The sun shone like there was no tomorrow.
Hale sat on the veranda steps of his farmhouse, tossing feed to his chickens, who gobbled it down like it was a gourmet feast.
"Haaah…what a boooring day," he sighed. Every day felt the same monotone rhythm. Maybe it was the ideal life for people who had already grown old and wanted to settle down.
Hale Cluckson, 23 years old, virgin, and freshly out of college, sometimes wondered if his dad had named him while secretly mapping out his entire future. He had lost his mother to cancer when he was 10, and his father in a car accident during his last year of college. Hale, an only child, had no one left waiting for him at home.
His father had left behind a large plot of land in the countryside, dedicated to poultry farming. Hale had returned home after completing his B.Sc. in Animal Science, taking over the family farm, this time armed with a degree.
Relatives had tried to "help" manage the farm while he was in college, but Hale wasn't about to let people who had ignored the family suddenly play kindhearted. He refused them outright and instead hired his father's neighbors, other animal farmers who raised ducks and cows, to look after the farm for a year.
Now, a year after graduating college, Hale had taken over the farm and was back to the same monotony: feeding, cleaning, maintaining nutrition, and yes… occasionally kidnapping chicks for inspection.
"Cluck… bawk."
"Yeah, sorry, Bawky," Hale said, tossing some feed near the plump hen.
"Bawk… bawk."
"Yeah… was just thinking about the past. Haah" he sighed.
"Cock-a-doodle-doo!" a rooster crowed.
"Can you just f*cking shut up, Cockless? It's almost noon… go impress the hens somewhere else."
The rooster, cocky and proud, tilted its head in confusion.
Hale sighed again. "You guys are truly lucky. Eat, shit, sleep, repeat… I wish I could be a rooster like you. Well, maybe not exactly like you, Cockless… anyway."
"Bawkk… bawk… bawkkoooo," Bawky replied, clearly pointing out that Hale was doing the exact same thing, just without any girls to impress.
Hale leaned back against the pillar by the steps and shook his head. "You guys don't get it. I'm in the prime of my life, and instead of enjoying parties or traveling the world, I'm just feeding chickens, cleaning up their shit, and reading webnovels for the rest of my time."
As Hale tossed more feed, Cockless strutted up and gave a sharp peck to his finger while trying to snatch the feed from his hand.
"Ahhh! You f*cking shit!" Hale yelped, immediately stuffing his finger in his mouth to stop the bleeding. He jumped to his feet and launched into a frantic chase after the rooster.
"Kawkk… kkakw!" Cockless squawked, flapping wildly as if trying to reach the heavens.
"Bawk… bawk," Bawky muttered, shaking her head like she'd already had enough of this sh*t.
* * *
"Haa… haa… haa…" After several frantic leaps and sprints, Hale panted, unable to catch the little bastard. His so-called "infinite stamina" was useless…Cockless was just too fast.
As Hale tried to catch his breath, a sudden commotion caught his attention.
"Gak… gak… gak!" Poopy was choking on something she'd eaten.
"What did you try to eat now, Poopy?" Hale asked, stepping closer. Poopy was the hen who would eat anything, a true gourmet fatty. He'd named her Poopy after the time she tried to eat her own poop.
He soon scooped Poopy into his arms and carefully checked her throat. He gently held her head, opening her beak just enough to see inside, his fingers moving with the precision of someone who'd spent years studying poultry anatomy.
There it was…a small, shiny black gem lodged awkwardly at the back of her throat. Hale took a deep breath. "Alright, Poopy… let's not make this any messier than it has to be."
Using his thumb and forefinger, he carefully hooked the gem, easing it out inch by inch while murmuring to keep the hen calm. Poopy squirmed and gave a soft "gak… gak", but Hale remained steady, his movements calm and practiced.
Finally, the gem slid free. He held it up triumphantly. "See? Easy. Professional-level Poopy rescue, just like in the textbooks."
Poopy blinked at him innocently, as if saying, What's the big deal?
Hale sighed, setting her down gently. "Ungrateful little sh*t."
He looked at the gemstone in his hand. It was a small, opal-like gem with galaxy-like patterns.
"Where the hell did this come from?" he muttered.
As Hale scrutinized the gem, something made him pause…a low tremor under his feet, or maybe the air suddenly growing warmer. The light dimmed, as if a storm were rolling in, and the breeze carried a strange, tense stillness. He scanned his surroundings; the chickens were restless, flapping and bawking nervously, eyes fixed on the sky.
Hale looked up toward the sun…and froze. A dot streaked across the sky, trailing fire like a burning meteor. His mouth fell open as he stared in disbelief at the massive asteroid…or comet, blazing through the sky, destined for somewhere on the planet.
Hale tried to calm down and think logically. He was pretty sure there had been nothing in the sky before; it looked like the comet had just appeared out of nowhere, invisible until now.
His phone was dead and charging inside, so he had no idea what the government orders were. But instead of panicking and running, he figured it was better to stay put and watch the comet fly past. Movies had taught him that most people died trying to escape.
"Hoo… alright, don't worry, you cowardly chickens. Nothing's gonna happen. Just watch the shooting star and maybe make a wish." Hale closed his eyes and wished for an interesting life from now on; like how that meteor somehow struck billionaires and all the other chickens, leaving the ones under him safe, making them exotic and valuable enough to sell for a million dollars each. Cockless would probably only go for a dollar, though.
As he waited for the comet to fly past, surrounded by frantic chickens flapping through the air, the heat and pressure were increasing, making him uncomfortable. Looking closer, he wondered if it was really going to fly past…because unlike any comet he'd ever seen, this one looked massive enough to cause an extinction-level crisis, like the Chicxulub impactor that wiped out the dinosaurs.
"Meh, I'm just imagining things," he muttered, trying to calm himself.
But as time ticked by, Hale realized it wasn't a joke. This was probably the end of his mundane life. His mouth trembled as if from hypothermia, and he tried to breathe steadily, but the heat made him wince, and the Earth itself seemed to vibrate beneath him.
The chickens bawked nervously:
bawk… bawk… bawkooo.
Hale crouched down, grabbing at the grass, and closed his eyes. There was nothing he could do; running inside the farmhouse or anywhere else wouldn't change a thing. He crouched and silently prayed to his dad and mom, whom he trusted more than any god, hoping for a miracle. He didn't notice the black gem liquefying, breaking into tiny motes that were absorbed into his bloodstream from the wound Cockless had caused.
As he crouched, Cockless flew up and landed on his shoulder. The last thing Hale heard was a drawn-out, "Cock-a-dooooooodle-doooo!" from his ever-proud rooster.
Then… silence.