To shed light on some minor unimportant details, I was in Portugal for a youth exchange programme, living in a dormitory in a huge nature park with around fifty other individuals, sleeping on inflatable lilos, dying a little each night with the cold, and having the time of my life.
So we were given these humongous yellow gloves and yellow waste-bags and told to go out and clean the park from litter (we were not given any maps). I was placed in a team, and we started off our little adventure. Let's say it all started well and we were busy doing our thing, turning logs, collecting bottle taps and plastic bags. There wasn't much to collect, since I remind you, this was a huge park, and not many people were around, just the occasional jogger or a logger passed by.
Anyway, after around a half an hour, I got this huge belly craving. Yes, I had to use the toilet, and I was around five kilometers away from this life-saving facility. So I ran back, as fast as I could, carrying a yellow bag full of litter. After around ten minutes of fast-paced walking I arrived and did my thing, and then it struck me. Now I had this dilemma; what to do now?
Surely, my team-mates had moved on and I could not hear anyone or see anyone from where I stood. So I decided to track back from where I came from, and so I did. After another fifteen minutes of a now leisurely pace I arrived from where I had left, and lo and behold, there was no one!
Giving not a care in the world, I opened another yellow bag and starting walking again, looking for little pieces of coloured materials that did not blend very well in their environment. I remember I walked by an abandoned football ground and tall spiky grass that looked as if it wanted to eat me. There was also this constant mashing sound of the gravel under my feet when I followed the four metre wide track.
So I walked, and walked and walked, and still, there was silence. I came to a point where I thought I might be found dead, on a tree, at night, a week later, but I knew the park was closed and more or less in the shape of a circle, so I figured out that if I kept walking I would go around the circumference and find the dormitory again. Then I came across the periphery of the park, a huge metal fence by which the track continued uphill, and so I marched.
Around another five kilometres in the remarkable encounter happened. To my right I heard the woods rustling. I stopped. Could it be a bear or a wolf? - I thought. I tensed and waited, and it jumped out!
A chicken.
Around another five kilometres in the remarkable encounter happened. To my right I heard the woods rustling. I stopped. Could it be a bear or a wolf? - I thought. I tensed and waited, and it jumped out!
A chicken.
Yes, a darn chicken! The beast looked at me and I stared back at it. A clash of wits ensued and we stood there for eternity (around ten minutes). It clucked, and I growled, and I won the battle. The chicken turned its back at me and started walking away to the North where I was headed, for it could not get back into the woods on the right or escape through the fence on the left, and I followed it. We walked quite a lot together, this fellow chicken and me.
On the way I saw a huge yellow mushroom growing on a dead tree, and the chicken waited anxiously to see what I was doing looking at that fungus as if trying to guess whether I wanted to trip on it or something. Walking forward, I met this man with a chainsaw wearing a mask (face-protector) cutting grass on the other side of the fence. For a minute or two he stopped mowing and looked at me (and more specifically at the chicken) and then carried on his work. I bet he was quite baffled by the scene.
Anyway, the story ends when on my way North on the horizon I saw a person. It was someone I recognized - a Portuguese - and one of the participants. So as we encroached towards each other, the chicken in the middle, always a couple of metres away from me came a point of suspense. The chicken was now caged between a fence, the woods, and two people. What the cluck should I do? - thought the chicken.
The response was the craziest thing I've ever seen. As the distance between the beast and her enemies became too small for tolerance, the chicken screamed like, well, a chicken would, fluttered its wings, as if it had a fit, and flew away into the woods (yes, it seems chicken can fly).
In the end, I found my way back to camp, following this weird Portugese guy, feeling insecure all the thirty or so minutes of walk back.
But at least I met a chicken.
On the way I saw a huge yellow mushroom growing on a dead tree, and the chicken waited anxiously to see what I was doing looking at that fungus as if trying to guess whether I wanted to trip on it or something. Walking forward, I met this man with a chainsaw wearing a mask (face-protector) cutting grass on the other side of the fence. For a minute or two he stopped mowing and looked at me (and more specifically at the chicken) and then carried on his work. I bet he was quite baffled by the scene.
Anyway, the story ends when on my way North on the horizon I saw a person. It was someone I recognized - a Portuguese - and one of the participants. So as we encroached towards each other, the chicken in the middle, always a couple of metres away from me came a point of suspense. The chicken was now caged between a fence, the woods, and two people. What the cluck should I do? - thought the chicken.
The response was the craziest thing I've ever seen. As the distance between the beast and her enemies became too small for tolerance, the chicken screamed like, well, a chicken would, fluttered its wings, as if it had a fit, and flew away into the woods (yes, it seems chicken can fly).
In the end, I found my way back to camp, following this weird Portugese guy, feeling insecure all the thirty or so minutes of walk back.
But at least I met a chicken.
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