C.D. Smith

21^st Century Chicken-Licken

A very short story by C.D.S.

She was a normal girl like all other girls are normal when they are in their last year at high school. Always worried about her hair, always worried that a ‘zit’ might just appear smack centre on her nose or forehead.

The other girls were jealous of her, because she was attractive and popular. As a result, the children were often nasty towards her. Through all this, she still managed to be friendly with all the children.

However, there was a dark side! This only emerged when she was eighteen years old. When things did not go her way, or nobody noticed her at a party, then she had the one or other sickness. One time, she even spent two nights at the general hospital; so severe were her fictitious ailments that even her physiology responded. Everybody said that it was just a ‘phase’.

A few years later, she received a promotion at the company where she worked, and revelled brightly in the attention that was showered on her. Sadly, the responsibility became too much to bear and the dark shadows started growing.

The shadows became so great that there was little space left with any light in her dark little world. Now this is not so much a problem, had her dark little world only had one citizen, but alas, the immigrants grew daily. Whenever somebody heard her story they were so moved that they simply said, “Ag Shame! Who do THEY think they are?” As time passed this THEY become a list that also grew – not only the company bosses, but all the happy people in the company, the neighbours, the church members, the schoolteachers, the ex-husband, the doctor who dared call her a hypochondriac …

And so the list grew, as did her followers.

The shadows grew bigger that the sunlight could no longer be seen. It had become so dark that they all believed that the sky was about to fall on their heads.

So Chicken-Licken, Hen-Len, Cock-Lock, Duck-Luck, Drake-Lake, Goose-Loose, Gander-Ander and Turkey-Lurkey decided that it was time to see the king!

Fox-Lox, who heard about the whole dark affair, went to see them in their dark village and told them that he knew a short path to the king. In fact, he told them that he knew the king. Then he added that he knew somebody who also had the sky fall on her head, and how the king put the sky back in its place.

“Oh … Fox-Lox”, they all said, “You are the only one who understands how we feel.”

On their way to see the king, Fox-Lox told them about this Get-Rich Quick Scheme, where all they had to do was put R50.00 into an envelope, write their names and addresses on the envelope and give the envelope to him.

The pyramid grew so fast, observers could hardly believe when they heard the Fox-Lox was not from a lineage of ancient Egyptian architects.

This was not the first time that a conman had emerged to close a loop of vulnerability, by firstly creating a picture of certain success; playing on the feelings of greed, power and superiority. Some people are so naïve that they respond to e-mail messages from some person claiming to be from Nigeria or the former Zaire, with the promise of great financial returns should they provide R325.00 (or some other unsuspicious amount) or even their bank account details together with the secret PIN.

None of her followers even questioned the intentions of “The Fox”, as he was affectionately known because of his long auburn hair. If only she could get the fame of being able to see the most important person in the country, then she would be able to claim her former glory in the community. Lately, nobody even paid any attention to her or her ailments or even the difficult years she had spent amongst some really terrible people.

“Things will different”, she told her followers. “Just you wait and see!”

After some months, Fox-Lox returned from going to prepare the king for the special guests bearing sad tidings. The king was ill and would die very soon, unless he had a bed of jewellery consisting of gold and diamonds. The entire fowl-run stripped off their jewellery, sold their belongings to buy new jewellery and gave these to Fox-Lox to present to the king.

A sad moment it was when Fox-Lox left to deliver the gifts to the king. “May the wind be on your back,” the fowls tearfully bid him. They even got him a box of his favourite brand of chicken fried steaks from Kentucky, USA, to eat during his journey.

They were comforted in the knowledge that the king would look favourably upon them once he had received his gifts. Chicken-Licken looked up at the birds in the tree, building their nests, and thought,

“If I could spread my wings and fly, I too would build a castle in the sky.”

Fox-Lox returned before the week was over, looking especially confident and smart. They all rushed to meet him, rustling a few feathers as they struggled to get in front.

“I bring glad tidings!” he exclaimed.

“Come with me, and we will see,

the king tomorrow, say goodbye to sorrow.”

“I think that today we will hit the jackpot,” was all that Chicken-Licken could say. “Sell everything you have and give it to Fox-Lox, so that he can take us to see the king.”

Early the next morning, the street cleaners could not understand where all the chicken bones came from. Here come the dogs, the can chew on these bones.

… If you can recognise yourself or somebody close to you in this story,

You may finish the story by changing the outcomes in reality!

A short story by C.D.Smith – 2003