Me and the Rooster

The house where I was born and lived until the age of 17 will always have a special place in my heart. Although, I have not seen it in so many years yet in my mind’s eye, I can see every part and corner of it clearly. I have dreamed about it so many times throughout the years. Often in my dreams, I wonder how I came back to my home country. I just see that I’m back and living in that old house in Iran.

The house was a three story house that my parents had built. In its time, it was a nice big house. The first floor was at garden level, which basically was a large green house with lots of windows. My dad spent a lot of time there taking care of his plants and flowers. The next floor had three rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom and a long hallway that led to the stairs to the 3rd floor. This floor was rented most of the time. The 3rd floor was where we lived. It had 5 rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom.

The most beautiful part of the house to me was the landing between the 2nd and the 3rd floor. Its area was about 6 feet by 4 feet. The walls on three sides of it were about 3 feet high, and then there was glass all the way to the ceiling. I remember standing on that landing looking at the backyard, neighbors’ homes, alleyways and best of all amazing sunsets. I remember, my mom at times would open one of the window panes and call one of her friends who was one of our neighbors. And I remember her friend responding, although I could never see her. She would always appear at our front door shortly after that exchange. I was always fascinated by this method of communication, the simplicity and the intimacy of it.

There was another part of the house that I loved. It was the long balcony off of our living room facing the front yard, which was full of trees that my dad had planted, along with flower gardens, the grape vine and the big apple tree with its branches reaching the 3rd floor windows. We spent a lot of time on that balcony during the summer. The balcony was about 20 feet long and 10 feet wide covered with Persian rugs. We ate breakfast there a lot of the summer mornings and, in the late afternoon, we would all gather on the balcony and have tea and fruit. A lot of the summer nights, we slept on that balcony. The air was cool and fresh. Early in the mornings it would get cold and we would all pull the blankets over our heads. Later in the morning, it would get really warm and the sun light would be on our faces. Those summer nights on that balcony are some of the best memories of my childhood. I would lay there at night looking at the stars and imagine all sorts of things and dream of a beautiful future.

Unlike most Persian houses, we also had a large backyard full of tall trees. In Iran it is the front yard that is big and is used for playing and family activities. All the homes have walls around them, so the front yards are very private. The backyard was where my dad raised chickens, one of his hobbies. We lived in a city, and most people didn’t raise chickens in their houses. But we always had chickens and fresh eggs. In spring when the chickens would hatch, there would be these tiny, yellow chicks coming out of the eggs. They looked so precious and loveable. I would hold them in the palms of my hands and caress them and grieve the fate that was waiting them, ending up on our dinner table someday. The backyard belonged to the chickens. It was entirely their domain.

When I was very young, I used to like to go to the backyard with my dad when he was feeding the chickens. When I was about three or four years old, my dad bought a fighting rooster, which would walk about in the backyard as though he was the king. He was a beautiful creature. The colors of his feathers were variations of deep red. I remember, every time I would go to feed the chickens with my dad, my dad would tell me “Stay close to me and don’t get close to the rooster”. I, also, remember him saying don’t ever go to the backyard by yourself. The entrance to the backyard was usually locked.

My niece, Mahta, who is my age, would often come to our house, and we would play together. One summer day, when Mahta was visiting, we walked by the door to the backyard, and I noticed that it was open. I asked Mahta if she wanted to go and see the chickens. Mahta said that she was afraid of the rooster, and she didn’t want to go. I told her that I feed the chickens with my dad every day and the rooster has never hurt me, but she still didn’t want to go. To further prove my point, I proceeded to go down the stairs from the second floor to the back yard. All the chickens were moving about, and the rooster was about 5 feet away from the last step to the backyard. I looked at the rooster happily as I was going down the stairs thinking that I was visiting an old friend. I got to the bottom of the stairs and started to walk about. I had only taken one step when the wild rooster took a leap into the air and jumped on me and pushed me to the ground. Fortunately, I landed on my tummy and my face was on the ground. The rooster jumped on my back and started to poke at my head, neck, back and arms. I was shouting and crying and didn’t know how to save myself. I remember thinking that the rooster was going to kill me. Mahta saw what was happening. She ran to get my dad who came to the backyard and rescued me from the rooster. My hands, neck and head were bloody and hurting.

Afterwards, I remember my parents telling me never go to the backyard again. Of course, I wasn’t ever going to go there. There was a monster living there. From then on, I lived in fear of the rooster in the backyard and never went to feed the chickens with my dad. Shortly after that incident, I heard my parents talking to each other saying that I was lucky my face was on the ground when the rooster attacked me. The rooster could have poked my eyes out. I remember them talking about killing the rooster. They thought he was too dangerous to have around. After that, I knew it was going to be a short time before the rooster was going to be put to death.

A few days later, one sunny morning, my dad announced that he was about to kill the rooster in the front yard by the apple tree. I was curious to see how he was going to do it. I went walking in the front yard. Soon I saw my dad coming to the front yard carrying the rooster in his arms. The rooster was struggling to get away and was making a lot of noise. He took the rooster to the apple tree and proceeded to cut his throat. I was standing far away and couldn’t see how he was doing it. I could only hear a lot of noise coming from the rooster. A few minutes later the noise stopped and the lifeless body of the rooster was lying by the apple tree. Blood was flowing out of his neck. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel. I was relieved that the rooster could never hurt me again, and I could freely go to every part of the house. At the same time, I felt sad that the rooster had to die because of me. Looking at his lifeless body by the tree made me want to cry. Needless to say, my dad never bought another fighting rooster again. Two days later, the rooster made its final appearance on our dinner table.