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The mishap

For those of you who do not know its course in the heart of the Midwest, highway 65 between Marshall and Branson is a bit of a long and tedious trail. On my way south, a three hours’ journey, I was busied in my usual driving habits … thinking, singing, listening to every favorite song from the past year, et cetera. But at some point I became cognizant of a strange and notable recurrence. I do not recall the exact moment of awareness, but suddenly my eyes lit on, for what I think was the twentieth time, a white feathery mass lying, dead of course, on the white side line. Strange I thought. I am accustomed to the frequent smashed armadillo of southwest Missouri, and the skunk, and the raccoon, and so on. But there was significant evidence of a chicken truck mishap. Now please recall that this was a slow, subtle realization, for the evidence was not a mass, not a massacre of chicken remains flayed out along the shoulder and down into a ditch, as if the truck had wrecked. Rather, at intervals (sometimes half a mile, sometimes five miles apart) appeared these pure white specimens of life lost. I expected this string to end itself, yet it did not … it stretched over 150 miles of treacherously fatal pavement. I now, of course, wish I had counted those given up to the slaughter.

Fowl Fate

No doubt there was a hole in the truck, yes? But I could not help, at first, considering that perhaps these young animals, terror-stricken by the truth of their fate (in the form of nuggets to be sure, or perhaps boneless skinless breasts) found in that hole in the wire a hope of freedom … of triumphant escape. How could they have known the physical detriment of this frantic pursuit of fugitive existence? Surely these brave fluffy cluckers were unaware of any equation explaining the natural result of velocity on impact.

Of course, by now you are laughing at me … of course it was not escape they sought, for each sad fowl would have noted the fate of the first, or at least the fifth and sixth, and given up the flight, so to speak.

For Principle

So then, to this conclusion, one marked by a note of the chicken’s noble character and cause, I have come. These caged birds did not sing their anthem (which I imagined was the melancholy melody that at that point was playing on my stereo—probably Patty Griffin, or the Slip — some understated tragic tune); I say, they did not sing their anthem for freedom, but for principle. What noble chicken, I ask, would let itself be led to the chopping block, while within sight through the small, sympathetic hole there waited for each little scrawny neck to make its own end?
I would note that some of these fellows must have made a pretty play of it, rolling skillfully off to the shoulder so that their corpses were preserved in plump feathery grandeur, yellow feet pointing indignantly at the whirring tires that passed without regard, without so much as a flashing of lights, or momentary brake.
However, others left a more dramatic display; no doubt the result of a few bounces and then a swift splat as some massive pickup flattened guts and all in one fowl swoop.
And then still, some seemed rather magnificently smeared across the white dotted line in the center, resembling some contemporary textured painting of red and white, with bits of soft plume ruffling up in the breeze: an artistic and sacrificial testimony to the travesty of it all.

The Plea

I am typically not one to emote over the misadventures of wild animals on the road. But the continued picture of tragic chickenry that for miles forced itself before my vision and scrutiny, and finally my heart, left me mourning these white flags: not flags of surrender, but flags of honor. Thus, though it was probably just a holey truck, I am tempted to call it a Holy truck. The means thought fit to convey the sacred message those birds shared with the traffic of highway 65. No doubt, as often is the case, few travelers pondered the gravity or force of the message. So please, mark my efforts on the behalf of the trail of chickens, to make known the quiet poultry-borne plea for mercy.

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