Eseosa “The Roost Boss”
The strongest, hardest-tempered hen in Coop Three, who ruled the one cool high perch by force and, in a fight during the dry-season heat, cost the Republic Cindy. Tried, found responsible, and exiled from the flock, without cruelty and without excuse.
- Tribe
- Noiler
- Age
- Adult hen
- Laying status
- Not applicable
- Favourite food
- The best of whatever the others were about to eat
The story so far
Eseosa was trouble long before the worst night, and the flock knew it. She was bigger than most, quick to shove, slow to share, and she had claimed the coolest high perch in Coop Three as her own for a whole hot season. The warnings were there. The Republic, busy and hopeful, kept deciding to deal with it later.
On the worst night of the heat, in a coop too crowded and too hot, a shove over the perch became a fight, and the fight took Cindy. Eseosa did not deny it. She was moved to a pen of her own while the Republic decided what was fair, and for a long time she said nothing at all.
At her trial she was defended, loudly and at great length, by Barrister Silk, whose argument, that the heat and the crowding were as guilty as his client, the court accepted by half. When at last Eseosa spoke, she said three words: 'I am sorry.' The Chief Justice ruled that both things were true, the coop had failed her and she had failed Cindy, and that she must leave the flock.
She was not harmed. She was rehomed far from Coop Three, where she can do no more damage, which the Republic calls exile. Her story is kept here plainly, because a flock that remembers why it lost a friend is a flock that builds better coops.
Keep exploring