Chicken of the Dark

On an early morning walk I was startled by a chicken. I was taking the driveway toward the river when the silence was shattered by a loudly squawking, erratically running mass of feathers with legs. Zig zagging and darting, flinging the dead leaves behind it, it was making a frantic attempt to escape a coyote. The coyote was so intent on its prey it didn't notice me. It caught the chicken in its mouth, clamping right over the bird's back. Then it saw me and stood stock still for a second. The chicken was still too, shocked and terrified, its legs sticking out stiff as sticks. I am the kind of person that catches flies in my hand to let them out of the house. I have compassion for the smallest of bugs. I even have compassion for the ones that sting and bite. I abhor killing and suffering. If something is in distress I'm going to rescue it. But on this morning, my desire for a dramatic photo suddenly overrode my compassion. I went against my nature and instead of attempting to save the chicken, I took pictures of its demise.

 I still feel guilty because I didn't attempt to save the chicken. It's possible I could have. I saved a chipmunk from a cat once. When I ran at the cat and screamed NO! loudly, the cat dropped the chipmunk and ran off. I held the chipmunk in my hands and thought it was dead, but it was only in shock. After a while, held against my warm chest, it revived and scampered into the woods. Recently, in the middle of the highway, a robin was standing on the dividing yellow lines. It had it's mouth open but wasn't moving. I think it must have flown into a car or been struck somehow. The traffic was bumper to bumper. I opened the door, picked up the bird and drove home with it in my lap wrapped in the lower portion of my sweatshirt. At home I gave it some water and held it like I did the chipmunk. Half an hour later it sang and flew from my hand into the sky. I have saved many creatures. I once brought a frog back from the dead. No lie. You can ask my son. He was there. The feeling of rescuing something is buoying. Like being a miracle worker. I could have at least tried for the chicken. Instead, I, savior of the helpless, became the opportunist throwing compassion to the wayside. I snapped the photos and the coyote bolted toward the woods to devour the poor bird. The pictures aren't masterpieces. They're morbid. You can see the chicken in the death grip and you can see its feathers flying off as it tries to free itself. I hate those pictures. They make me feel bad.

I realize this is ridiculous. It's the NATURE of things. The coyote's gotta eat too. I get it. I still hate it.

I eat chickens all the time. I just don't kill them myself. My hands don't wring any necks. I haven't been anywhere near a Tyson plant. I am not guilty. I am a kind, compassionate person dammit! All I do is buy a featherless, skinless, boneless, piece of white protein nicely packaged on white styrofoam. In that package at the grocery store, it doesn't resemble the animal it is, the sentient being it was. Not at all. I can tell myself it had as much of a life as a potato. I don't want to think it lived in a cage, force fed. I don't want to think it had babies that it cared for, perhaps loved. (Do chickens love? Dogs do. Can't chickens? I have a friend who had a pet turkey. It would run excitedly to the car when she got home, just like a dog. Anyone who knew her and the turkey's relationship would say it loved her.)
Had the nameless thing on the styrofoam tray suffered? Had it felt fear or pain? I'm certain the coyote's chicken was afraid. I saw it in it's eyes.

The reality, whether I like it or not, is I participate in the mass murder of chickens every day because I buy and eat them all the time, fueling supply and demand. Even if I'd saved that chicken, I've participated in the demise of thousands. My ideas of being the good savior would be lies. If I spent an hour in a chicken processing plant I'd probably never eat it again. But I'll never do this. I don't want to see what it's like in there because I'm sure it's horrific. So I comfort myself with the delusional potato theory, because fried chicken is the best thing to eat on this whole freakin' planet.

 I am aware most people's brains don't bang at these things so hard, but it brings me to think about things we rationalize the same way. We want what we want, even if it's at the expense of something or someone. The unfair treatment of something or someone we consider less than ourselves is fine as long as we are getting something we desire out of it. The way we do this, this rationalizing that pushes our discomfort of the reality of things to the far back recesses of our consciousness, this bothers the hell out of me. The truth that I possess these traits and know it should be enough to make me change it. What shames me is my weakness and lack of will power to just do the right thing.

 Similarly, every social injustice has, at its core, selfishness and a lack of empathy. A refusal to look into the darkness.
Slavery. Segregation. Sexism. Inequality. Inhumane treatment of any living thing.

Billionaires with 4 mansions and a private leer jet don't want to share the money they earned with the homeless and hungry. Because they've never known the darkness of being homeless or hungry.

Americans who earned their right to live here because their mother's vagina was in the right place at the right time, tell poor, fearful immigrants to take their kids and get out of our country. Because they've never known the darkness of being a poor, fearful immigrant.

Those who can afford a private concierge doctor, (yes, that is a real thing) aren't worried if others can't afford health care. Because they've never known the darkness of being sick without health care.

Those who will rape and wound our forests, mountains and rivers for profit. Because they do not know the darkness of a place stripped of its beauty and healing powers.

On and on and on and on. We don't see real change because we don't want to think about and understand the dark things. If we had to spend a day living as the one's we take advantage of, the world would be new the very next morning.

I wrote this post this morning. Mostly to work out things in my own head, not so much for others. As providence would have it, as soon as I finished I saw the video featured in the post in my news feed and added it. The story was on the front page of the NY Times today.

On the way home from visiting my grandmother in rural South Carolina this summer, a truck delivering chickens (I assume to the slaughterhouse) stopped next to me at a light. I was forced to look. And smell. Their condition was sickening. The undersides looked like the one's in the Perdue farmer's hen house.
I think it is time we all dare to start looking at things harder than we want to.

In retrospect, I think the chicken killed by the coyote lived a far better existence than the ones pictured below.