Journal Entry: December 2, 2015 – Wednesday 6:32 p.m.
It is dark. Dark and eerily quiet. The air is crisp and cold as I walk to the chicken house. The sky flutters, as snow dances on the breeze. A dog barks in the distance. I look to the gloaming above. There is not a single star to be seen. The surface of the Universe sleeps.
As I approach the chicken house, I suddenly sense a feel of electricity in the atmosphere. I can almost hear it crackling in the stillness of this early, early nightfall. The air is charged. I pause. The hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention.
Yet. I press on.
Seemingly, everything goes according to plan. I secure all three doors to the roost. As my last measure, I get a visual. All the chickens are in their places, as always.
Tommy and Chuck in the west corner on the floor.
Madeline, Louise, and Jeanne, all huddled on west end of the perch. And the New Hampshires, Dorothy the Boy Chicken, Bernice, and Flo…. all on the east perch.
I lock the door on my way out.
“Good night chickens. I love you chickens.”
Some nights I think they give me a cluck or two as I exit. I utter the words of Mr. Tweedy. “I swear them chickens is organized Mrs. Tweedy.”
Despite my earlier apprehensions, I leave, feeling oddly invigorated.
Journal Entry: December 3, 2015 — Thursday 10:02 a.m.
I am away from home when I receive the text. It is from Mike. He went out to feed the chickens their morning fare. He makes a surprising discovery. The details are flashing before me on my iPhone.
I read the text, slowly, carefully.
Mike: Is there more than one kind of fake training egg in the nests? If not, I think we have the real deal. I think we have an egg!
I drop my phone, in the middle of Aisle 3 of the Marsh Supermarket. Oddly enough, I am standing in front of the Egg Refrigeration Case. The stacks and stacks of styrofoam cartons stare at me from the shelves.
I do the Chicken Dance.
Twice.
We have an egg.
Houston, We Have Landed.
Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me. — Carl Sandburg
Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. — Stephen Hawking
The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us. — Ashley Montagu