I was dressed as a chicken. You… were dressed as a chicken. But not as regular chickens. We were each dressed as ‘Boyd’, the small finger puppet that came with our meal at an Arby’s drive-thru, years ago, on a trip I can’t recall, in a state I don’t remember.

We were on an elevator, and I may or may not have thrown my keys in anger, my feathers aflutter. I was facing you, and you were siding me. I may have been Jon Cryer, the actor.

We were leaving the party, the party that found us leaving it dressed as chickens. Not as chickens dress, but as chickens themselves. As Boyd. Matching white feathers and orange bills and royal blue, collared dress shirts and bright red ties. We were discussing something that may or may not have been important, but not important enough to remove our heads. Our emotions were elevated, in more ways than one. And they were not reflected by our round, black soulless plastic eyes, although the rest of everything was - The side of you in my fronts, and the front of me in your sides.

Our faces were frozen in sewn smiles, exaggeratingly happy. As happy as a small finger puppet, smiling up through plastic, and lying beside wrapped roasted beef and turned-over apples. As happy as a small finger puppet, hiding within my cupped hands as I run inside to tell you that I’ve just found a helpless baby bird sitting outside on the ground - do you want to see? As happy as a small finger puppet, smiling somewhere on the third floor, and waiting patiently to be discovered again. Waiting with the patience of cloth.

We stared and we smiled, and we went down and down. I had just thrown my keys, and we were in an elevator, and we were both dressed as chickens.