The day I was hit by a chicken

Fossicking through my files for inspiration, I came across a story written in response to a writers group prompt from a couple of years ago.  The title of the story is the prompt as it was offered, and the story that tumbled from my pen over the next fifteen minutes is a tangle of truth and fiction.  Which parts are true, and which are untrue?  Not telling.

The day I was hit by a chicken

When I was 15, most people in their thirties or forties seemed old to me.  But not my parents - my mother was slender, with a girlish face and voice, and the same curly blonde hair I'd seen in her photos from the war years; she was "grown up" but not old.

Until one day, when I looked sideways from the sink, where my recently developed sense of responsibility had me washing dishes, to the adjacent kitchen bench where mum was preparing the Sunday baked dinner.  She was stuffing  bread, onions, and herbs into a chicken that was to be the centrepiece of the meal.

A glint in her hair, above and ahead of her ear, caught my eye.  Had I just seen silver hair amongst the blonde?  Could my mother be growing old?  As I sponged and rinsed the plates and bowls, I snuck more glances at the side of her bent head.  Images scrolled through my mind of a full head of grey curls, and blue eyes peering at me from a field of wrinkles.  Would her voice get old too?  How long would it be before she was ancient?  Until a few moments earlier, it had seemed inconceivable.

The images and thoughts swirled around my head for what seemed like ages, before distilling themselves into a sentence that just charged out of my mouth of its own accord.

"I can't imagine you as a grandmother," I said, just as she straightened and began to turn towards the baking dish.

She shrieked and jerked back around towards me, eyes wild and mouth open.  The chicken flew out of her hands and hit me in the chest.

"What are you trying to tell me? You don't even have a girlfriend" she screamed, as the slippery chook bounced off my chest and skidded across the lino floor.

I wasn't sure what I was trying to tell her, but it wasn't that I was about to become a father.  That was the first time I was ever hit with a chicken.  Turned out not to be my last – but that's a story for another day, along with the flying choko artwork, and the macaroni incident.