The Vision

That’s me. That’s me, there in the chicken suit. I snapped this picture of me on Sunday, as I was driving back from Father Rimbaud’s. When I saw me standing there in the chicken suit, I grabbed the camera and, one-handed, snapped the photo. Snapped? No, I did not *snap* the photo. I merely pushed down on the camera’s silver button.

Anyway, that’s me. Sooner or later, that’s me. It was a vision of the future. Yes, I know. Carpenter Road is not exactly the Isle of Patmos—but a vision is still a vision. It was me, no question. Me in a chicken suit. A human being pretending to be poultry holding a dumb advertisement in front of a strip mall.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll be happier as a chicken? No. No. It is not a question of the *pursuit of happiness.* It is a question of the pursuit of knowledge. Self-knowledge. One of the great philosophers, one of the Germans, I believe it was, once stated:

In order to know the truth, every man must face life from inside a chicken suit. . .

Of course, he did not mean chicken suit exclusively. . .any type of animal mascot costume will suffice.

Looking out from inside the yellow feathers, removed from the play-acting of our typical role as *human being,* freed from having to appear to be *doing something,* we can confront the awful emptiness of our modern scientific and technological existence. In the guise of the dumb farmyard beast, stripped of scientific and technological man’s vanity, we discover anew that we are mere creatures, entirely dependent upon the Creator for our continued being.

The experience will be different for the believer and the infidel. For believers, time spent inside the chicken suit will be a chastening and a refreshing, and offer an opportunity for renunciation of the world. After shedding the feathers, we will return to our First Love.

For the infidel, the experience will be terrifying. Stripped of his/her material illusions, alone in the blackness under the fake feathers, the stygian interior of the chicken suit will serve as an omen of the Outer Darkness that is his/her eventual destination. He/she will peer out from the darkness through the costume’s small eye holes, and see the world to which he/she formerly belonged, and to which he/she is unable to return. This experience itself a shadow of what awaits in Hell:

There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

For the infidel, the chicken suit is the great gulf fixed. . .

This is, of course, the metaphysical aspect of the chicken suit. The chicken suit also has a utilitarian purpose, answering the question asked here.

What will the new economy look like? It will look like underemployed men and women dressed as beasts, pitifully paid by pawnbrokers and assorted peddlers desperate to attract the attention of the smaller and smaller numbers of the monied class.

But I say to the brethren: fear ye not the chicken suit.

But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.