WILD IN THE COUNTRY -comp entry

It’s blacker than black in here, a feathered silence softened by the rustlings and nestings of hundreds, maybe thousands, of birds. I expect them to squawk and screech but it’s after closing and they’re roosting, or whatever you call it when hens sleep.

My whole life I’ve never seen a hen. The only time I’ve been on a farm was when my cousin moved to the country and fancied a farmer’s son. She took me with her once to call for him. It wasn’t pretty or fluffy like the farms you see in films, but big and mucky, the air filled with the clatter of machines and the stink of slurry. Six dogs rushed us and we clambered onto the gate until somebody called them off. Next time I visited, my cousin took me instead to the manmade lake where we stared into the depths at drowned cottages; afterwards we roamed illegally over the ragged hillsides of the quarry in search of quicksand, explosions, and other dangers. It was a strange kind of wilderness we were exploring, a wilderness on its way to being sucked into the ever-expanding suburb.

Now on this nighttime mission to the countryside the locals stare at us like we’re zombie fodder delivered unto their village to die, and make fun of our outlandish clothing like we won’t catch a word of it.
When the pub closes and we break into the barn I want to touch the hens, I think we need only open a door to set them free, but they’re locked inside wireframe cages and the alarm starts screaming before we’ve let half a dozen birds loose.

We scramble out into the open, running for the safety of the car, the stereo, and the city.