The Well-hydrated Chicken

The well-hydrated chicken does not answer to ‘The well-hydrated chicken.’

Stumbling through the front door I could murder the gumboot that trips me. My fists clench uncontrollably in jagged balls. My back tenses as I tower over it, jaws clenched as a role of invective streams off my tongue. Silenced.

The first thing I hear is a shrill, faint beep. Like a fire alarm, its heart of batteries diminished in a final, cold, pronounced pulse. I think about where I’ve left the broom, then the stool, so I can knock the alarm from its perch before it goes off. It has done this a couple of times in the last few weeks. I don’t want it waking anyone.

I have grown accustomed to a soft tread. I know the boards that creak. I can walk on the balls of my feet with the swagger of Jack Sparrow. Even at a rush I am of the night and know how to avoid calamity.

The well-hydrated chicken shall be fed peaches, pears, and freshly picked flowers.

I follow the sound down the hallway. Standing beneath the fire alarm I am confused to discover it is not the culprit. There is still the cloud of my day filling that space between my eyes and logic, and so it takes me a moment to react.

The beep continues.

I reach for Toby’s door. The beep is most definitely coming from inside. As I turn the handle, careful not to let it catch, I am immediately struck by the scent from within. My expression falters. I hope he hasn’t wet the bed. If it’s a vomit, well that’s worse again.

But the scent, it’s not as sharp. More musty. If anything.

I can’t help the furrow of my brows. I’m still annoyed about the gumboot. He’s always leaving his shoes by the door. There’s practically a pile of them there. I’m still annoyed about today. I’m still annoyed in general.

There are a practiced three paces to his bed. Underneath which I can hear the beep.

“Toby!” The sound of my whisper not intended so judgemental. I’m guessing it’s his fire truck, or his bulldozer. Must have left it on.

Under his bed, instead of empty space, I find a box. Water damaged at the base. I know it from the shed. I shake my head at the thought of him digging around out there, wondering what else he’s done. And bringing it inside too. There’ll be a mess beneath it now. Guaranteed. But with the beep sounding from inside this box I can’t help but eye what is now a very suspicious package wrapped in dirty, brown, torn paper.

The well-hydrated chicken will be afforded every luxury pertaining to his want. Unless this varies from peach, pear, or freshly picked flower.

The top was ripped open months ago. I can’t even remember what came in it. As I slide the box out from beneath his bed I can hear the sound off his lips. It’s a light snore. Something I used to find cute. Now a relief. It means he’s sleeping.

My chest is tightening. I need to stop this beep before it wakes him up. I can’t do another night of this. As soon as he’s up once he’ll be up every twenty minutes. His sleep schedule staining the hollows in my face. He’ll come to my door, “Dad? Can I have some water.” Or, “Dad? I’m hungry.” Or, “Dad? I can’t sleep.”

No shit. It’s what I want to say. Somehow I can curb this when he’s looking back at me from three feet high, that brown monkey of his clutched in one arm. What I cannot help is the sigh that comes from me as I rip back the sheets. The same sigh I want him to know so he stops doing this. The same sigh I fear he will recall for the remainder of his life whenever he feels a burden. The same sigh I hate myself for sighing.

The beep is getting faster now.

I scratch at the box to get it out, pull open the faded paper at the top, still grimy from the dust and oil it previously held.

At once I lurch back.

The beeping stops.

I wish I could see my own pupils at this point. Because the eye I am looking into seems as shocked as mine. Between us both we must have four black holes sucking in every utterance of light in the room to make sense of this.

I hesitate, because, it seems the right thing to do.

My fingers drag the box gently towards me and I am met once again by that eye. A faint, red ring in the dark, bordering a shiny pupil. I am also met by that smell.

The well-hydrated chicken is not to be mistaken for a mistake. He has no feathers. He eats. He poos. And he has rights.

I reach a hand forward. It’s instinctual at this point. The little life in front of me seems in need of comfort.

To my relief a tentative claw reaches out. It hooks my forefinger as the pupil eyes me with equal suspicion. Whatever its fears, it must recognise something in me to close its grip.

I raise the small silhouette towards me. There is nothing else. Just this dark mass of mottled feathers with a shiny pupil.

In the dark I can’t be positive, but I would guess that this is a baby lorikeet. Why I now have a baby lorikeet on my extended finger is a very odd question that I am being asked to consider so near midnight.

