Rosa’s Prayer

Rosa walking home from school Courtesy of Abigail Cook on Unsplash

Hi God, it's me Rosa. I just want to say thank you for my day and thank you for my family especially my daddy and God thank you for giving me oatmeal for breakfast and please help me to be a better girl tomorrow and keep my brain working and God please bless all the aliens on the other planets. I love you, Amen.

“Does Rosa always pray like that?” asked her grandfather who stood next to his son in law outside Rosa’s bedroom. George who didn’t want to interrupt his daughter, nodded and put his wing up to his beak. Rosa broke out into song and that was George’s cue to leave his daughter alone. They turned and walked outside on to the deck where Sybil and her mother were sitting discussing the old neighbourhood in New Jersey.

“You should’ve heard your granddaughter, Esther. She says her prayers every night.” Esther rolled her eyes. It didn’t seem like a big deal to her. “No, no, she says a different prayer every night or so George tells me. She has a conversation with God. Oy vey! you must hear her next time.” Craig was very taken by Rosa.

Sybil turned her head slightly and smiled at her father. “Dad,” she said pulling her sunglasses down on her beak so her father could see her eyes. “Dad, she only says those prayers when George is around. She never says them when he’s working late or at the synagogue.”

“Really?” replied her father, not quite sure whether to believe her or not.

“Did she say thank you God for my daddy?”

“She did yes,” he replied shrugging his shoulders and looking at George not quite sure where his daughter was going.

“Well then, there you are. She knew her father was standing outside the door and that’s why she said that.”

Craig stopped in his tracks. He wasn’t sure what to say. He turned to George, “did she know I was standing outside?”

George was trapped. “I don’t know. I will have to ask her.”

“Because if she did, I would expect her to thank God for Esther and me don’t you think?” Sybil loved this. She turned back again and smiled evilly at her husband.

“George,” she said and then paused for dramatic effect, “I think my father deserves an answer, doesn’t he?”

“I’m sure she didn’t know you were standing there because had she known, then she would absolutely have thanked God for you and Esther.”

Sybil won and she knew it. She would’ve punched the air with her wing, but she was holding a glass of red wine her parents had brought down with them and didn’t want to spill any. “Thank you darling,” she said to George slipping her glasses back up her beak and turned to talk to her mother.

“You remember Barbara Epstein, don’t you?” asked Esther completely oblivious to what had just transpired. “I think I’ll have another glass of that wine.”

“Where is it honey?” asked Craig, “isn’t it good George? My friend Ron Hamer makes it up in the Finger Lakes district in New York.”

Suddenly George realised he was in the middle of a whirlwind with no place to go. “I think the wine is very good,” were the only words that came to mind being that he really didn’t like the wine. “I’ve had better sewer water!” he had told Julia earlier in the kitchen which made her giggle, but he desperately needed to ground himself again.

“It’s ok grandpa,” it was Julia who had come out of the kitchen to let everyone know that the Crème Brulé she had made for dessert would be ready in a few minutes. “Dad,” she said turning to her father with an evil look on her face, “would you like me to pour you some of this most exquisite wine. I think it will go very well with the Crème Brulé?”

George wrestled back control of the scene. “Crème Brulé! Yum my favourite. No, no, I don’t think red wine will do. Maybe I’ll have a glass of single malt scotch whiskey in celebration of your grandparents being here.”

Sybil stopped her chatter. She suddenly realised that George in his own way had won back control of the conservation and was free to direct it in any direction he wanted. But what was she to do. She had a glass of red wine in her wing which she thought was sewer water but couldn’t very well throw it away, so what was she to do.

“Mummy,” asked Julia, “would you like more wine? It looks like your glass could hold more.” No, Sybil didn’t want any more of that stuff, it was gross.

“Oh look,” she said a sand fly just flew into the glass. George smiled. Maybe this was the first time he and his wife were on the same page. Before anyone asked to see the fly, she tossed it over the railing to a shout of ‘hey’ from the sand below.

“Who’s that?” asked Esther.

“Who’s what?” asked Sybil.

“The bird who shouted hey.”

“Oh I didn’t hear that. George did you hear someone shout hey?”

“Yes darling,” he replied, “I did. Let me go and see who it was.”

George gleefully walked over to the railing only to see a chicken down below, a red chicken. He laughed. “Is that you Rosa the Chicken?” he asked loudly.

“Yes it is!” she shouted up to him.

“I’m sorry I threw, well actually my wife threw that out. It had a fly in it.”

“A fly in wine not good,” replied the Chicken. “Is Rosa home? I have come to the right place, haven’t I?”

“Yes, yes,” George said, “but she’s in bed fast asleep.”

“Not any longer,” he heard his youngest daughter say as she stood in the doorway with her patented cute smile.

“What are you doing up so late?” asked Sybil trying to control her end of the fast moving scene.

“I heard Julia say there was cream for dessert so I came out. Is that my friend the chicken?” “Yes, it is!” shouted the Chicken back, “and is that my friend the Sandpiper?”

“Yes, it is!” shouted Rosa, “come on up.”

“You forget chickens can’t fly.”

Oh dear thought Rosa as Sybil wondered if someone could stop the world and let her off. This was not the way she wanted the first day of her parents visit to go. “Ok,” said Rosa, “I’ll come downstairs and open the door for you,” and with that, Rosa left the scene leaving all the rest of the participants, with the exception of Julia and George in a panic. No one knew what to do with a chicken.

“It’s ok,” George finally came to the rescue. “She’s a neighbour of ours and she comes by now and then to check up on us.”

Sybil knew all that was rubbish, but she wasn’t going to let on, after all she had no idea how to stop the world. Rosa the Chicken made her appearance on the deck and was quickly introduced to the entire family by Rosa the Sandpiper.

Craig looked the chicken up and down, “are you kosher?” he asked. The chicken panicked. This was Deja vu all over again, and she turned and left the deck. “Is it something I said?” asked Craig looking confused.

“No grandpa,” replied Julia, “she’s a Chick fil A chicken.”