Why Did the Chicken Cross The Road - A short story

Charlie the Chicken stood on the side of the road. This was no particularly special day, nor was it any particularly special occurrence. Charlie stood on this side of the road quite often, though that was the extent of his actions. He just stood there. His gaze would fall onto the other side of that dreary street, only interrupted by the passing of the occasional car.

Charlie never left his side of this lonely stretch of asphalt. He often wondered about the other side. Sure, he could see that which was directly in front of him, but that couldn’t account for all that was not within his line of sight. He could not even begin to imagine what was beyond that. Charlie had spent so long staring at that same view that he yearned for a change, no matter how small. However, at the same time, the thought of change was rather daunting. The fear of the unknown was paralyzing.

The Chicken would be lying if he said that he was never scared. Most of the time Charlie’s nerves got the best of him. Well, not most of the time, all of the time. Charlie never did anything courageous. All he did, day in and day out, was stand on the side of the road.

He often imagined himself taking that first step. He thought of how the asphalt would feel under his feet. It will be rough, he thought. His mind would then inevitably stray to thoughts that frightened him. What if it hurts? The possibility of pain concerned The Chicken even more.

This always happened to Charlie. He would be so close to moving, to taking that first step, but then he would start dwelling on all that could go wrong, until the infinite realm of unfortunate possibilities would cause him to spiral into crushing insecurity. Then Charlie would give up for the day.

The Chicken often tried to convince himself that all of these fears were trivial, and that he should not concern himself with them. But after every day, and every failure, Charlie found it harder to believe that he would ever change.

I will beat this. Charlie thought, This fear will not be my downfall, I will be brave. I will take that first step. I will not be afraid any more. Charlie closed his eyes. This is a special day, he thought to himself, This is the day.

In his mind, The Chicken imagined taking that first step. His foot gently touched the street. He felt no pain. His other foot followed, feeling the asphalt with no hesitation. Charlie felt like he was floating, gliding across the road, one nimble step at a time. The farther he walked, more came into view. The sun was high on the other side, bathing him in a warm, bright light. Charlie looked behind him. There stood his side of the road, all that he had ever known. He looked back with fondness on all of the days that he had spent before this moment. He did not think on this as sad, because he knew that the time he spent there was good. With a smile, he turned back to the other side, and walked to it, unafraid.

“Charlie?” A nurse said, as she entered the room, “Charlie?”

She looked up at the monitors at his bedside. A flat line buzzed across the screen. She grasped Charlie’s hand in hers. She looked up at his face. He was smiling. She leaned in, kissed his cheek, and whispered, “I told you that you weren’t a chicken.”



Copyright Melissa Asselin 2011

BEDA 4/22 - Random Friday

1. I just ate some Lucky Charms. For some odd reason, when I was little, we had a running joke in my household calling them Chucky Larms.

2. As and update from yesterday's blog, I did put my laundry away.

3. As much as I like wearing tank tops, I don't like it when the weather is so hot that I am required to wear a tank top to avoid heat stroke. (Alaskan's don't like it when it's really hot)

4. I don't advocated smoking pot, but this video is strangely cute and funny.


5.This week's obligatory random picture:

BEDA 4/21 - Motivation

I am a lazy person. This is an aspect of myself that I am not very fond of. I find myself coming up with plans for my days, but never actually carrying out all of the tasks on that list. Typically, it isn't something of dire importance, but I find my lack of productivity shameful. Every morning, I set my alarm for 8am, despite the fact that I rarely have anything to do in the morning (I quit my job, because I am moving soon, and I take mostly night classes). I always do this hoping that one morning I will actually get up early for no reason, and have the ambition to do something good with my day. I never do. This could be partially attributed to my insomnia, but even then, sleeping in just makes me feel like a crappy person. I know people who have to wake up at 5 am every morning, go into their full time job, and get home just in time for dinner. I almost wish I was like that, because at least then I would be accomplishing something every day.

For instance, today the most productive things that I did were have lunch with my boyfriend, and grab a few things from the store. I have a giant pile of clean laundry that has been sitting on my floor for 2 days now. Did I fold said laundry? No. Will I fold it tonight? Probably not(though after writing this I feel like I am almost obligated to fold them immediately after posting.) I don't even know how many hours today that I have spent futzing around on the internet, but I couldn't muster the ambition to take ten minutes to fold and put away my laundry? Why am I so stupidly lazy? I always tell myself that tomorrow I will be better, tomorrow I will actually accomplish something. I guess there is always hope that tomorrow will finally be that day.

