Vicious creatures wear stiletto.

Innocence is over assumed, style is overrated and sense and sensibility have never graduated the novelty class. Once upon a time I was a hen, and in hen- land (if you like) we had a lot of fun. The guys would compete at who woke up earliest and who made the loudest crow. This was always about 4.00am. Those guy-games were no short of amusement. Sometimes they would walk through the countryside poising their red crowns against the sun like it was a fire steeple. You should have been there to see all the other creatures recoil in paranoia.

The promiscuity amongst us which you ridicule was not as perverted as you would want to believe.  The thrill of a lad chasing a babe around the barn, over the roof of the huts and sometimes in the trees was the adrenaline rush in it. He had to earn his right to get laid; by stride, chase and sweat; coupled with a perfect silhouette at the end of the relay. Charm had never been so riveting!

We were already domesticated by then actually. Our servitude to mankind has been a phenomenon of epic civility. As fate would have it, once in a while one of us would be picked, axed and served to visitors, or perhaps it would be one of those Armageddon seasons which people called: Easter, Christmas, public holidays, thanksgiving and the like. We dreaded such moments but it was a more predictable fortitude. They often picked an old guy with a string of conquests to his name, one that was drooling through his evening years anyway.

You of course asked me about how all this changed and I must indulge your impatience right away. What they now do is that that they cage us up in tight barns and stacks of tiny structures. They pack us up in hundreds, force tasteless mash up our beaks; pump us up with hormones and chemicals until we can barely walk because our flesh is literally gorging the bones from their sockets. We all limp around writhing with pain all our days. At two weeks old, one looks like a flabby pumped up mattress but I guess they prefer to have us that way. They determine who lays eggs and who is raised purely to please the butcher’s knife.

They kill us in hundreds, and this time they are seldom selective on who sees the axe. They just herd us out; load us on to trucks which are painted with artistic adverts of our holocaust to the ravenous carnivores. These days they chop our heads off, throw us into boiling water until our feathers are vomited out of our skins. They stuff us up with all those green things they refused to feed us on and fry us in revolving Television like structures.

 When the menu is read, the shock is bred. The little girls that once played with us and fed us on grain, those pure things that begged on our behalf to be spared are now our biggest enemies.  They have upgraded to dripping lips of all colours, sometimes red, sometimes black; and sometimes plain, shinny cooking oil-soaked twins; pasted slightly below the scent tunnels. They all ask for the same food, Chips-chicken, chips-chicken…The y will actually ask for a fork and knife but will still not resist the temptation to throw those hindrances aside and dig in. They will wipe the plate clean of our bones and all. Of course they never pay, there is always one sorry looking son of Adam stranded in those blood stained claws. While the lady enjoys her meal, he will probably be sipping on some bitter portion out of a glass as he stares into space and painstakingly nodding to her endless chatter about nails, hairstyles and shoes. Then he will have to reach for his wallet, pull out his hard earned savings, pay the bill and of course put in a tip for good measure and that my friend, is his hunger problem solved!

Un luckily for them chaps recently out of school, he will then have to drop her home with probably another take-out / take away, pack of chips and chicken for her young sister (if of course it is not her campus boyfriend with less appealing means). He will drop her off at NANA or AKAMWESI if you like, or maybe VICTORY HOSTEL all the way in Namboze’s mailo. He will return his friend’s car and will board a taku to his empty pad in Kalerwe. That, my friend, is the benevolence of those alluring daughters of Eve.

If Sharon O. indeed left Ronnie Mulindwa for Ivan S., the menu will probably be chips and chicken tonight; but perhaps in a Range Rover or better still in Madibaland. Hope that old man regains his health and Obama promises something he can actually deliver to Africa. Did you check out their feet? Your guess is as good as mine; they do not have claws like we do. They were stiletto. Who walks in those nails anyway? Not my call.

Peace out.