The Blood of the Pig

It was crimson. Wet. Bubbling. Warm.

It still haunts me, even to this day. Every time I close my eyes, I see it. I feel its heavy, dense air weighing down on me. I feel it stuck in my hair. I taste its stench, stuck in the shadows of my nostrils after all these years.

I think that’s why I work so much. I need to keep my brain racing. I need to keep busy. When I slow down, even for a second, I see its eyes, with drips of red, looking up at me, begging for my help.

I came home from work last night. I entered my cold, lifeless, dimly lit apartment. It was dark, maybe around 11 P.M. or so. It was a day like any other. The rush of the empty workplace and the blur of the train indistinguishable in mind, parts of a day I had only imagined living through, a day I could not remember. I poured myself a drink, just like he would have. I walked into the living room to watch some TV, anything to turn my brain off, and there it was, standing in the corner.

The pig.

Its body was completely decomposed. Skin hung off its bones. Flies buzzed around it. It stared at me. In the dead light of my apartment, it almost looked angry. I wanted to say something, anything. I wanted to make it right, but I couldn’t catch my breath, I couldn’t find the words.

The phone rang, and the pig was gone. I rushed to answer, still trapped in a panic, the world still a blur. When I recognised my mother’s voice, when she gave me the news, my drink fell to the floor.

That’s why I’m here today. I had never thought of coming back. I wanted to leave this place in the past.

I’m here now. It’s all coming back. I take a swig from my flask to push it back down. I had to come, she needs me. I got on a train late last night, and I was on a bus all day. I couldn’t sleep. Throughout the whole bus ride, I just stared out at the road, at the wind and snow battling in the headlights as we rushed past.

I take a deep breath and walk up to it. It towers over me. I look up at it, and suddenly I remember everything.

Dad’s barn.

Mom rushes out from the house, and I am snatched away from the tidal wave of memories. She wraps me in her big, tender hug.

“Hi, sweetie! Thank you for coming. Your father would have been so happy that you’re here for his funeral.”

I have to restrain myself from answering. He was never happy about a thing. I just smile at her.

“It’s good to see you, mom. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Could you shovel?” Of course I’ll help out, she needs a hand, but the painful irony is not lost on me. Put to work in the barn, just like all those years ago.

I am inside the barn. I can barely recognise this place. The clucks of chickens have been replaced by the silent whispers of the wind. The animals that filled the stables and the pens have been replaced by the eerie presence of empty space. The wooden beams holding up this broken place have deteriorated, the rigorous flow of time making them one with the dark and haunting energy of this God forsaken barn.

I’m standing, stiff, frozen, staring down at all the snow. Hesitant to uncover the layers of snow and reach the grass on the other side. Hesitant to uncover the layers of what I’ve fought so long to forget.

I shove the shovel into the snow. I throw it over my shoulder. He was standing over me, watching as I milked the cows, criticising my every move.

I crack the ice underneath the snow. I push aside the pieces. I cooked the meat and watched it burn. He told me that I knew that chicken, that I played with it.

I pick up another pile of snow. He was drunk. I throw it against the wall. He threw his bottle against the wall.

I collect the snow, he yelled at me, I toss it aside, I cried.

I jam the shovel into the snow once more, but it gets stuck. It’s caught on something.

He threw his bottle of whiskey at me when I messed around on the tractor. It shattered. I still have a scar. He told me I was destroying his business, that I was useless, that he should have never had me. That I should take the farming more seriously.

I feel the shovel enter something. It isn’t snow. This feels alive. I dig, and I dig, until I uncover it.

A pig carcass, lying under the snow. Submerged in the cold. How is it still there, after all this time?

I was so young. I couldn’t have been older than 6.

“Come on, now,” he said, pushing me forward. The blade felt heavy in my hand. “Be a strong man, like your old pop.” I couldn’t breathe. I raised the blade. I slaughtered it. “There’s lunch!” He exclaimed, putting his arm around me. I cried. He took a sip of his liquor. The blood was rushing out. I don’t know if I slipped on booze or blood. The world was spinning. I fell forever. I was swimming in blood. I looked down at its face, that empty dead eye staring up at me.

I throw the shovel down. A tortured scream bellows out of me. A scream I never knew I held.

I hate him. He made me something I was never supposed to be. He still does, even today. He’s chased me for decades, a bottle of rum in one hand and a plate of bacon in the other.

I collapse into the snow. The cold feels good on my skin, like an escape from the warmth of the blood.

I look up, and there it is, staring out of the barn, staring up into the sky. It turns to face me.

“Hello,” the pig says.

What the fuck is going on in my head? What the fuck is going on in this barn? My breath starts to quicken. The world spins once more. This is impossible, this is insane, this is-

“It’s not impossible. I am you.” The pig smiles at me. The pig is talking to me. I don’t understand how this-

“You don’t have to understand.” Its penetrating eyes turn away from me, past the barn doors, back up into the darkness of the night sky. “Look at those stars. Bright, beautiful spots of life. Those stars are home. I am so grateful to move on, so grateful to live in the stars.” It turns back to me, its glance freezing me in place and time.

Tears streaming down my face, I stare at it, fixated. I find the breath, deep inside me.

“I’m sorry,” I confess, the weight of the world and the booze and the blood flying away into the stars.

“Thank you, sweet girl.”

I close my eyes, and the pig is gone.