I was about 8…
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Short Story / Eggs...er, Food for Thought (Analysis)
Amanda Dill
ENG 3343
30 April 2008
Eggs…er, Food for Thought
Chickens tend to dislike having people poke around in their nests, stealing their precious eggs, their future children. I suppose I’d feel the same way, if our roles were reversed, but they aren’t, and I happen to like omelets. My first memory of my childhood begins inside a chicken coop, the musty smell of hay and feathers clogging up my nose and mouth, my head filled with images of little chicken heads and sharp, tiny beaks. It’s not exactly a pleasant memory. Then again, there aren’t very many nice things inside of chicken coops.
After filling our baskets with eggs, some brown, some white, some a muddy non-color somewhere in between, my grandmother and I sorted the eggs by size into cardboard cartons. Some we would keep for breakfasts and cakes and other childhood delights, like ice cream or custard. Leftovers would go down the road to be sold or traded for meat. Looking back, I see how fragile this practice was. It’s difficult at best to find farm fresh eggs for sale, even in some rural areas, simply because it doesn’t yield much profit on a small scale. On that day, though, I could only see the beauty and wonder of the smooth, thin shell, the delicate shield which held something familiar, yet somehow new. Very carefully, we loaded the eggs into the back of my grandfather’s pickup truck, sliding them all the way to the front between two crates of corn to keep them from tipping over in transit. My grandmother slammed the tailgate shut after I climbed down, checking to make sure it was secure.
I walked around to the passenger side, opened the door, and prepared to climb up into the cab, as I did every time my grandfather took eggs to the farmer’s market. But today, my grandmother stopped me. “This time,” she said gravely, “you’ll stay behind and help me in the kitchen.” I thought nothing of this, as I was a pretty good dough kneader, go-getter, and pot-stirrer, but perhaps I should have. Once the truck, the corn, the eggs, and my grandfather were out of sight except for the dust cloud moving, now soundlessly, down the county road, my grandmother motioned toward the back yard. I remained clueless until she stopped in front of the chicken coop for the second time that day. Then I knew.
It only took a few seconds, I’m sure—maybe a minute, at the most—but it felt like an eternity to me. I don’t remember if the chicken made a sound, whether it thrashed about or died with dignity, but I do remember trying to pluck the damn thing, my eyes clouded by tears, half-listening to my grandmother’s instructions. I might have been eight years old, but the gravity of the days events were not lost on me. This was not a fly I’d swatted—this was an animal, one that lived and breathed, provided food for my family and others, one that I’d watched putter around the farm at dawn—and I’d killed it with my own tiny hands. Knowing what was on my plate was one thing, but having to actually kill it, clean it, and help prepare it myself—that changed things.
While I suppose it would be a beautiful, grand gesture for me to say I’m now a strict vegetarian, that my killing that chicken scarred me for life, rendering me unable to choke down a single bite of meat ever again, I simply can’t do that. It was, in retrospect, an event that changed not only the way I saw myself, but the way I saw my grandmother as well. Gone was the innocence of not knowing how my food got to the table. I realized, albeit the hard way, that someone, somewhere, had to kill and clean everything I ate. It’s not easy. I suppose you’d become accustomed to it after a while. The experience instilled a respect for farm life and what it takes to get food from its rawest state to our tables.
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MichelleAusman reviewed Version 2 -
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I absolutely loved it! Nostalgic, which we all can understand and interprit ourselves, cleverly worded to the point I could smell and hear what you were going through. I felt like I was reading some short quirky story in a magazine. It was awesome. :)
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napalm reviewed Version 2 -
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Great story! How old were you when you had to do this? I couldn’t find anything wrong with it at all. No spelling or grammatical mistakes that I could see. Clear set-up, middle and conclusion. Overall, excellent work.
streamwalker2001 reviewed Version 2 -
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nice opening paragraph…
“On that day, though, I could only see the beauty and wonder of the smooth, thin shell, the delicate shield which held something familiar, yet somehow new” – excellent sentence… very tactile..
“—and I’d killed it with my own tiny hands.” – from you narration, i assumed that your grandmother had killed the chicken – i didn’t realize it was you until you told me… as a reader, i would be interested to hear about how that action felt – this is an action that “scarred you for life”, yet you neglect to walk us through the process of you actually killing the chicken. Is there a reason for this?
i like this story… brought back memories of growing up on a farm…
your narration is good… it’s clean and descriptive…
i do really think that this piece would be more interesting if you let us know what was going on in your head/heart during the killing process… as you say, it did change you forever – i for one would love to know why…
neawaia reviewed Version 2 -
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To me there is something missing in the end. One or two sentences and I think it would finish it off. Maybe something like: “I don’t think a lot of people get this experience, so they don’t appreciate how they get their food. This is one thing that I know I wont forget.”
Just confirming your thoughts and a little of what you think on the end.
But I can also relate to that as well, being a country girl.
Keep going!
Elven_Vampiress reviewed Version 2 -
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Bravo! A lovely piece on a disapearing way of life. I like the personal story and the imagery that even a new generation can relate to. An enjoyable read. Thank you for sharing!
victor_a_clevenger reviewed Version 2 -
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I to live in rural surroundings, this set very cozy with me. I enjoy the turn from certainty to uncertainty in the matter of grandma saying, stay behind.
CharlesB reviewed Version 2 -
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I really liked this short story and I have one question… are you a vegetarian now?
Its good in the sense that you’re relating a childhood experience into a life-long lesson. I liked how you ended it. Your discription of the coop is great! I thought the narrative was near flawless. Excellent job.
I like my eggs over-easy.
stormplay reviewed Version 1 -
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You have an interesting propensity for the comma. It caught me mid way through and without a second read, I believe you have a least one, if not two, commas in every sentence except the last one.
My first challenge to you you is this; try to vary your sentence structure without using so many back to back lengthy sentences seperated with loads of commas. Throw in a short sentence every so often to create flow and ease of readership. We all love a long, well developed sentence but follow it with a short, matter-of-fact sentence. It gives the reader pause to follow your thought.
Other than that, I like your piece and it certainly has promise in the lit mag world.
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