by Helen Chambers

You may think I look sweet and fluffy now, but first I was wet and bald, and already more intelligent than you. I don’t squander nine sightless months in the dark. While I’m eating my three weeks’ worth of nutritious meals supplied by my esteemed mother, I simultaneously dissolve the insides of my calcium carbonate encasement, reabsorbing it to strengthen my hollow bones. Unlike you, I choose when to emerge. Me, the tiniest, wettest little scrap in the avian world. When I’m ready and not a moment before, I pip me a little hole, and climb out fully formed, ready to peck.

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Helen Chambers is a short story and flash fiction writer from northeast Essex, in the UK, who dreams up ideas while out walking by the river. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Essex and she won the Fish Short Story prize in 2018. Helen has several publications, some of which you can read on her blog: helenchamberswriter.wordpress.com