“Get the stone slab, why don’t you?” my father asked, rather gruffly. “Be of some use rather than stand there like a kid who has been slapped three times in the face.” Quietly I did as I was told, as usual. I have worked on the farm along with my father, two sisters and two brothers, all my life. Mother died when I was two, so I don’t really remember her that well, only that she wore big flower pattern clothes and tied her hair up with a banana printed bandana. It doesn’t fit in my idea of ‘pretty’ but I was told that she had to kick away her suitors just to get a breath of air.
“Now get the chicken,” he added when I handed him the stone slab. “A nice fat one would do, son.” Without a word, I did what I was told again. Such subjugation was second nature to me now. I had no other way out of it. We were the Harvesters, forever bound to our clan first, father second.
Entering the coop, I felt disheartened at the very thought of taking a living being to my father. I bent down and closing my eyes, picked the first one, which I caught in my hand. I’m sorry, I whispered. Somehow, I had grown attached to the chickens; they didn’t see me as a threat and never pecked nor squealed in fear at the sight of me. However, from today, they would begin to hate me.
“Come along, son,” he grumbled. I shuffled my way to him and handed him the chicken, who began shrieking at the very sight of him.
“Son, this is for you to see,” he began, “You’re a man, it’s nothing. You don’t get attached to these things, okay?” With a lump on my throat, I nodded. “Good,” he added.
Carefully placing the chicken on the stone slab, he grabbed the meat cleaver beside him. He looked at me to see whether I was watching. “Watch carefully, son,” he ordered and turned towards the poor helpless little being. With a stroke, the chicken was dead and blood oozed out of its neck and few droplets splashed onto my father’s face.
The white feathers of the chicken now drenched in pools of dark red blood. 531Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEtNWBPZ5xH
