My mother’s mad chicken
When I was 9years old, I angrily threw a stone on my mother’s hen and it landed on the chicken’s head.
The chicken ran mad instantly.
It refused to die.
Chicken that was doing well and walking normally, started sounding like it was barking. At times the chicken sounded like a turkey. And other times it coughed like a human being.
So my mother noticed this and asked me what the problem with the chicken is.
I pretended not to know.
She sat and watched as the chicken will come out of its cage and start running when no one was pursuing it. The chicken ran from morning till night. When it had run out of strength, it stopped to catch its breath before running again.
My father who had been praying for her to kill one of the chickens so he could eat suggested that we killed the chicken since it had started behaving strangely.
My mother refused.
She said she cannot eat chicken with an evil spirit.
‘Have you ever seen Chicken behaving like this before?”
And it was true.
Chicken stopped sleeping inside the cage and started fornicating at night. Most of the time, it fought and killed our neighbor’s chicken just like that.
Hired assassin.
I knew the chicken was mad.
The stone I had thrown had destroyed the chicken’s brain and it started misbehaving.
A week later, we found the fow lying down on the floor.
It was gasping for breath.
Maybe it was as a result of a heart attack or stroke which I don’t know.
But just before it died, I had this urge to confess to my mother. So I told her what had transpired between me and the chicken and how I was responsible for the madness.
My mother rubbed my head and told me she had forgiven me. She told me to bring knife and end the life of the chicken before it died. After ending the life, we threw the head of the fow away because we felt the head was not correct again.
I later received the beating of my life that evening from my father. The man did not forgive me. He made me swear never to stone any animal ever again.
That evening, after the meat was cooked for all to eat, I was given the laps and wings to eat.
I was eating and crying at the same time. Catarrh was coming out of my nose. I broke the chicken bones to the last drop, and even sucked the bone marrow and cleaned mouth.
That evening my mother came to console me. She told me the story of how she brought a goat into her mother’s room to see itself in front of the mirror. Only for the goat to charge at its reflection with its horn and break her mother’s mirror.
That woman stubborn pass me.
For God’s sake, how can you bring a goat into your mother’s bedroom just to see its reflection?
My name is Praises Chidera Obiora and I am the best at what I do.
