively presidential manner. “You’ve been called here upon an issue. Yes, an issue of great importance indeed. But first, let us bid a hearty barnyard welcome to our newest Bantam couple, and their pack of lovely chicks, the Peckbergs!”
The animals applauded sleepily. Their welcome was no less friendly just because they were barely awake. Try not to hold it against them.
Mr. Peckberg, a balding bantam and the patriarch of the little family, stepped forward, coughing nervously. “Thank you kindly.” He said. “We are so happy to…”
“I’m sure you are! Yes, I’m certain that you are.” Squawkington interrupted. “It’s a great pleasure for you to meet us, and all that. Please let me welcome you with all my heart, as the chairman of this little gathering. And! To show just how heartfelt it is, and how important it is to show hospitality and courtesy, I would like to offer a place on the high perch to your patriarch. A great honor indeed. You can sit just there on the west end, next to Billiam, the beady-eyed black one there.”
The animals politely rumbled agreeably, though some of the rumbles sounded suspiciously like snores.
“Ahem!” Squawkington cleared his throat officially. “That brings us to business!” As you all may know, I am a bird of science, and have some measure of wits about me.” He puffed his feathers ever so slightly at the sudden silence, which he took as rapt attention to his words. He stood up a little straighter. “And being of a thoughtful and studious mind, I have taken the measure of the perch! Yesterday I performed what we scientifically minded birds call, ‘an experiment.’” He pronounced the word slowly, to be sure the sheep in the back could understand. “I assembled seventeen chickens on the high roost, and proceeded with one of my most rigorous lectures, of which you all are fond. No less than sixteen chickens stayed stable. But, at the most interesting crescendo of my speech, I most strategically raised my voice to an excited squawk! The sixteen remained steady as they had been, eyes closed in serene thought and rapturous ponderation, breathing steadily, but the seventeenth started, snorted, and fell off! It was at that moment I knew my experiment was conclusive. The perch sits no more than sixteen chickens. Buckatrice! You… beauteous bonneted Bantam you. I’m afraid you’ll have to move off the perch and roost on the floor. Thank you all for coming, meeting adjourned!”
He had to raise his voice a bit for just the few last crows, because a grumble of sympathetic protest had erupted. Bowing as though it were applause, off the stoop he waddled, around the corner of the barn, to make a pretense of pecking pillbugs while eavesdropping.
The animals were left there blinking at one another. Slowly, all attention turned to the quiet, steady Buckatrice, in expectation. She was already scratching something that looked like like a schedule in the dirt. Up she looked at last. “If we’re worried about space” she said, “perhaps we could work out a rotation? We could take weekly turns on the high roost, everyone would get a turn, and even the chicks could be worked in to get some balancing practice! It’ll be just fine. All of us will have a week on the floor, and many weeks on the high perch before our turn comes again.”
Sqauwkington, having crept up and hid behind the water trough to overhear, narrowed his eyes. A crafty look flitted across his roostery face, and saying nothing, he waddled away like the wily windbag he was.
Half an hour later, he sidled up to a small group of hens, known to be poor listeners and gossips. He slyly stood for a few minutes, listening to the chatter, so as to appear to have been there all along. Then he spoke up, in a hushed, creaky whisper. “Wild meeting this morning wasn’t it? Can you believe it of Buckatrice to be so selfish? Every bird has a right to height, but she wants all of you to roost on the floor!”
The gossips immediately began chattering.
An hour later, he singled out a group of geese that he was sure had not been at the meeting. “Have you heard the Bantam scandal?” He whispered confidentially. “I heard that Buckatrice and the Peckbergs are planning to start up a rotation for the hen roost. But, get this! An insider source told me that it’s a ruse! A ploy! Once all Bantams are rotated onto the perch, they don’t plan to give it up again! For the rest of us, they see a grounded chicken society in which we all sleep on the floor beneath a new rule. Equality in squalor, they’re calling it. Tyranny, I say!”
By 10, the rumors were clucking in earnest.
By 11, the whispers were: “The Bantams will tax our tailfeathers to build mandatory dirt beds!”
By noon, it was “They’re hiring mice with sharp sticks to guard the roost!”
By 4 pm, no longer muffled voices were heard among the fowl. “Once we’re all grounded, those tufted totalitarian tyrants will perch up there like chicken kings!” “They’re banning the high roost for all of us! It’s a full perch purge!”
The entire barnyard was in a tizzy by 6 pm. Leghorns refused to forage beside Bantams. Rhode Island Reds clucked Bantam conspiracy theories at the top of their lungs. Young chicks were crying that they’d never grow up and have height rights. Even the ducks were stress-quacking over the injustice of what they had heard, forgetting that they nested in the reeds by the pond. Squawkington tasted his moment. “Up friends!” he crowed. “We must protest!” And he began to march circles around the barn, waiving a handkerchief flag and calling “Save our perches! Save our perches!” The gossiping hens and then the whole flock joined in, calling out “High beams YES! Mud beds NO!” and “Bantams are Bullies and Bandits!” in increasingly deranged circles around the barn.
The climax hit at dusk. Over the shouting animals, a loud crow rose. “They can’t take all our perches! I’m getting mine!” And off shot Squawkington toward the barn in a golden red streak. In a great surge of collective panic, the entire mob followed, scratching and scrambling. Leghorns, Reds, Austrolorps, Sussexes… all crammed onto the perch one after another, pecking and throwing chicken elbows. Even three ducks piled on, with two young geese and a very confused goat. Feathers flew like Black Friday at the bug buffet. The beam let out a long, suffering grooooaan…
And then… CRACK!
The entire writhing, squawking catastrophe plummeted into the manure pile below, in a glorious, sloppy explosion of bellowing and bird poop.
Everyone that is, except Buckatrice and the Peckbergs, who had been huddling on the windowsill trying to stay out of the crowd. As the sticky survivors clawed out of the mess, spitting out hay and brown goo, a bonnet popped over the window ledge. “So…” said Buckatrice reproachfully. “Was the problem with my plan the turn-taking, the spear-mouse army, or the tyrannical dirt-bed regime I apparently wanted?”
Covered in yuck from head to pinfeathers, Squawkington sloshed and pecked his way out from the bottom of the pile. “Your stupid bonnet is suspiciously spotless!” He spluttered. “Clearly a conspiracy to get us all crudded and contaminated!”
I’d like to tell you that the chickens learned a valuable lesson that day. It turns out that twisting your opponent’s mild suggestion into a perch purging, tailfeather-taxing, mud-bed tyranny of tufted totalitarianism doesn’t actually win the day. That they learned that turning a simple disagreement about roosting logistics into a barnyard brawl only leaves everyone smelling like suspect substances. I’d LIKE to tell you that they learned about the Strawman Fallacy. But they didn’t.
You see, poultry are not very prudent.
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