Repent

Yes, this is the very latest in chicken suits, and I wear it proudly as I strut down Yonge Street, waving my placard and calling out to everyone I pass. It’s not too late, folks. You may not yet have seen the face of God, but I have, and very recently, too. I’ll tell you all about, it you’ll stop running away from me, and just listen.

I was rock-climbing with my fiancé, who loved me with the heat of a thousand suns—or so I thought. Somehow, at a critical moment, he let go of the rope, and as I plummeted down the mountainside, his shriek conveyed a world of regret within a cosmos of guilt. Before I could respond, I face-planted onto sheer rock.

He should have been sorry. The bastard dropped me. He was still three-dimensional; I was not.

For a gore-bedecked flatty, though, I felt strangely okay. In fact, that persistent ache in my right wrist was gone. I tried to move it, but bones were jutting out of my forearm at zany angles. I desisted.

Gradually, I caught on. This was death. Or rather, life after death, and while I didn’t see a white light, I did levitate, leaving my squished corpse behind. I drifted, undulating through the air, happy to note that my spirit had taken on the retro form of my younger self. I was more see-through than I used to be, but for anyone who could spot ghosts, I was a real hottie.

Like an eel through languid water, I cruised by my pseudo-lover and his strident caterwauling. I yelled silently. Give it up, bud. Nobody’s around to hear your fake mourning. Save it for the cops and the courts. Which I hoped he’d be seeing a lot of. Jerk.

Fog surrounded me. I breast-stroked along, but felt hampered by my otherworldly clothing. Somehow, I’d shed the body-hugging athletic gear I’d been wearing and was now encased in a white, billowing garment. It was so not stylish. Sort of took the thrill out of being dead.

The mist was wispier here. I heard a faint noise and wriggled in that direction. Was it the brassiness of Gabriel’s trumpet? No, it was more barnyard than Juilliard in tone. How weird. Although I may have been wrong, it sounded like clucking.

“Bwawk!”

Had I died, only to end up in a hell run by Old MacDonald?

Dazzling my eyes, an immense, glow-in-the-dark White Hen appeared. She sat on a golden nest, surrounded by attendant poultry-geists that were hunting and pecking in the clouds, searching for spirit grubs. Her wattles were blood red and pendulous and Her lunatic eyes drilled into mine.

I was awestruck. Also, kind of hungry.

“Human, enumerate the number of fowls you have consumed in your lifetime.”

Say what? Nobody had ever warned me about this at bible camp. 

“Uh, Great Chicken, I’m a dedicated vegan. Have been for years.” I crossed my fingers behind my back.

“Excellent.”

Evidently, She was a trusting type. She nodded Her feathered head. and all Her buddies started doing it, too. They crooned some kind of approving noise, as if I’d laid a huge, platinum egg.

“And have you proselytized?” the Bird asked.

“Huh?”

I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful to the Chicken of the Sky. It was just that I’d spent more earthbound time rock-climbing than consulting my thesaurus. And I wasn’t sure what answer She wanted to hear. The last thing I needed was to be pecked for all eternity because I’d told the wrong lie.

Turned out my stalling tactic was the right move.

“Return,” She said, after a pause that made my giblets quiver. “You are not ready.”

“Go bwawck. Go bwawck,” the fowl chorus chanted, fading into obscurity as I dived into my corporeal, flattened form, mountain-side.

I guessed, once I was 3D again, I’d check out what proselytizing was all about. And maybe I’d give up eating poultry. But first on my agenda: I’d murder my climbing mate and make sure I didn’t get caught—or at least, make sure I begged Henny Penny for forgiveness afterward.

So now you know why I’m dressed like a chicken. And really, it’d be polite of you to stop trying to run away from me. Heed my teachings, and shun the Colonel! For’tis easier for a camel to do the fandango than for a hot wings fanatic to enter heaven.

As my sign says, “The Great Chicken is watching!”

 It’s not too late. Put down that bucket. Repent, and be vegan.