Skip to main content

Napoleon and His Family in the Land of Lilliputians


As Napoleon the rooster traveled in the white Suzuki pickup van that was taking him to the Land of Lilliputians, he wondered.

Yesterday, he along with the five hens who now cackled in the van were put in a separate basket.  They were sold to the Lilliputians.

Napoleon looked at the five hens who were now under his guardianship. “What a diversified lot,” he thought.

Somebody cackled in soft purring tones. He knew it must be Chandni, the eldest, the prettiest of the hens. She was snowy white with black dots.  Yes, there she was, sitting snugly near the window; oblivious to the world around her except the warm egg which she had just laid. Chandni was good at it: laying eggs day after day.

“The ever maternal Chandni,” thought Napoleon and smiled indulgently at her.

However, at times it irritated him that Chandi treated her eggs as if they merited a pride of performance award.

“As if this is the only act of creativity in the world! But then this is a hen’s lot. What else can a hen do?” He thought and looked at the hen standing near the window, peering outside. It was Kayseria.

He sighed. The spikes of his red comb straightened, and his wattle wiggled with worry as he looked at her. Kayseria was the youngest. As usual, she was lost in thought, thinking, he was sure, un-hen-like thoughts.

“What good is a hen who acts like a philosopher? As if people need deductive logic instead of fried eggs for breakfast!”

He remembered the day when Kayseria had said, “I am not going to lay eggs when I grow up. Why should I sit, look stupid and lay eggs? Why can’t you lay eggs?”

Napoleon’s wattle had quivered with anger at the time but he had controlled himself.

However, he was fond of Kayseria and wanted to protect her from her own thoughts. He knew humans wouldn’t be very kind to a hen who thought too much. They already had a whole lot of past and present philosophers to contend with. Moreover, a thinking hen can alter the shape of their breakfast.

Another hen came and sat near Kayseria. It was Layzee baysee. She looked so much like Kayseria. Both had golden-brown feathers though Kayseria’s tail feathers were a shade lighter. But Layzee bayzee didn’t have the lost-in-thought look of Kayseria and she was always sitting and resting. She was so lazy that if she could she would have asked someone else to lay eggs for her.

The van stopped at traffic lights. Napoleon noticed the hen who seemed excited and was trying to somehow jump outside. He looked out. Ah! there it was: the cause of excitement. A row of trees lined the roadside and Goatia, the excited hen, had seen it.

“What do you make of a hen who thinks she is a goat?” Napoleon thought exasperatedly.

Goatia was fond of eating grass, leaves, branches, flowers, in fact anything which grew on earth and was green.

“Someday Goatia is going to lay apples, or any other fruit or vegetable for that matter, instead of eggs.” He said to himself and dreaded the day when it would actually happen.  

He looked at Chandni and spotted the hen who was greedily eyeing Chandni’s egg. It was Selfishia. She was Goatia’s look- alike but some of her neck feathers were missing. She was one of the most selfish hens Napoleon had ever seen. She ate her own eggs and was always on a look out for eggs by other hens.

Napoleon quickly strutted toward her and shooed her away. He wanted the van driver to have the egg.

As Selfishia looked at him shiftily and turned away, the van stopped. They were in the Land of Lilliputians.

Napoleon raised his neck, his comb straightened, his wattle shook and he crowed loud and long: Koo-Karaaa-Karoooooon.

Comments

  1. yes Naomi phopo you are right chandni is the prettiest of all ,but how can kayseria talk to napoeleun

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Zainab, hens and roosters talk in their own language so Kayseria can tell Napoleon whatever she wants to tell him. They are my friends so i can understand what they say...and I also know their SECRETS!!

      Delete
  2. nomi phopo chandni is not snowy white but how can napoleon
    think so bad about gotia his family memmber i thought that you liked kaseria more than chandni.i do not think that kaseria
    would lay apples

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Saif, it is Goatia that Napo is worried about. Okay, Chandni is not 'snowy' white.. but just white. :)

      Delete
  3. what a wonderful description of each character......great.
    aasma

    ReplyDelete
  4. Never thought hen had such obvious characters. Can't wait to hear what happened as they began their new life at the "Land of the Lilliputian"

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Selfishia got Rid of Her Feathery Moustache

Selfihsia the selfish hen was unhappy. And understandably so. After all, having a feathery moustache is not the same thing as having a new hairdo or a brand new dress from a well-known boutique. She couldn’t flaunt it.     It didn’t make her feel beautiful. It didn’t even make her feel like an ordinary hen with a few feathers missing. She felt feathery at the wrong places and this made her sad. One day when she was crying and looking at her reflection in the puddle of water near the grapefruit tree, Kayseria strutted toward her. “Selfhisha, I have clucked at the thought and have finally come up with a solution,” she said. All the hens had been thinking about Selfishia’s moustache for a while now. There had been five meetings under the grape fruit tree to get Selfishia out of her predicament. “Really!” Selfisha clucked loudly with hope. Hearing Selfishia’s loud cluck the others came trotting and gathered around her. When the cluck cluck of excitement settled

Martian in the Land of Lilliputians

“Are you really from Mars?” Saif asks me in his usual pitch of voice: loud. He apparently presumes I am sitting on the ceiling fan.  “Saif, I am near. I can even hear you whisper. Yes, I am from Mars.” Saif tries to lower his voice a notch. He doesn’t succeed.  “No, you are not. You make up stories, and you don’t understand the language of birds and animals. You have made up also those stories about Selfishia and Kayseria.” “Saif, first you doubt my Martian antecedents and then you challenge my communication abilities. Okay, if you don’t want to believe it, don’t,” I say with Martian nonchalance. “But why do you say so? Okay, now that the Curiosity Rover has landed on Mars will you go back?” “I don’t need any curiosity rover. I can go there on my own volition, just by snapping my fingers and closing my eyes.” Martian nonchalance helps to make your point. “I know this can’t be true. You are not from Mars,” Saif asserts his nine years old adult-hood.