Until tomorrow, Allons-y!

BEDA 4/19 - Random Prompt #3

"The biography ends the injury." (provided by this )


The biography ends with injury. This seems like a fairly obvious statement, because it makes more sense to write about someone's life after its has already finished. Writing about someone who is living seems like a waste, because there is a chance that they will go on to do something else worth writing about. Not only that, having a sequel to a biography seems a bit strange. The Life of So-and-so Part Two: Yep, I'm still doing stuff. Besides, how do you end a biography if the subject isn't dead? How do you finish the story of someone's life if they haven't finished it themselves?

This isn't to say, however, that all death is a result of injury. Not everyone dies in freak circus accidents. Though, one could argue that death itself is an injury. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines injury as

"1 : an act that damages or hurts; violation of another's
rights for which the law allows an action to recover damages
2 : hurt, damage, or loss sustained "

Organ failure seems like some pretty major damage. Complete loss of all consciousness, all thought, and self awareness seems like a large loss to be sustained. The effect that never walking upon this earth again has on loved ones seems like hurt. It also seems like the perfect ending.



Until tomorrow, Allons-y!

BEDA 14 - Sunburn

Well, as you can probably guess from the title, I am currently suffering from sunburn. This is a particularly obnoxious thing for me, considering that it is the first time that I have had sunburn in round about 6 years. A few of you may know this, but I am 1/24th American Indian (Ottowa, I think), so on the rare occasions that I expose myself to sunlight, I typically tan pretty easy.

However, as evidenced by the sore shoulders, this is not always the case. Yesterday, I attended the Las Vegas Celtic Highland Games. It was a wonderful even, full of kilts, bagpipes, meat pies, and even a didgeridoo. However, before leaving my house that morning, I didn't even think to put on sunblock, despite knowing that I would be out in the sun for a few hours. Now I feel incredibly stupid.

There are a lot of different sunburn remedies out there, one of the more popular being aloe vera gel. That goop, however, doesn't really work on me, and just ends up drying out my skin more. So, today, I decided to try a more natural (and as my boyfriend claims, hipster) approach, and bought some Burt's Bees Aloe & Linden Flower After Sun Soother. From what I can gather, it's pretty much an aloe-tastic super lotion, that smells really pretty. It seems to be helping with the pain, though the redness isn't going down much.

I myself don't get too annoyed with sunburn, because I usually don't burn too bad, so it doesn't hurt that much. But today I noticed that a disadvantage about having sunburned shoulders is that it makes normally simple tasks more awkward and painful. Currently I am not very fond of my purse, and the seat belt in my car.

So, if anyone has any other good sunburn remedies, feel free to leave it in a comment, and I will most likely love you forever (but not in a creepy way).

Until tomorrow, Allons-y!

BEDA 13 - Random Friday

1. I bought some marshmallow peeps earlier today. That was a bad idea.

2. I have been reintroducing myself to internet cartoons that I used to watch. Weebls-Stuff is still hilarious.

3. Obligatory random picture:


Until Monday, Allons-y!

BEDA 12- Insomnia

As a few of you know, I suffer from insomnia. I've been living with it as long as I can remember. The way the my insomnia works is that I have a very difficult time falling asleep, despite how tired I am. It takes the average adult 7-10 minute to fall asleep. With me, it takes over an hour, and that's if I'm lucky.

For example, yesterday I was running on 4-5 hours of sleep from the night before. When I got home from my night class, I felt like I was going to pass out, so I went to bed. After about two hours of tossing and turning, I finally got so annoyed with my insomnia that I got up and read a bit instead. (For anyone interested, my current book is Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby) I finally got to sleep around 4am.

Sometimes, it is very easy to find some reason for my insomnia to bother me. This could be stress, excitement, or just something on my mind. But other times, I can't find any good reason why I can't fall asleep. Typically, though, my annoying lack of sleep is simply due to the fact that I can't just my brain off.

So ya. Insomnia is annoying. If you would like to read a more interesting blog about sleep, click here. Also, to make up for the blah-ness of the past few day's worth of blog, here is a fantastically nerdy picture.


Until tomorrow, Allons-y!