Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because the chicken had 4 chicks and a cheating hen who all sucked out all his money he got from his extremely boring job, and he finally got some peace for himself and was going to the local bar, which was on the other side of the road.
He walked in the door, wings sagging, feathers catching on his claws. The bartender eyes him as he sits on a bar stool. "Chuck, how ya doin'? The missus doin' good?"
"Just give me the hardest stuff you got. I'm done."
This caught the bartender by surprise. "Chuck, come on, don't be sayin' that. Just look to the future and you'll be fine."
"What future?" Chuck replied in a huff. "My wife and chicks are so goddamn pestering sometimes, you know? But if I leave, they'll all suffer, and I don't want that either. Oh, God, Phil, I don't know what to do."
"You know, you've got a good heart for a rooster your age," Phil answered. "We need that in these parts. I'm tellin' ya, there will be more than what's happenin' right now, ya know, life's got all its gears turning for ya, and there's just a bit slow right now. The gears haven't been oiled in a while, but who's the only one who can fix that?"
Chuck knew the answer. "Me."
Phil returned with his drink. "McClucken's Whiskey, on the house."
Chuck glanced at his glass. He held it up to the light. His face reflected in an aura around it, neither looking forward to the light and not backward, either.
"No thanks, Phil," Chuck sighed, "But thanks anyways."
He went to get up out of his chair. Phil called as he walked out the door, "Just remember to oil the gears every now and then, eh?"
Chuck's comb flapped in a cool breeze brought in by the season. A bench was nearby, staring across to the other side. And he just sat there, sat there thinking. Cars blurred to a colorfully colorless nothingness as he thought in silence.
He could see an open window in his mind, full of chickens: a sassy hen, two identical sportish chick; another, older than the two, and body bristling with blue comb-dye and the latest thing he watched online fresh on his Chickstagram page; finally, the first of the bunch, shy, bookish, with a secretly courageous soul. They all looked... worried, worried for the rooster who guided them, helped them grow, supported them... and all looking out of the window back at him.
A single tear welled in Chuck's eye.
The chicken walked back across the road to his family, to his friends, and to the life he was content with.
