Chick Whittington

The streets of London are paved with golden nuggets of chicken, torn carcasses and bones. The squalor we allow ourselves to live in defies all convention on human rights. Every day I get out of the tube and walk towards the bus stop and hear a :crack: and stumble a bit before realising I've trodden on a chicken bone. I wipe it off my sole and walk on to :rip: another chicken wing destroyed under my size 10s. I once came out of the tube and saw a yoot in a ubiquitous hoodie munching on chicken. He dropped his finished bones on the floor, flesh hung from his mouth. An old do-good lady approached him and told him to pick up the chicken. He laughed and spat the flesh hanging from his lips on to the floor.

She pulled out a hankerchief from her pocket and picked up the discarded flesh depositing it in the bin. She looked at him mildly, as if to mentally tut without making too much of an aggressive fuss. He laughed at her and upended his chicken box on the floor, laughing and giggling and looking to an invisible crowd that might side with him against her stupid eco-mindset. What was she going to do now? Look at all the chicken I've dropped, she's going to clean up after me like my mum. She shook her head and picked up the pieces of chicken and the box and put them in the bin. He laughed at her. She offered the soiled hankerchief to him. He asked what he should do with that. She motioned to the ketchup on his greasy lips. For that split second he became a boy again, quickly wiping away his dirt with the back of his sleeve. The situation diffused, the streets cleaner, she walked away proud of her surroundings, wanting to keep the chicken bones off the floor, because under that grime and dirt and soot and grease, maybe there was gold, and the more we cover it up with our filth, the less we stop to appreciate our surroundings. She was my hero for a day, silent with the authority to refuse a yoot to child; the willingness to clear all the scum off the streets; and the stoicism of a general going to war knowing that in the end they're fighting a losing battle against chicken bones.