No one seems to know why the chicken crossed the road, so why not ask the chicken?

I looked up my old friend Chicken Little, who was glad to answer the question. This was our conversation.

Me: Why did you cross the road?

Chicken Little: The sky was falling.

Me: Would you please explain that?

Chicken Little: A flock of us free ranging chickens were pecking around as usual and suddenly a hawk swooped down out of the sky and carried off one of the flock. We didn’t think too much about it at first, because that’s life if you’re a free ranging chicken. But it wasn’t long until more hawks came and carried off more chickens. Soon the sky seemed to be filled with hawks, all of them after us. That’s when I decided the sky was falling.

Me: How awful! How did you escape?

Chicken Little: We were near a road. It looked safe on the other side. I couldn’t see any hawks in the sky above it. I clucked a signal to the other chickens and we crossed the road.

Me: And what was it like over there? Were there any hawks?

Chicken Little: This time the hawks were all on the ground. They chased us into a big hen house and locked us in.

Me: Gosh, what happened then?

Chicken Little: It wasn’t bad at first. We were warm and dry and got chicken feed. The hawks guarded the place and left us alone if we didn’t try to get out. All we had to do was to lay eggs. That’s why they called us providers. We asked what kind of place this was, and we were told it was called an HMO, which is short for Henhouse Management Organization.

Me: So you lucked out. Who would have guessed that it could turn out so well?

Chicken Little: It wasn’t good for very long. More and more chickens from all over the countryside were jammed in. Feed became scarce. We were required to lay more and more eggs, with less and less to eat. The hawks made short work of anyone who couldn’t keep up. It was a no win situation.

Me: How did you deal with it?

Chicken Little: There was another road. From across the road we could hear a big cock crowing. He said that if we would only cross the road to his side, he’d take care of us. He said that he had a Single Layer System that we’d like better than the HMO. He sounded so sincere. We thought it had to be better than what we had, so all together, we made a break for it and crossed the road.

Me: What did you find on the other side of this road?

Chicken Little: You can see for yourself. We had our wings and our tails clipped and were jammed into tiny coops made of chicken wire, where we can hardly move. The coops are piled in a huge stack with us providers in a single layer on the bottom. That’s why it’s called a single layer system. It wasn’t what we expected.

Me: What’s above you?

Chicken Little: Layers and layers of chicken coops, filled with administrative chickens making regulations for us to follow. The big cock perches on top of the pile, constantly crowing.

Me: You’ve crossed two roads. Are you happy now?

Chicken Little: Would you be happy? Everything that comes out of the chickens above us, from the cock on down, falls through the holes and lands on our heads. If you were in here with us, wouldn’t you say the sky is falling?