THE IMMORTAL ROOSTER
Finally, in today’s news, I witnessed the near-execution of a rooster. It was actually kind of sad. (Until now, I didn’t think I could feel sorry for a rooster.) I was walking into a small village by the side of the road with a bunch of Spanish pilgrims in front of me. In the middle of the narrow road was a rooster, just standing there. A panel truck came by going faster than it should have and just ran right over the rooster.
The amazing thing was that the rooster went right under the truck, without getting hit by any of the four wheels. As the truck pulled past, there was a huge flurry of feathers in the air. It seemed that a hundred or more feathers had been torn right off the rooster. They swirled in the air and came down into a pile on the ground. There were large feathers, small feathers, red feathers, brown feathers, and white feathers—all on the road.
Amazingly, the rooster was still on the road, standing up, and still clad in a bunch of short feathers. The rooster ran off the road and jumped into a hedge on the side and disappeared.
The Spaniards were beside themselves. They couldn’t believe that the truck driver didn’t stop, and they wondered whether the rooster was dead. I wondered the same thing.
I know from personal experience that chickens can do some amazing things when dead. I killed our chicken in Afghanistan to eat him, and immediately after his head was cut off, he ran in a circle, then did a perfect backflip, landing on his two feet. Even with her head on, Mary Lou Retton could not have done better. But unlike Mary Lou, my Afghan chicken celebrated his accomplishment by then falling dead in a heap.
Let’s hope that today’s rooster is alive and well, and that someone has given him a blanket for the night.