Ancient Recipe
Late for breakfast, early for lunch.
A normal morning in these idle months. I sipped my usual cup of coffee with milk, distracted, freshly emerged from my dreamlike limbo. Focused on nothing, savoring the bittersweet taste of the cup and the warmth of the fire newly lit on this dull mid-morning.
A noise of distressed chickens, desperate flapping, snapped me from my trance. We don’t raise birds at home—at most, a dog in the backyard. A German shepherd, fierce like a caged dinosaur.
Returning to the chickens, I remembered that the neighbor did keep some—a pair of Castilian hens I sometimes saw strolling in front of the dog’s nose. But this time, they had decided to cross a dangerous fence: the boundary of sticks, the thin line between mutilation and ending up boiled in a pot. Unwitting victims of an ancient, prehistoric recipe; navigating a small boiling sea, accompanied by potatoes, squash, and other vegetables. Plucked to the soul, oblivious to pain.
The dog killed the first hen with a single snap, leaving a crunch of fragile bones in the air. That’s when I arrived and saw the bloodstain evaporating on the grass. Quick action was needed.
I grabbed a plastic bag in the kitchen and set a medium-sized pot on the fire. Boiling water.
The second victim fared worse; its escape attempt left it half-winged in the animal’s jaws. The dog shook it left and right, a shower of Castilian feathers falling like snow.
I had to fetch another bag and the largest pot in the kitchen.
I cleaned what I could, and the rain ended up our accomplice. The crime was barely distinguishable, but the bodies remained.
When I returned to my table, the coffee with milk was cold, and a taste of blood and wet feathers sent it down the drain. There was still time.
My dog stretched beside the fire.
Patiently, we waited for that broth to slowly fill with better flavors.
Late for breakfast, early for lunch…
…"
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