[ WP ] Two chickens at a slaughterhouse share a tender goodbye before death .

“ We had some good times, didn ’ t we? ” Mr. Beaks wheezed. 
 
 I tried to answer him, but the blood kept rushing to my head. We ’ d been hung upside down for what seemed like hours. Our legs were shackled. And my eyes felt like they could burst out of my head at any moment. Soon, our throats would be slashed and we ’ d be dipped into that charred, boiling pot over there. Our feathers, dissolved. Our naked bodies, spiced and rotisseried. Or fried. All so some fat college burnout could buy our limbs from KFC and eat our remains in a bowl of microwaved mashed potatoes. 
 
 This is why I was born. 
 
 I was starting to actually welcome the end. 
 
 Mr. Beaks flailed his wings. “ Clucky? ” he blurted out. “ Don ’ t you pass out on me again, Clucky. I need you here with me. C ’ mon now. Tell me a memory, kid. Stay awake. We had some good times, didn ’ t we? ” 
 
 With stars in my eyes and a hellish pressure under my skull, I humored the old bird. “ We sure did, ” I coughed. 
 
 “ We slept with a lot of chicks, ” he crowed. 
 
 I smiled and nodded. * ( Next to, you mean. We slept NEXT TO a lot of chicks. In a wire cage. Next door to us. ) * 
 
 “ We never had to deal with our parents squawking at us. ” 
 
 I nodded again. * ( Because we never knew our parents. They were killed and turned into cat food. ) * 
 
 “ True that, ” I managed. 
 
 “ And we did a lot of good drugs, ” he boasted. 
 
 I couldn ’ t even dignify this one with a lying look. * ( We were DRUGGED. Huge difference, Beaks. ) * 
 
 I blacked out for the fourth time. 
 
 As I came to again, Mr. Beaks grinned a wide grin. He looked happy as the day I met him. An old bird with a hard beak and the confidence of an American eagle. He looked like he didn ’ t care at all that we were on death row. He didn ’ t let the machines phase him. Like a proud cock, he seemed to be glowing, immaculate – just as a silver streak darted through the air and opened his throat in a cascade of crimson. His white plumage was now stained with hot, red gore. 
 
 He was an old bird who went out smiling. 
 
 And here I was, a young fowl, alive and trembling. 
 
 A chicken shit. 
 
 I closed my eyes. Maybe for the last time. In my pounding skull, a thought rattled around: Beaks didn ’ t die. Beaks had LIVED, damnit. He had lived because he had nothing else. Maybe I needed to be a little more like Beaks and less like me. 
 
 Maybe I needed to show some goddamn backbone. A little spine to go with these tasty bones. 
 
 Even from behind my eyelids, I could see the Knife Man ’ s shadow fall over me. 
 
 I strained, extending my wing. And my middle finger. 
 
 *Fuck you, Colonel Sanders. * 

