My share of the world

My share of the world

My share of the world

BY Edwaard (mohammadreza mohammadi)

It had only been a few minutes since I’d gotten stuck on top of this grinding machine. Every second, holding myself up became harder and harder. The sound of chicks being pulled into the gears—each one disappearing with a short, unfinished cry—echoed in my ears.

I couldn’t look…

Every chick that reached that opening vanished in an instant. I kept asking myself: What can I possibly do?

But this is only a moment of my life.

Let’s go back—back to where it all began.

When I hatched, I found myself among a massive crowd of chicks. Everyone was searching for their mother, but there was nowhere to search. We were trapped in a metal tray, the heat rising beneath us. Like the others, I told myself:

At least I’m not alone… but where is my mother? Maybe she went outside. Maybe she didn’t know I’d be born today.

We stayed like that for almost an hour until a worker arrived, emptied the tray, and we all fell onto a conveyor belt.

“What a kind man,” I told myself.

“If he hadn’t taken us out, we might’ve suffocated.” Sunlight from a window touched my body.

I stretched my legs one at a time.

It was a new, pleasant feeling—but brief.

Soon, something in my stomach began to ache.

At first, I thought it was fear, but no…

It was a kind of emptiness, a sinking feeling.

I wondered:

Are we supposed to eat something? Is there even anything to eat? I looked around.

Hundreds of chicks like me, all with the same round, clueless eyes, wandered across the perforated metal floor.

No one had found anything.

No one even knew what “food” was supposed to look like. One chick tapped its beak on the ground.

A metallic clink.

Just iron.

Another pecked at its own feathers.

Nothing happened.

We didn’t know anything—yet our bodies already knew what they needed. Maybe some things aren’t learned by thinking.

Maybe some things are learned only through pain. Then the ground beneath us trembled.

The conveyor belt began to move.

My feet slipped on the cold, lifeless surface.

It felt like the floor itself had decided to take us somewhere. I tried to stand, but every step felt like walking on ice for the first time. I thought:

Why is the ground moving? Isn’t the ground supposed to stay still? Maybe this isn’t ground at all… maybe this place follows rules we didn’t create. The belt split into two paths.

Workers glanced at us quickly, sending some chicks left, some right. I was pushed to the right.

A chick beside me whispered:

“Why are they separating us? Aren’t we all the same?” I didn’t know.

But something inside me whispered:

When someone separates you, it means there’s something in you they don’t want. Or something you don’t have that they do want.

That thought settled over me like a shadow.

For the first time, I understood what it meant to feel worthless—not from experience, but from the eyes of people who didn’t look at us long enough to see we were alive. The belt kept moving.

My legs trembled, but my mind trembled more.

*If the world moves us like this, does that mean we never get to choose where we go? Or maybe… maybe our first choice is realizing we have none.* The belt turned.

Chicks ahead of me disappeared into a large opening. There were short cries… and then silence.

I didn’t know what that place was.

But my body knew I shouldn’t go there.

Male chicks were being pushed toward the opening. Females had been sent elsewhere.

I still didn’t understand why.

*If we’re all the same, why aren’t our paths the same? If this is life, then what is justice?

Maybe justice is just a word we haven’t learned yet.* The belt jolted.

I lost my balance and slid toward the edge.

The sound of the machine was like the teeth of a hungry creature. Chicks beside me vanished one by one.

Their cries didn’t even have time to become screams. I should’ve fallen too.

But my foot got caught in one of the holes in the metal. My body hung halfway off the edge.

The belt pulled, but I was stuck—unable to fall, unable to escape. For a moment, I thought:

Maybe this is my miracle.

Then I heard footsteps.

The same man—the one I thought was kind.

The one who had lifted us from the tray.

Thank goodness… he’s here. He’ll help me, I thought. He bent down, wrapped his hand around my tiny body. For a moment, I felt saved.

But then…

He pushed me toward the opening.

Not gently.

Not hesitantly.

With a practiced, efficient motion.

In that moment, I understood.

Kindness had been an illusion.

Rescue had been a misunderstanding.

To him, we weren’t lives—we were tasks.

*So this is the truth…

Sometimes the one who saves you from death is the same one who sends you back to it. Maybe the world is just confusing the hand of a killer with the hand of a savior.* He pushed again.

But my foot was still stuck.

He frowned, bent down again…

And then, in that suspended moment, everything inside me went quiet. Not the machine, not the cries—just a single cold thought: Was this really all my life was meant to be? Just a few hours? A few hours without a mother I never met.

A few hours of hunger before I even understood what food was. A few hours on floors that didn’t feel like earth.

A few hours among creatures just like me, none of us knowing why we were born. And then the truth whispered inside me:

“You have no one.

No mother to hear your voice,

no ground willing to hold you,

no hand reaching out to save you.”

For the first time, I understood that helplessness isn’t just a situation—it’s a feeling. A shadow that settles inside you.

The man finally freed my foot—not to save me, but to push me more easily. One firm shove…

And I disappeared into the darkness,

my entire life reduced to a few hours of hunger, fear, and helplessness.

 

The End