Interlude 3.2: Oh, Romeo

School was some of the lightest moments of Jemi’s childhood. However, Jemi could not outrun her body forever. Around the time she was eleven, she was missing more days than she was attending, her grades were a mess, and there was simply no sense in continuing. Her schoolmates organised a gigantic, tearful farewell party for her, and then she was on her way out.

She returned to her days on the farm, hauling feed buckets for the cattle and sheep, ignoring the heckling of her neighbours. She continued to do her demonic communing with the animals, or whatever. If her neighbours had already branded her a devil, then there was nothing she could do to change their view.

Jemi trodded into the chicken yard for their feed and clean. Jemi was particularly fond of chickens. These chickens had gotten so used to her presence that, despite being prey animals that normally ran away on human contact, they allowed her to hold them and cuddle them in her lap, clucking in contentment. When she was feeling sad she would sit in the coop for ages, stroking the undersides of their soft, broad wings until she calmed down again.

Today she tromped past the run and feeders, looking for Belle. Jemi loved everyone in the flock, but Belle was her favourite. Jemi found her soon enough, where she was strutting about the nesting boxes, crunching in the litter. Bending down, she scooped her up, an enormous bundle of ruffling feathers in the girl’s arms.

“Why are you so fat?” she asked Belle, poking her little cheek. “One day you’re going to sit on your eggs and break all of them.” In response Belle blinked her large, dragon-like eyes at her. Animals could understand what she was saying, but that didn’t necessarily mean they had the bandwidth to comprehend her meaning. When she was blathering nonsense like this, it was a wonder anyone had the bandwidth, really.

Jemi had taken a liking to Belle because she had once been the runt of the flock. Ever since she was a cheeping chick she had been smaller than the others. When she grew up, her differences became more apparent. While the other hens grew to be fluffy white with large red combs and wattles, Belle had a slim walnut plumage and golden hackle feathers. The Garens had then realised that Belle was no domestic chicken, but a red junglefowl—the wild species that domestic chickens had descended from. Some junglefowl hen must’ve snuck into the nesting boxes and laid an egg in their nest while they weren’t looking. Impostor or not, though, a hen was a hen, so her parents decided to keep her.

As a wild chicken, Belle was more athletic than her peers, but also smaller. The eggs she laid, too, were diminutive. Due to her looking so different, she’d also had trouble integrating into the flock. However, as time went on, things changed. Namely, Belle changed—she began to grow larger and fatter at an astonishing rate. Her brown plumage sprouted more colourful, a rainbow of sage-green, crimson, and iridescent-black, her wattles and comb enlarging prominently. Along with these changes, her submissiveness also seemed to be shed away, and Jemi personally witnessed Belle clawing her way up the pecking order. Apparently, this could happen when there was no rooster in the flock—an alpha hen started to take over.

Jemi cradled the fowl in her arms.

“You shouldn’t get so big,” she whispered. “If you get too big Baba will make me take you away from here. Like Romeo.”

Even though her family scorned her way with animals, Jemi was still left in charge of the livestock. After all, her affinity with fauna was useful. Cows and sheep went wherever she told them. Swamp eels in the paddies would simply swim into her bucket. She could instantly tell when an animal was sick and what was wrong with it.

Romeo was the rooster they'd once had in the flock, to keep the hens in line. However, her father had been annoyed by the way he crowed, loudly and incessantly. Therefore, he sent to have it culled. It was as simple a reason as that, for the rooster to deserve death.

Jemi had been seven or so. Her father took her out to the yard and told her what she had to do. “You’re old enough now,” he’d said. He demonstrated by picking up Romeo, containing the struggling rooster using his arm muscle, and forcing the chicken to a tree stump by its neck. He hefted a small axe in his other hand and mimed how to swing it. Then he passed the axe and chicken to Jemi. “Your turn.”

The instant he was in Jemi’s arms, Romeo stopped struggling. He snuggled his feathery neck against her, giving her a few innocent chirps. Staring back into the rooster's eyes, the gold-haired girl shook, her thin legs trembling. The axe dangled limply in her grip.

“I, I,” Jemi started to shake her head, stammering.

“You can’t do it?” her father raised his brow. He turned his eyes skyward. “Prometheus above, you can’t weed rice for an hour or lift a crate of crabapples, now you can’t even kill a chicken. You really can’t get more useless.” He started to turn around.

“No!” the girl yelled out. Her shout stopped him in his tracks. The man watched as Jemi placed Romeo down on the grass. Her mouth formed shapes, and in response, Romeo straightened up. Of his own accord, he jumped up onto the stump, feathered tail flicking. Next, Jemi approached the stump, bending over, coaxing him into a laying position. Her father stood there, watching her keenly as she did it, watching her for hesitation. Watching her for weakness.

As she brushed the blade of the axe over the rooster’s neck, Romeo squawked in confusion.

“You’ll be fine,” Jemi’s lie was a tremulous whisper.

Romeo blinked. With a ruffle of his feathers, he settled down, relaxed.

Jemi took a deep breath—and swung the axe down.

A flashing arc. A clean, decisive cut, thudding into the stump. The seven-year-old was shocked at how easily she’d been able to do it. She held onto Romeo’s decapitated body, grimacing as his wings flapped in post-mortem spasm, spewing his colourful feathers over her.

She looked at her father.

Her Baba stared back at her. Finally, he gave her a small, silent nod, before he turned back around and headed inside. It was the most affirmation she had ever received from him.

Afterwards, Jemi went to her room. Burrowing her head into her pillow, she cried long and hard. She cried, and felt stupid, knowing that plenty of farmers did this day in, day out, and she couldn’t even kill a single chicken without sobbing in her room. She cried about how much Romeo had trusted her, and how she’d betrayed it. More than anything, she cried about how easy it had been for her to do it.

And it would only become easier. As she oversaw each animal’s life, she also oversaw each’s death. She overcame the unique pain of being both an animal whisperer and their butcherer by detaching herself from the act. Whenever she had to kill one, she dissociated into a distant, cold-blooded version of herself. It was the only way to stay sane while you were skinning and gutting and carving your closest companions into dinner.

In this way, one year turned to two. Two turned to four. Jemi Garen turned eleven and dropped out of school, returning to her life on the farmstead. She dealt with the animals. She occasionally made meals. Other than that, she wasted away in bed. At this point, she had resigned herself to her fate. This was her life.

Only that, when she was eleven, that spring came.

The plague.