Chicken Towns Chicken Towns Chicken Towns

By Jonas Bahn Third Place Winner of the SNAPS Poetry Contest

When the people from the summer countries came, they brought us things that we had never seen in the north. They promised gifts tenfold if we used their machines to bore beneath the riverbeds for coal. So, at their behest, we abandoned our nomadic way of life and began to search underground for that shiny black gold. Gone were the troubles of herds lost to sand plague and harsh winter famines. Instead of bending yew into bows we wrote books. Instead of goat’s milk we drank wine. It was like nothing we had ever imagined.

The golden age lasted as long as the coal beds did. When they ran dry, so did the gifts of the summer people. So we did what we did best, and moved somewhere else in search of more coal. But we couldn’t pack up and move our refineries like we used to do with our tents. That was when a brilliant young engineer created the first chicken town. It strode across the steppe atop colossal, trunk-like pneumatic legs, carrying our homes and livelihoods on its broad mechanical back. It was revolutionary. Now anytime we ran out of coal we could just leave and find more.

The chicken towns required constant maintenance. Each of them gobbled up several tons of fuel a day, so we had to add more mining rigs which in turn required us to build factories to produce the parts. Of course every addition also required more manpower, which meant constructing more houses and hydroponic farms until the whole machine was stacked sky-high with teetering buildings and great bulging steel pipes. It got to the point that almost the whole population of every chicken town was dedicated to keeping the beast alive, and only the fraction that remained actually traded with the summer folk. The towns were a sight to behold. Wild horses reared and hares retreated into their burrows when they felt the earth shake beneath those great thundering feet as the lumbering behemoths made their migration.

Then one day, the summer people stopped showing up. Some said they had gone away to war, while others said they had been wiped out by a plague. One thing was certain, though there were no more gifts coming. Still, the chicken towns chugged along, tearing up the landscape to keep their legs moving. There was talk of returning to the steppe, but the truth was that no one knew how to do anything but run the chicken towns anymore. They kept their heads down and did their jobs, mining coal and chopping wood and manning the boilers until their backs were bent and their joints worn out.

Years after the summer people left, one of them returned to visit a girl he had sired a child with in my town. Everyone rushed to him with questions. Why had his people abandoned us without a word? He looked confused and told us that they had simply found a country overseas that would mine twice as much coal for half the price. Our business had concluded.

Generations have passed since the summer folk first appeared. Me and everyone I knew are dead now. Still, the chicken towns live. Without purpose, all they know how to do is feed themselves on our land and our people. They aimlessly wander across the horizon, belching smoke into the sky, silhouetted against the setting sun.

Reflections of Life Reflections of Life Reflections of Life

By Jiya Bajaj

Of beauty, love, and joyous light

Or darkness, pain, and endless night

In nature’s realm, there’s no reward

No punishment, no final word

Only consequences, pure and true

A reflection of what we choose to do.