UnderAgeThinker

The scene: Two chickens (hens) in a barnyard, early one morning, happily pecking away at grain and grasshoppers.

Clare: (pausing from pecking) Marsha,?

Marsha: -Peck, peck- Yes, Clare? What is it?

Clare: I’ve been doing some figuring, and…

Marsha: (Interrupting) Do you count with you back toes too?

 Clare: What?

Marsha: When doin your figures…do you count on your back toes or just the front three?

Clare: No. No. Not that kind of figuring.  I mean, I’ve been thinking about something.

Marsha: Well -Peck- do you?  Use your back toe, I mean.

Clare: Well…I, only when the numbers are greater than six.  But that’s not what I was talking about.  I was thinking about our eggs.

 Marsha: What about them?

Clare: They were gone again last night, when we went back into the barn.

Marsha: Well, so -peck, peck- what?  They’re gone every night.

Clare: Yes, that’s just it.  We spend all night laying eggs and sitting on them and the next night they are gone again! 

Marsha: Clare Honey, you have a brain smaller than a shelled pecan.  Leave the thinking to the goats, and use your back toes when doin your figures. 

Clare: No.  Don’t you see what I’m getting at?

Marsha: I see what you’re not getting at.  Grasshoppers, that’s what.

Clare:  The farmer.  I’m getting at the farmer!

Marsha: Where is the farmer any way? -peck-

Clare: Oh, I think he’s in the barn, cleaning out our nesting boxes.  But, what I was saying was… The farmer is good right?

Marsha: There’s one!

Clare: (turning quickly) -Peck- mmmm… thanks, Marsha. -Gulp-… So the farmer is good, right?  I mean he gives us cracked corn, he cleans out our nesting boxes, he keeps the fox away…

Marsha: Yeah?

Clare: And, he is powerful.  No one else can drive the tractor, or get cracked corn.

Marsha: -Peck- Or -peck- kill snakes.

Clare: The dog killed a snake, last April.

Marsha: That’s true.

Clare: But, the dog works for the farmer, so that still counts.

Marsha: Good, I thought so.

Clare: So the farmer is good and he can do all these things.  Why doesn’t he save our eggs!

Marsha: What!?

Clare: He is good, so he wants to save our eggs.

Marsha: Well, yeah.

Clare: And, he should be able to.  After all, if he can drive a tractor and kill snakes then surely he can save our eggs!

Marsha: So what exactly are you getting at?

Clare: Well what I was thinkin was that maybe, the farmer doesn’t exist at all.

Marsha: Oh, Clare! shhh.  Sit down. You are giving me the heebie-jeebies!  Of course the farmer exists, he is in the barn right now!  I told you to leave the thinking to the goats.

Clare:  Maybe we just think he exists.  Maybe our primitive ancestors made up the farmer to explain where the cracked corn comes from.  All this time we have been deceiving ourselves into thinking we see the farmer when in reality he does not exist at all! 

Marsha: Oh, oh, I just don’t know what to think of all this!  You’ve made me goose-pimply all over and made my feathers stand on end! 

Clare: You said it yourself, we have brains the size of a shelled pecan.  We have been deceived all this time! 

Marsha:  I said you had a brain smaller than a shelled pecan, and I’m sure of it now!

Clare: (gazing up) I feel as if I have broken through a glass ceiling and a new age has begun! -peck-

Barnyard Dialogues Part II