Death on the Farm
Image by Ricardo Porto
by
Eda Obey
I love Ostara. My maiden name is Easter and that led me to study all the meanings behind it. I prefer the Pagan interpretation of my name. A celebration of spring, youth, and fertility. The sun has returned, the ground warms, and all the sweet little winter babes are being born. Fluffy chickens and bunnies for everyone.
Even in springtime there are terrors you do not expect. One of my worst memories of growing up on a farm involved an amateur's butchering of my pet rooster. When I was in the 4th grade, Mom let me pick a purple Easter chick from a rustling chirping boxful of pastel floof balls at the feed store. I named him Capt. Hook and he rode on the open glove box lid in my mom's VW bug. He would ride undisturbed as we bounced and careened around the farm, checking fence lines and rounding up the horses. He grew into a megalomaniacal bantam rooster that ran the chicken coop like 70s pimp, going full on crazy if you messed with his hens or their eggs. He wielded his spurs like switchblade, slashing and swiping, while battering any foolish human in his coop with the full fury of his wings. He spared me his wrath, letting me stroke his cheeks and scratch under his wings. It made me feel special.
One day, as I walked up the dirt road that was our driveway after being dropped off by the mailbox by the school bus, I saw mom in the corral next to the barn. She was fighting to get a handhold on Capt. Hook, who was tied to the fence rail by his legs. He flailed and pecked at her. I dropped my book bag and ran to the fence shouting. She had ahold of him by the time I got there. In the hand not clutching my rooster, she had a large serrated steak knife. I asked what was happening. She told me Capt. Hook had attacked her for the last time. Then proceeded to draw the knife across Hook's neck.
There is a reason farmers use an ax to kill a rooster or wring its neck before butchering it, but Mom was a city girl still learning the ropes. This was one of her more traumatizing mistakes I witnessed.
I know she didn't kill him in front of me to be mean. She was angry and tired and didn't realize it was just about time for her 9 year old daughter to get home from school. She was in a rage and there was nothing to be done about. She drew that knife across for the first cut and the rooster surged at her. She cut his throat, but didn't kill him. He spent the next couple of endless minutes convulsing and covering us both in blood, while we screamed in horror. Mom tried to finish the job but everything was slippery with blood and he was cutting her hands with his beak.
She cooked him for dinner that night. I don't remember if I ate anything. I do remember her telling Dad that we shouldn't name the farm animals we plan to eat, because the attachment was traumatizing for me. That and never use a steak knife to cut live meat. Rules to live by in the country.
Eda Obey is a lifelong horror and surrealism fan. An LA based writer that has written in multiple genres and been published in e-zines and print journals; she’s into jazz, classic horror, animal allegories, and traveling. Her horror influences are Robert Bloch, Ari Aster, Poppy Z Brite, John Carpenter, Shirley Jackson, Clive Barker, and Tarsem Singh. Embracing the quarantine like a Bronte sister, she wrote the splatterpunk novella Killer RV: Nothing like a bucket list with a body count.
