The Sad Quietude of an Empty Egg Basket

There are no eggs.  

OK, that's not literally true.  Tonight there were 2.  It has been that way all week.  There was a one-day high of 5, but otherwise the daily retrieval has been light duty.  This, when a more typical collection would have been 18-20; a dozen on a bad day.  These from our 34 heritage breed chickens. Truthfully, that number is deceiving.  One of that number is a rooster with very dubious prospects of ever laying an egg.  Three of the girls are pre-pubescent.  And a few — some indeterminate number — are slowing down as they age out.  

But 2?

There is yet one more numerical revision that must be factored in.  We had a massacre.  We don't know the specifics — we were out of town — but sometime a week or so ago a predator claimed the lives of six of the flock.  That, in addition to one that apparently and unrelatedly simply died in the coop.  So that 34 has tragically and suddenly been reduced to 27. 

But still:  2 eggs?

I did some research.  Trauma is likely to blame.  The girls are off-balance.  Their minds — along with the rest of their bodies — are shaken and they will need time to heal.  They are significantly off track.  Several of the girls have, ever since the attack, even taken to roosting, as darkness approaches, on the roof of one of the coops.  Darkness, they have experienced, is when the bad stuff happens.  They've never done this before.  It's the trauma talking.  This, according to the literature.  This isn't simply me anthropomorphizing -- projecting human reactions to my feathered friends.  It is, according to the experts, the nightmare that keeps recurring.  They don't want to sleep, and they aren't able to lay eggs.

Because trauma stays with you.  It's a stain not easily laundered.

I've been thinking, of late, about the children of war, the children separated at the border from their parents, the children of abusive parents, and all the rest of us who are forced to see what should never cross our field of vision.  

And the paralysis that results, and lingers; the stain that never quite fades away.

The inability to bear fruit.

And the myriad ways we try to climb out of harm's way.

There is a sad and silent numbness to the empty basket…to the exploded heart…that perhaps time will heal.  Or not.

In the meantime I stand amidst the chickens each evening well before dusk settles, to reassure, to calm.  I talk to them.  I move among them.  I attempt to counter the darkness.   I don't know if it makes them feel any more secure but it makes me feel better — like I'm doing something.  And next week a few new hens will be arriving from a happier place.  Perhaps they will be able communicate something to these shaken girls of a better way, a better life; a happier prospect for the days ahead.  

For now we will simply ache, and grieve the empty, chasmic space that remains — the chickens, me, and the basketed void.