The rooster--not pictured--crows. A lot. I like it, though. I hear him everyday now. The crowing is both reassuring and disconcerting. Another day, another day, another day.
I once owned a rooster named Foxbait [he was rescued from a fox trap]. He had more personality than most engineers I know. He shredded dog food bags with his wee spurs--he was a bantam. Maybe because the bags were Purina red? Or maybe he hated that Purina checker pattern? There it was-- a twenty pound bag of dog food one minute, and a pile of kibble and a hula skirt the next.
One of my all-time favorite short stories--the kind of story that will linger in your thoughts, cling to you like smoke after you read it-- is I want to Live! by Thom Jones. A terminally ill woman on her deathbed thinks of Mr. Barnes, the rooster from her childhood, and admires his pluck, his cockiness, his grabbing life and living it. Somehow this theme gets intertwined with the German philosopher Schopenhauer-- but it works. It works.
Read it, you'll see. From the prize-winning collection The Pugilist at Rest.
Posts
