The Chicken Who Dreamed of Clouds

Once upon a time, in a dusty little barnyard nestled between two sleepy hills, there lived a chicken named Perry. Perry wasn’t your ordinary chicken. While most hens were content to peck around for seeds and gossip about roosters, Perry had bigger dreams; sky-sized dreams.

One morning, she awoke with a dramatic squawk.

“I had a vision!” she announced, flapping her stubby wings. “I was flying—actually flying—soaring above the clouds like a majestic eagle!”

The other chickens stared in silence. Then Claris, the sassiest hen in the coop, snorted. “You couldn’t fly if you strapped yourself to a jet engine, Perry.”

“Oh yeah?” Perry puffed up her feathers. “Watch me.”

Just then, a tiny voice piped up from the fencepost. “I believe you can learn... a little lift, at least.”

It was Blandine, the sparrow. Small but sharp, she tilted her head thoughtfully. “I’ve trained pigeons before. I once taught a duck how to moonwalk. I’ll give it a go.”

Perry beamed. “Yes! Train me, Blandine! I shall be the first chicken to defy gravity!”

But not everyone was thrilled about this new development. Hiding in the bushes was Ezekiel, a huge, pompous turkey with a suspiciously large appetite and a dark past in the “competitive sky-diving” circuit.

“Teach her to fly?” he muttered. “Why not teach her to jump right into my beak?”

Ezekiel sauntered over with dramatic wing gestures. “My dear Perry! Blandine is a charming speck of fluff, but if you want to truly soar, you need someone... bolder. Stronger. Someone like... me.”

“You can fly?” Perry blinked.

“I used to do somersaults over windmills,” Ezekiel lied. “I was known as Ezekiel the Sky King.”

Blandine narrowed her eyes. “He was known as Ezekiel the Ground Hugger. Could barely hop a fence.”

“I heard that!” Ezekiel snapped.

So, a strange training program began: Blandine coached Perry with fluttery warm-ups and motivational speeches, while Ezekiel offered… questionable advice.

“Try leaping into the air while screaming,” he said. “Fear builds momentum.”

He also kept “testing” her flight by getting her to jump in front of him with his beak wide open.

“Are you trying to catch me??” Perry asked one afternoon.

“Whaaat? Noooo,” he said, hiding the napkin tied around his neck.

Blandine saw it all. She knew Ezekiel’s plan was cooked—literally, and decided it was time to turn the tables.

One day, she whispered to him, “You know, the real secret to chicken flight is the ancient ‘turkey catapult.’”

Ezekiel’s eyes gleamed. “I knew it! I’ll launch her straight into orbit and eat her mid-air!”

So Blandine convinced Ezekiel to crouch down while Perry climbed onto his back. “On my signal, flex your thighs like you’ve never flexed before!”

“Now?” he whispered.

“NOW!”

With all his might, Ezekiel launched upward—except Blandine had given Perry a well-timed nudge, and she rolled safely off. Ezekiel shot into the air like a plucked cannonball and landed face-first in the pig trough.

“Sky King, huh?” Perry chuckled as he emerged with carrots in his nostrils.

From that day on, Perry became a barnyard celebrity. She told tales of her “flight” to anyone who’d listen.

“Oh, it was glorious,” she’d say, puffing up her feathers. “I left a cloud in tears. The wind begged me to stay.”

The chickens stared in awe, until Blandine would flutter by.

Then Perry would quickly switch: “Well... it was more of a stylish tumble, really. You know, aerodynamic tripping.”

And the chickens would howl with laughter. They gave her a new nickname: Perry the Plopper.

But justice had its day.

Ezekiel, still sulking and slippery from pig trough slime, was summoned before the Sky Court, held in a tree hollow and presided over by the one and only Judge Hootsworth, an owl with feathers older than time.

“Ezekiel the Turkey,” Judge Hootsworth hooted. “You once soared with honor. But today, you stand accused of aerial fraud and attempted chicken ingestion.”

Blandine flitted forward with a dramatic flip. “He tried to eat her mid-flight, Your Honor.”

Perry nodded. “I was just trying to fly… not die.”

The owl banged a tiny gavel made from a toothpick. “Henceforth, for crimes against poultry and gravity, your wings shall remain forever ornamental!”

Gasps echoed through the tree.

“And that,” Hootsworth declared, “is why turkeys no longer fly.”

And from that day on, whenever someone boasts too loudly, chickens just chuckle and say, “Don’t go full Perry.”

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