Fighting like the Flowers
The housewife, as common as the yellow dandelion, her hands emersed in the hot soapy water, hummed as she cleaned away the crusts of breakfast. Her day held nothing grand or exciting, only an aroma of calm, and the steady beat of cyclical chores.
Wait. Why is Freya out? she thought, as her youngest and smallest brown hen passed the window, head held high and on alert. That’s not good.
Dripping soap and barefoot, she hurried out the back door, her chest tight with fear.
Freya clucked with worry as the housewife scooped her up in one arm and turned to the run.
Empty.
Not a brown hen to be seen. Not in the run, not in the yard, not in the trees, not on the fence, not in the coop. No Sigyn, Astrid, or Sif. No clucking, no arguing, no dustbathing, no scratching. Empty. The lightly-secured run door hung askew. Still without shoes, the housewife rushed across the yard, Freya held close.
In the grass lay Sigyn, a mottled snake wrapped tight around her.
The housewife ripped open the door and side of the small run. With only a passing thought of whether the snake might or might not be venomous, she grabbed its tail. It continued to wind around the inert Sigyn. Catching up a nearby stick, the housewife—still holding Freya and still barefoot—walloped the snake. She beat and beat and beat any part of the snake not wrapped around her beloved hen. She pummeled with a precision she could never have produced if she’d been playing golf or baseball. In a matter of seconds that felt like hours, she changed the snake’s proposed lunch plans with finality.
Freed from the tightening coils, the housewife scooped the limp Sigyn up and rushed to the coop. She set Freya, utterly silent during the snake’s condemnation, inside the coop and laid Sigyn inside securing them both. Desperate and terrified, she spun around searching for Astrid and Sif. Where are they? Are they hurt? They had to be scared. Where did they go? The endless possibilities of places to hide in a neighborhood overwhelmed the housewife. The number of other predators more than willing to take on a young hen knotted her stomach. Images of blood and feathers flashed through her mind.
Then she heard their call.
The call they sounded when they were separated and afraid, that asked, “Where am I and where are you? Help me!”
The housewife rushed out the backyard gate berating herself for leaving it open.
In the driveway stood Astrid and Sif.
The housewife approached them with a calm she didn’t feel and gathered them close. Back at the coop, Sigyn stood, Freya beside her. All four hens safe and sound.
Now to get her man to put the beaten and broken snake out of its misery. It had learned the hard lesson many had learned before - she may only be a dandelion-housewife, but she will break through rocks and concrete for what she loves...or pick up a stick and beat you with it.
(This story was published in Prairie Times.)
