THE GILDED PERCH

A Satirical Allegory

DAWN PROCLAMATION 2,193: THE VOICE OF EGGORIA

The sun rises reluctantly over Eggoria's skyline—a jagged silhouette of ambition against the pale morning sky. Atop the nation's tallest spire stands Voxus, his golden feathers catching first light. From below, he appears as a perfect silhouette; from above, the bald patches in his plumage tell a different story.

COCK-A-DOODLE-SUPREME!

The amplified crow reverberates through the empty streets, bouncing between glass towers that reach toward nothing. The sound waves disturb a flock of paper cranes that scatter like forbidden thoughts.

"Another glorious morning in the most advanced henhouse in the world," Voxus announces to the microphones disguised as morning glories. "Day 2,193 of our uninterrupted prosperity."

He doesn't remember when they began counting. He doesn't remember what happened on Day Zero.

The official record shows:
DAY 0: GREAT PROSPERITY BEGINS
DAY -1: [REDACTED]
DAY -2: [REDACTED]

Voxus struts in a perfect circle, his golden talons leaving scratches on the metal surface—tiny imperfections in an otherwise flawless stage. Each morning, maintenance workers buff them away. Each morning, he creates them anew.

"Look at our magnificent egg-scrapers!" he crows, gesturing with his wing toward the gleaming structures. "Fifty floors of pure Eggorian innovation!"

(The architectural plans, borrowed from neighboring Hensland, remain locked in a basement archive.)

The rooster pauses, listening. The silence has a texture today—like feathers settling after a struggle.

"Why does the international barnyard continue to peck at our achievements?" he mutters, his voice dropping to a register the microphones barely catch. "They're simply green-combed with envy over our bullet trains!"

The trains—sleek, silver, and punctual—run precisely on schedule.

NORTHERN LINE: DEPARTURE 08:00 — ARRIVAL 10:00
PASSENGERS TODAY: 0
PASSENGERS YESTERDAY: 0
PASSENGERS LAST YEAR: [DATA UNAVAILABLE]

Voxus feels a strange tightening in his chest. The gold plating seems heavier this morning.

"Our cultural heritage is the envy of all barnyard-kind," he continues, voice rising again to its official timbre. "Five thousand years of Eggorian tradition!"

   The wind shifts, carrying whispers:
   "...borrowed plumage..."
   "...stolen nests..."
   "...rewritten rooster tales..."

Voxus shakes his head violently, dislodging a flake of gold that spirals down, down, down to the empty plaza below. For a moment, his reflection in the nearest tower shows a simple farm rooster—brown-feathered, ordinary—before the sun shifts and the gold returns.

"T-the morning census shows our population is thriving," he stammers, unusual uncertainty creeping into his voice. "All chicks accounted for!"

The empty nests stretch to the horizon.
The silent incubators gather dust.
The egg-counting machines blink: ERROR.

"Those who no longer sing with us have simply... migrated! Voluntarily! To special rural education coops where they learn proper crowing techniques!"

The shadow of a cage falls across his face.

W̶h̶y̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶f̶e̶a̶t̶h̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶i̶n̶e̶r̶a̶t̶o̶r̶?̶
W̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶n̶g̶b̶i̶r̶d̶s̶ ̶g̶o̶?̶
W̶h̶y̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶I̶ ̶d̶r̶e̶a̶m̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶b̶r̶o̶k̶e̶n̶ ̶e̶g̶g̶s̶?̶

Voxus pecks frantically at his own reflection, erasing these unauthorized thoughts.

"COME VISIT EGGORIA!" he suddenly shrieks, his voice cracking like an egg dropped from a great height. "See our magnificent monuments! Our museums filled with artifacts we've improved from lesser nations! Our spotless streets where no chick dares to—"

He stops, confused by his own words.

"—where every chick is happy," he corrects himself. "So happy they sometimes weep with joy!"

The wind carries the scent of something burning. Not paper. Not wood.

Feathers.

"It must be those foreign roosters spreading lies," Voxus mutters, pacing faster now, his circle growing tighter, a spiral drawing inward. "Yes, that's it. They're jealous of our superior crowing technique."

Each morning, he practices his crow exactly 108 times.
Each morning, it sounds less like a crow and more like a cry.

"We don't need them anyway! Eggoria is self-sufficient! Self-important! Self... self..."

For a terrible moment, he cannot remember the next word in the script.

The golden rooster catches his reflection in a puddle of rainwater. The rising sun illuminates the truth: beneath the gold, his feathers have been falling out. Beneath the magnificent comb, his head is small and frightened.

"Perhaps if we just built taller buildings," he whispers, voice now that of a simple farm rooster. "Or faster trains. Yes! Faster trains will solve everything!"

   But where would they go?
   But who would ride them?
   But why build more?

The questions come unbidden, like molting feathers he cannot control.

In the distance, he spots something impossible: a small brown hen, walking freely across the empty plaza. She looks up at him—not with fear, not with admiration, but with pity.

"You're not real," Voxus whispers. "You were taken to the education coop."

The hen continues to stare.

"SECURITY!" he shrieks, but his voice no longer reaches the speakers. The microphones died years ago; he has been crowing to no one.

The hen spreads her wings and flies away—something the genetic modifications were supposed to have made impossible.

Voxus feels something crack inside him. Not his body, but something more essential. For one blinding moment, he remembers everything: the roundups, the cages, the silenced songs, the rewritten history, the polished pedestals where statues of dissident roosters once stood.

He opens his beak to crow the truth—

—but the moment passes, sealed away like an egg returned to its shell.

"COCK-A-DOODLE-DENIAL!" he crows mechanically, as another day in Eggoria begins.

The maintenance workers arrive to polish his perch, to reapply his gold leaf, to buff away the evidence of his doubts. Tomorrow he will not remember today's momentary clarity. Tomorrow he will begin again.

DAWN PROCLAMATION 2,194: THE VOICE OF EGGORIA

And the cycle continues, as it always has, as it always will, until there are no roosters left to crow and no hens left to hear—only gold statues gleaming in the sun, proclaiming glory to empty streets.