Annabelle Humphrey never met a chicken she didn’t like, from the conservatively thin Lebanese chicken to the speckled brown Argentinian species that only lives underground. Before she was 21 she had been introduced to over 200 different types of chickens all over the world, and it didn’t seem at all strange to her. Could be that Annabelle lived a more charmed life than either you or me, or maybe it was just the connections she made that we don’t.
Dreams come to her at night, of childhood memories too dangerous to take out and play with during the daytime hours. Every night they’re the same; huge wolves sneak into her tribal camp and take away the second-born, of which she is one. Fractalized light blinds her when she awakens, the sheets soaked with her sweat and fear. Gray mornings take that fear and mellow it out, but less and less as her endless days go by. Her landlord swears at her when she is in town, but only because she is smarter than he is, and he smells her fear like a beacon.
Indigo days shroud her in their glow, sweet Annabelle who knows 21 different types of chickens but who is still afraid of the dark that shelters her demons. Just a series of days that convince her she’s only worthwhile in her own imagination, even though others try to break through her mottled brown shell. Keep me safe, she prays, even though she wants to pray for friends, or for understanding, or for at least a skein of beef to fill her from the inside out. Love is a stranger she’s heard others tell about, but it’s never visited her even just to say hello for a second before leaving.
Moises Johnson, the boy from the islands, wonders if he will ever be taken seriously by Annabelle. Never mind the feelings he has tucked away inside, but just to be taken as something other than a joke is his life’s fervent wish. Over time he hopes this will change, but he does absolutely nothing to break the vicious cycle he has gotten stuck in. Perhaps it is for fear of rejection, every man’s nightmare that rivals the worst wolf-laden dream in Annabelle’s world. Quite a conundrum, really, but one he hasn’t bothered to try and figure out yet, because he feels it is hopeless.
Red light changes to green, and Annabelle crosses the street, eyes fixed on some point near the seamless horizon. Streets teem with filth more widespread than the forest she’s left behind, but she isn’t afraid; so much more exists in her worldview that’s worse. Tomorrow will turn her into a butterfly, but today has to bleed out first to make that happen. Underneath her thick skin lies a tender babe in the woods ready to bathe in the cool, calm waters of her native spring.
Virgin moon sails high overhead, but she cannot see it through the concrete and brick above her head. While she sleeps to dream, Moises prays his own earnest prayer for acceptance in her world. Xylophone melodies play on repeat for both of them, providing a convincing soundtrack in the mellow tones that she enjoys. Yellow chickens from Myanmar dance together on a makeshift stage, legs akimbo, then straight, then stretched out toward the coming day.
Zephyr in the sky flies by, eclipsing the virgin moon, and makes its way toward California.
Sam
Sam's Online Journal 