Don T Cry Over Dead Birds Short Story
Don’t Cry Over Dead Birds My family adopted four chickens about two years ago. Their names were Peep, Cutie Pie, Becky, and Elsa. Elsa was an easter-egger, laid pretty light-pink eggs, and had orange-brown black-tipped feathers with fluffier feathers on her cheeks. She had intelligent bright orange eyes, and anyone could tell she was thinking behind those eyes, not just a docile pet. Elsa was at the top of the pecking order, always the first to jump into action, always the first out of the coop in the morning.
We fed them pellets as their main food, but they ate grass and bugs and treats all day, every day. We had a camera in the coop to make sure they were all inside at night and the automatic door was closed. They ate a lot of treats. They …show more content…
I went back into the kitchen and found my mother, her eyes and cheeks red, undoubtedly from crying, and a mournful look on her face. “Elsa is dead,” and I hugged her, wrapping my arms around her tightly, no tears running from my eyes but a heavy sense of dread settling in my stomach. Why wasn’t I upset? Why was I the only one here for my mother? As I matured over the following year, I learned I would not cry often over death, but death would only add to the heavy sense of dread, weighing me down. This feeling would only increase with the deaths of other beloved animals and people in my life: my hen, Peep, who broke her neck, my Great-Grandmother passing, my father’s secretary who I was very close with, a raccoon on the side of the road. I could not escape this feeling, even when I was at my happiest.
As my family is deeply enamoured with science, we all wanted, or rather needed, to know what had killed our beloved Elsa. We sent her body to a laboratory in the city, where veterinarians or biologists did a complete autopsy. She had died of a fatty liver, likely from overeating sunflower seeds. We never got the body back, so we had no burial, no sense of finality to confirm her
We fed them pellets as their main food, but they ate grass and bugs and treats all day, every day. We had a camera in the coop to make sure they were all inside at night and the automatic door was closed. They ate a lot of treats. They …show more content…
I went back into the kitchen and found my mother, her eyes and cheeks red, undoubtedly from crying, and a mournful look on her face. “Elsa is dead,” and I hugged her, wrapping my arms around her tightly, no tears running from my eyes but a heavy sense of dread settling in my stomach. Why wasn’t I upset? Why was I the only one here for my mother? As I matured over the following year, I learned I would not cry often over death, but death would only add to the heavy sense of dread, weighing me down. This feeling would only increase with the deaths of other beloved animals and people in my life: my hen, Peep, who broke her neck, my Great-Grandmother passing, my father’s secretary who I was very close with, a raccoon on the side of the road. I could not escape this feeling, even when I was at my happiest.
As my family is deeply enamoured with science, we all wanted, or rather needed, to know what had killed our beloved Elsa. We sent her body to a laboratory in the city, where veterinarians or biologists did a complete autopsy. She had died of a fatty liver, likely from overeating sunflower seeds. We never got the body back, so we had no burial, no sense of finality to confirm her