The following is a flash fiction written during a meeting of my writer’s group in September 2013:

Hens & Chicks

“Think he’ll make anything himself?” asked Mother Hen.

“Undoubtedly, my son will be President of United States of America,” replied Papa Hen. “If we can elect a black man and a scarlet woman to the highest post in the land, there’s no reason our Ralphie can’t make it.”

While nosing her chicks toward Farmer Brown’s corn and barley grain, Mother Hen considered her husband’s statement. Indeed, after the recent election of Ms. Sarah Green-Peas (no relation to the Jolly Green Giant of frozen peas fame), there seemed no limits to what the American people might do. If Ms. Green-Peas, a belly dancer from New Hampshire, could capture the heart of the nation, then there was no reason her chick might not do the same.

“Mama?” Suzie Q stopped pecking and cocked her furry yellow head. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“A penny won’t get you far these days, sister,” chuckled Ralphie. “When I’m president , I’ll see to it that a penny buys each and every chicken in America a full bale of hay.”

While nosing her chicks to the pond behind Farmer Brown’s stately grey slate mansion, Mother Hen considered her son’s statement and wondered where he could have learned so much about political economics. Last she knew, neither Harvard nor Stanford accepted chickens for full matriculation although, interestingly, Notre Dame had just taken in a lamb.

“When’s dinner ready?” demanded Papa Hen. “I got an overpowering urge for scrambled eggs. I stopped by the duck pond next door on my way home from the office and wouldn’t you know it, I found four just laying there.”

Although she really didn’t approve, Mother Hen cooked the eggs to perfection. She was a good wife and mother.  But she had always wondered if there might be something wrong with a man who was prepared to eat another’s children? She hoped Ralphie wouldn’t grow up to be like his father but she supposed that he probably would.

After all, to be President of the United States of America, a chicken would have to do whatever it was that a chicken had to do.”