Sunday roast
Sahil Agrawal
“Click, Click, Slice!” These were the last sounds the chicken would hear as well as the desperate moans of others, who like him, were condemned. He was inches and minutes away from the end of his life. He heard it again, “Click, Click, Slice!”, followed by the last anguished cluck of another comrade.
In a sick irony, played by a sadistic higher being, stunned – the long buried-away memories flooded in. Relentless white flashes blinded the chicken, first bright, then dull. The brightest memory stemmed from the start of his life. A stream of colours and sounds immersed the chick as one final push propelled him to enter this seemingly beautiful life. This weak chick took his first glance at his equally helpless mother. She made a knelling “Cluck’’ as she stared at her children with eyes of pity. Hours after, she was taken away never to be seen again. The one who had given them life and brought them into this world – disappeared.
The next brightest flash happened shortly after. He and his brethren who were in the same clutch, were given access to long tempting trails of corn and grain. The chicken remembered how foolish he was giving up to that monster of greed. The chicken soon became grossly obese to the point where he could barely walk.
However, the reality dawned upon the chicken as the memories got increasingly duller, like a descending staircase. The chicken was put into a pen with the others, crammed, fat and fighting in intolerable conditions. Despite this he felt alone. They were a proud, semi-avian species yet they could not enjoy the fleeting seconds of flight and instead were permanently cemented to the ground by their own excrement. The chicken could remember the crunching sound and the tremendous pain of having his beak snapped and the deathly cries of pain from others. He could remember the blood moving down his neck in twisting, long, red streams. Panicky, he remembered how they picked and poked at each other. He felt anguish and fear as he saw his friends go in batches. Now it was his turn.
The chicken kept his eyes open as the guillotine murderously approached, stained crimson red with the blood of countless others. The sound echoed with an ascending crescendo, “Click, Click, Slice! Click, Click, Slice!” He thought he heard the sound of his mother’s knelling cluck as he smelt the metallic blood. Then suddenly there was nothing…
The supermarket’s cold section housed a variety of meats ranging from the smallest lamb to the largest beef portions. A woman with children in tow picked the fresh chicken having carefully checked the expiry date. Drawn and quartered it was cleansed and cooked. Lifeless pieces were further piked by metal tridents by the same species who had brought the chicken to this fate. The chicken had made a good Sunday roast.