Jacob’s Chicken – Miloš Macourek
A chicken is a chicken, you all know how a chicken looks, so go ahead and draw a chicken the teacher tells the children, and all the kids suck on crayons and then draw chickens, coloring them black or brown, with black or brown crayons, but wouldn’t you know it, look at Jacob, he draws a chicken with every crayon in the box, then borrows some from Laura, and Jacob’s chicken ends up with an orange head, blue wings and red thighs and the teachers says that’s some bizarre chicken, what do you say children, and the kids roll with laughter while the teacher goes on, saying, that’s all because Jacob wasn’t paying attention, and, to tell the truth, Jacob’s chicken really looks more like a turkey, but then not quite, for it also resembles a sparrow and also a peacock, it’s as big as a quail and as lean as a swallow, a peculiar pullet, to say the least, Jacob earns an F for it and the chicken, instead of being hung on the wall, migrates to a pile of misfits on top of the teacher’s cabinet, the poor chicken’s feelings are hurt, nothing makes it happy about being on top of a teacher’s cabinet, so, deciding not to be chicken, it flies off through the open window.
But a chicken is a chicken, a chicken won’t fly too far, hence it ends up next door in a garden full of white cherries and powder-blue currants, a splendid garden that proudly shows the cultivator’s love, you see, the gardener, Professor Kapon, a recognized authority, is an ornithologist who was written seven books on birds and right now is finishing his eighth , and as he puts the last touches to it, he suddenly feels weary, so he goes out to do some light gardening, and toss a few horseshoes, which is easy and lets him muse over birds, there are tons of them, so many birds, Professor Kapon says to himself, but there isn’t a single bird that I discovered, he feels down, flips horseshoes and dreams a love-filled dream about an as-yet-unknown bird when his eyes fall on the chicken….
….to be continued
Reflective writing prompt
Write about using all the colors, or
draw a chicken.