The lorikeet at once seems familiar. It too seems comfortable with me, puffing its feathers slightly as it pokes its beak under a wing to pluck or rearrange something. It makes a quick squawking sound which I practically flinch from in my haste to hush.

The lorikeet recovers, turns, and immediately settles. It shuffles further along my hand. Then it waits. A few more shuffles. Another fiddle under its wing. A few more shuffles. There is something so immediately peaceful about the process that I find it quite quickly nestled on my shoulder as I am left staring at Toby and wondering what has happened.

This little bird is tattered. It is young. Too young to have fledged. There are no flight feathers, many others missing too. It is a mangy little mess, but in its quiet so very perfect.

I want to ask questions, beg answers, but to do so would be to wake Toby. And waking him is out of the question. He too, is perfect.

The well-hydrated chicken requires thorough attention.

Moments pass. Then minutes. With each one I settle more firmly to the floor. As does the little lorikeet to my neck. I do not fully comprehend how I went from tracking a beep to now appearing pirate. I can’t help thinking of my Jack Sparrow swagger through the house though, paired with this less-than-charming addition of a parrot.

Toby has not stirred.

“So,” I whisper. “Where did you come from?”

I have been stealing glances at the bird every now and then. I have seen its eyelids drifting. It appears to be falling asleep, a remedy in too short an order in our household.

“So why is it instead of sleeping I’m here nursing you? How did we come to find ourselves in each others’ company?”

I reach up and turn on the lamp. The switch barely clicks. Considering Toby has slept through the chirping though I doubt he’s heard anything else since I got home. Perhaps for the first time.

Then, here it is again. Guilt.

Sometimes I can’t help it. Sometimes I just feel need to run and shout. Those moments of frustration. Moments where he won’t do as he’s told. When he won’t eat his food. Or when he wants to go through every book on the floor while I’m trying to get him dressed. Sometimes the best thing to do is avoid my voice. My tedious strokes of verbal repetition as I reprimand him for not listening. For not doing as he’s told. For not being better. For not knowing exactly what it is I’m expecting of him. Sometimes I hear myself and hate myself and can only pace the room and make it a game. A habit of annoyance that rises in me, unprecedented in the days he was a bub.

I remember a friend once saying, “If you’re not throwing your kids out the window, you’re doing a good job.”

I wish I’d never heard that.

The well-hydrated chicken intends to build emotional fortitude, despite its inability to comprehend human emotion.

I’d been out all evening. First time in a while.

Claire told me, gently, to go. Wisdom I have never held. I said I’d be back later. Then grown tired of laps around the suburb.

I know it’s cliche to say, but they never teach you this stuff. I don’t mean how to be a parent. I mean how not to be a child. It doesn’t come naturally. If it does then I must be stuffing it up. I don’t understand his grin. I don’t understand how it is I have made him happy. All I see is an opportunity to disappoint.

I watched him today, talking to himself and charging laps of the hallway. I reminded him again and again not to run. I watched him slip on his slippers, the irony unmentioned, and clatter against the dining table. I watched him angry at his error, bruises forming, and all I could do was panic and yell at him again not to run inside.

He yelled too.

I louder.

Then it comes. I’m watching Toby sleep. Despite the skewed sheets, the curl of dribble being mopped by his pillow, the questions I have for him about this little bird, and the immediacy of the muck that has been made in the box in front of me, I see him.

A tear forms. It falls before I dare catch it. There are now two sleeping creatures in this room. I have taken further responsibility it would seem.

As my gaze drops I catch sight of the top of the box again. There is scribble all over it. Some Toby’s. Mostly Claire’s.

I have been named The well-hydrated chicken. I have been rescued by Toby.

Claire is so much better at this stuff than me.

And I realise once more. That is what I do. That is why I have failed time and time repeated. I keep trying to rescue him before he makes a mistake. It only seems to force the error.

I have tears streaming now. Bird asleep upon me. Boy asleep before me. He is my little bird. Unbalanced and unsteady.

I stifle a sniff. It still catches the night, and I watch Toby’s eyes open. Watch them find his bird and his dad as one.

This time there is no sigh.

I stare at him, my lips curling up the same as his.

“Dad. I found a chicken.”

I’m not going to correct him. I’m not going to ask where he found it, or why he chose its name. I won’t mention the box or the shed. I won’t do that. None of it matters. At least for one night, one time when he is smiling proudly back at me, when he has something new to show me and talk about and I don’t feel like I must teach him. I can remember now why he is so perfect.

“Yes you did mate. Yes you did.”