I’m up with the chickens today. To be exact, I am up with that most annoying of chickens, the rooster. Screaming at the top of his chicken lungs to let all the world know “I can make loud noises!” I’m in Borneo, about 20 miles southeast of Brunei in an average home on the banks of the Sungai River. The roosters are about ten feet below the series of planks that form the floor of my bedroom. It’s 3:47 am.
Those of us that are long removed from whatever agrarian roots we may have had, which I would guess are most of us, have a somewhat distorted view of the rooster. Before today, what I knew of roosters was largely informed by Warner Brothers cartoons and commercials for pancake syrup. Roosters were the harbingers of a new day, the first of God’s creatures to herald the coming of the light, a symbol of new beginnings.
The thing is that light is about two and a half hours away. What kind of sun sentry does that make our rooster? A markedly poor one in my estimation. I’d be willing to bet that if asked one of the geckos that line my bedroom walls would have been able to tell me that the sun was going to come up at some point in the morning, and with as much accuracy. Furthermore, TV told me he/she would do so with an endearing cockney accent, as opposed to a violent screech that more than hints at a casual love affair with Misty 120s.
So the next time that you find yourself in Brunei at McDonalds (they run the world) staring into the golden brown perfection that is a twenty piece chicken nugget, feel no remorse, you may just be earning someone a couple hours of sleep.
Disclaimer: No roosters were harmed in the writing of this…but not for lack of trying. It was too dark.
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