Live and Let Chicken
Why shouldn't a chicken cross the road?
Two chickens meet on opposite sides of a busy road.
“Hey,” said one, “you might want to wait until traffic slows down before you cross.”
“Woah!” the other said. “Woah! Woah! Woah! Who do you think you are?!”
“I-I just don’t want you to get run over as you cross.”
“You BIGOT! What makes you think you can just dictate to me when and in what manner I ought or ought not cross the road? You close-minded bigot!”
“I’m not sure that this is a case of close-mindedness. It’s a matter of simple safety—”
“You just don’t want me to cross the road! You’re one of those fundamentalist chickens that believes you have to have a REASON to cross the road! Well, let me tell you something— I was hatched with the innate desire to cross to the other side of the road, and I won’t let any hateful chicken tell me otherwise!”
“I’m just saying you just might want to wait—”
The car was no respecter of chickens, no matter which side of the road they came from.
This flash fiction story was originally published on my now-defunct blog Brief Conceits in August 2012
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