Little Silkie's Passing

        I waited a while to post this for those who are interested. As I have said in previous posts my family bought just over twenty American hens in spring of 2022. One day, either later in 2022 or sometime in 2023, I was watching the chickens for my mother who was away visiting family. It was late in the afternoon and I was by the back of the property where the chicken coop was. We had a neighbor living behind us. Along one side of their property was a decent sized strip of trees and bushes that went along a cattle fence to their property line with us and also extended all the way back behind their house where the strip joined the dense woods behind their property; it was like the woods extended past the neighbors home right up to our property with the strip. Even though it was a rural suburb it gave it more of a woodsy secluded feel which I kind of liked. There were more trees around. 

        So while I was standing near the coop and the strip of woods that late afternoon, I saw a little white poofy figure emerging from some of the low hanging tree branches and bushes. It looked almost relieved to see me and started slowly running towards me; it had little poofy feet that looked like little shoes and a funny little run. Then it stopped. It looked around and seemed a bit confused before starting towards me again, although a little more slow this time. I had no idea what it was. It started eating some of the chicken feed near the coop. The hens, now pretty much full grown, were cautious of it and kept their distance. I was responsible for them and wasn't sure what to do with this little white fluffy bird. 

        I took care of some things nearby and at dusk the bird ran back into the woods. I figured there was a chance a raccoon or something was going to get it but what was I supposed to do? My mother came home the next day and the little bird had come back. She fed it and my sister told her over the phone it was a chicken breed called a Silkie. They don't look much like the standard American red and gray hens that we had. My mother decided to keep her and take care of her. Under the white fuzzy feathers on her legs she had six toes. She had dark eyes and on her head there were fine white feathers that looked like a big ball of white fur. Her skin was also an interesting purple color. 

        Someone who lives in a neighborhood on the other side of the woods must of had Silkies. The Silkie must of gotten lost, walked through the woods, through the narrow strip of woods, and thought she had found her home that afternoon when she saw me. She stopped because she looked around and had no idea where she was. She was alone just like I was and I think she showed up for a reason.

        My mother kept the Silkie in the little coop that the big hens lived in when they were chicks. I grew to like her. I called her Silkie. The big hens became less cautious and more hostile towards her. She was different and smaller than them and they outnumbered her. My mother caught a few of them jumping on her back while another hen was pulling feathers out of her. We made sure to let them out at different times if we could but sometimes you can't. If they were all out we tried to watch out for her. If I caught it I would scoop up a couple of the hens and put them in a time out pen. It was probably terrifying but they stopped attacking her like that. It pretty much stopped other than a single hen being cruel sometimes but most of the others would give her some space. 

        It must of been horrible for her being all alone and the other hens hating her like that. She would brood in her coop a lot. I would give her treats and I would also crouch down and put my head inside the coop with her, almost like I was lying with her. I would gently rest my head against her side. She relied on us for protection and some companionship because she was alone and she was more than just a pet chicken for a while. 

        I would sit in the yard to give her some treats and the big hens would come charging over for some too. The Silkie would sit in my lap and cower or would hide behind me. If she saw me walking outside she would run over to me with her funny little run. We really did try to take care of her. 

        One day I just knew to look outside and she was darting away from a hawk that was trying to pick her up and carry her off. I ran out screaming at it and it flew away. I found her hiding under pineapple plants. She went right to me and I put her up in her pen for a while. One winter night, probably winter 2023, I walked out back and found one of the gray hens named Tiny perched underneath the Silkies coop. Tiny hadn't went up that night with the other hens and was frozen stiff as a board. I picked her up and she was still alive. I put her in the Silkies pen and they kept each other warm that night although my mother found them fighting in the morning. 

        Eventually my mother bought other Silkies for her but she was cruel towards them and we had to discipline her for it. My mother tried keeping baby Silkies with her. I opened the pen door one day and a little black Silkie rooster jumped out of the doorway into my hands. I leaned down to scold her and the rooster jumped on my shoulder, cowering next to my head. I scolded her and jabbed her in the chest with my finger and she let the babies eat. She became more cautious of me and less like a close pet. She started running away from me instead of towards me. 

        She was really broody and was sitting on a clutch of eggs in either 2025 or 2026. Only one hatched. It was an egg from one of our little brown bantam hens and most likely our rooster Roger. The Silkie and her bantam baby were inseparable for months, scratching for bugs together during the day and sleeping face to face at night. She hatched other eggs later, whether they were her biological babies I don't know, but there are a few white Silkie babies that look just like her now. I was glad to see her be able to be a chicken with other chickens and not always alone and terrified like before. 

        It was kind of interesting but her interaction with me was the opposite of the other hens. They grew to like me and trust me over time and when they were old and dying would let me hold them like a baby. Even the hens who hated being picked up and just looked more predatory really softened up towards me before death. The Silkie started that way and then grew more distant and distrustful. 

        On Wednesday August 19th she died, probably from getting a bit old and the heat of the summer. If I had known I would of had her in the house or hosed her down to cool her off. I buried her that afternoon. I never took pictures of her so I got some of her before burying her. Her feathers were a bit darker and her skin was less purple but I still remembered the little poofy bird with the funny run.

 

        Not long after the Silkie passed I felt like playing some games. I am not a big gamer but I will get into some older single player games occasionally, maybe one or two hours a day for a couple of weeks to a month. Other times I will read through some books for a couple of months with one or two chapters a day. 

        I played the Bioshock trilogy which I hadn't played in six years or so. The first game takes place in an alternate history where an advanced city called Rapture was built underneath the Atlantic ocean around the time of World War 2. The philosophy behind it was the self above all else and the self and man as god. They have genetic engineering and they became more than human but they became evil and the city declined. The second game takes place in Rapture but a collectivist takes over. She wants an obedient slave populace and society where it is the collective above all else. People will not even be able to think for themselves. It is even worse and Rapture declines even further. 

        The third game, Bioshock Infinite takes place in another alternate history where a city in America around 1900 has rapid tech increases and breaks away from the US. They form a city called Columbia on floating structures in the sky. Like Rapture they do have some incredible things. There is some racism and anti immigrant stuff in the game but its almost funny and cartoonish. Blacks and Irish immigrants form a sort of communist movement and start taking over. They just kill and destroy as communists do. 

        These games explore different aspects of extreme right and left ideology and the third one was out in 2013. I noticed 2014 and up everything in media was heading where it has been for a while now where things are promoted as far right and far left constantly. It was there before but it definitely got worse. I did appreciate how these games showed that the right had its accomplishments and its problems but the far left seemed to be worse. 

        There is a scene in Infinite that was kind of odd to me. I think I played it on September 16th. There are tears in spacetime in the game that you can open. They link to other times. There is a particular house with a tear. If you open the tear you hear that song from the 1980s or 90s Girls Just Want to Have Fun playing through the tear from the future for some reason. The game takes place in 1910 and it just seemed like an oddly specific song that they put into the game. I know I saw a reference to the song somewhere recently around the exact same time I heard it in the game and I don't believe in coincidence.

        I have been seeing tons of the repeating numbers and I don't care to get into it. 144, 117, 717, 444, 410, 555. I have not been sleeping well. I still have feelings for you know who. I still think about my dead dog and chickens.