(Inspired by Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio)
Crouching over a feed barrel of a dilapidated coop, Anny Myers sifted grain with her skeletal, sixty-two year old hands. Her chickens nervously pecked at the ground her in short, deliberate movements. Tucking the corners of her apron into her belt, Ann scooped the feed into her apron. Fanning the grit in a pinched arc, the chickens squawked and flapped their useless wings over the dry ground.
Ann took pride in her chickens, feeding them by hand like this daily, instead of using a trough. She mumbled to her hens, graces never spoken to her - believing speaking to them made them bigger and healthier. Ann's hens were well known and prized in Winesburg, Ohio; she kept only one castrated rooster, who grew fat and crowed uselessly at sunrise.
Ann's connection to the people of Winesburg was limited to the youth who carried her hen's eggs to town and sold them for 26 cents a dozen. She called him Denny, though his real name was Joseph, and allowed him to keep a 3 cents for every dozen he sold. He would return to the coop behind Ann's large, empty house before sunset with the profits and gossip. His little tongue would rattle off until Ann patted him on the head, their signal for little Denny to go home. Dusting off her hands, Ann would then coo goodnight to her hens and enter the yawning house. A meager meal would be prepared - always eggs, never chicken. She stayed there in the kitchen on a cot near the old wood stove, never roaming about the house, never running her dry, cracked hands along the foyer banister nostalgically, and never looking out the top floor window toward town and catching glimpses of Winesburg's townfolk.
Occasionally, she would sit on house's back porch and watch couples, young and old, pass by on a path that went through all of the fields of Winesburg and think about all the people little Denny described. He told her once of a hotel-keeper's daughter walking the streets in men's clothes. Thinking of a woman in man's clothes made Ann laugh. Her teeth, dull and black, would flash while her laughed creaked out of her throat, like the cluck of her hens. Small, but different events always amused Ann, but she knew the town of Winesburg would never change. Innovations come and go, new generations of lovers would walk the paths, but she would remain in her little coop with her chickens as she did since her parents died and her only sibling, Dennis Myers, left.
Ann never felt the urge to tell anyone about her life and would become nervous, stamping her feet about the ground and deliberately looking from left to right when anyone asked her questions. Her parents always stated what was needed to be done and would not speak to her otherwise. Believing she had a incurable sickness due to her jaundiced complexion, Ann's parents closeted her at home - away from the townsfolk. Watching through the gaps of the porch rails, Ann would watch for the couples. Her brother Dennis, two years her senior, would whisper in hurried tones all that transpired in Winesburg.
Shortly Ann turned eleven, her mother died. Her father began to openly drink and would curse wild obscenities at Ann - flinging his arms, spittle flying from his lips. Dennis would intervene, sending their father from the house before he could strike at Ann. During these interventions, Ann would fly from the house, retreating the coop and the hens her father kept.
One such time, Dennis was not there. He had taken a job at the Winesburg-Eagle as a paper runner. When he did arrive, he found Ann behind the coop - a towel stuffed in her mouth, blood dripping and eyes embedded beneath swollen bruises. He took her to the doctor and she remained there for a week after dental reconstructive surgery. Metal implants were rooted into her gums for what teeth could not be replaced. A month later, their father was run over by wagon team, carrying liquor to the saloon and died the next day.
For two years, Dennis and Ann lived in the house. He would got to work each day and return at the end with news of town. Ann continued to stay home - nervous her teeth, which began to discolor to a gray due to the implants, would trigger disgust in the townsfolk. Though recluse, she began to feel the independence of keeping her own home. She would cook a meal and watch the couples on the path, yearning for the return of her brother. As he would return, she would rise, wave and set the table, pretending to be a happy couple, as her brother rattled off his stories.
Reminiscing to moments like these, Ann would lay on the cot in her kitchen thinking of her brother. She would never think about the nights she would crawl into his bed while he was away, breathing him in. She would never think about the day he brought the girl from town - how her jealously nearly overtook her as she ground her blackened teeth as she watched him walk the girl home. She would never think about the day he ran away with the girl, sending a letter from Pennsylvania stating the girl was pregnant, they were married and he got a job. She would remember Dennis sitting with her, telling her the stories - watching the couples pass by.
The feeble cry of the castrated rooster would crow at sunrise. Ann would then get up from her cot and feed the hens - mumbling her graces, waiting for the youth to appear with the wire basket. At sunset, she sat waiting and watching. Dennis would not show.
Tired, she got up to return to her kitchen and hear a voice call behind her. "Excuse me, 'mam. Are you Miss Ann Myers?" Ann turned and saw her brother, only he was shorter and thinner than she had remembered. He looked as if he had been beaten. "I am your nephew, Adolph Myers. My father was Dennis Myers. I..." Splaying his hands before Ann, he nervously checked her reaction.
Saying nothing, Ann nodded to the steps. Sitting down hard upon the porch steps, Adolph shoved his hands in his coat pockets. Ann, feeling old and wrung, went to her kitchen and set her table for two.
