Tuesday, July 06, 2004

9:31 PM | The Silence of Pigs

He feels dread. He's been feeling this slow grinding that begins in his diaphragm and edges close to the source of his bile. Two days now. Two days since he first saw the pigs tied to shrubbery somewhere near his bedroom window, which overlooks a garden gone to seed. There used to be trash and tall grass there. Now it has been cleared by the woman upstairs, as a gesture -- or so he thought -- towards clean living, but no... It was to accommodate these pigs. The pink little creatures, their snouts grazing the brown earth looking for nonexistent mud, had seemed to him, the first time he saw them, as harbingers of ill omens. Already, their grunting and squealing sounded hideous to him: it was this same cacophony -- coming close to a murderous, piercing shrill -- that woke him early this morning. The noise, a kind of a breakfast call, intruded into his sleep. So now he thinks: how he hates those pigs. He hates the thought of pig shit and fecal odor and squealing being right under his nose, too close within the intimacy of his private domain. That landlady upstairs is a bitch, he says. In a waking dream, he sees what should happen. How he would steal into the yard, for example, one dark night, bearing a butcher's knife. Maybe even a machete. A machete. Something long, and sharp. Something that slices through pig heads with sharp, silent precision. First, that one pig near the barbwires, then the other one near the door. Sharp, fast, precise. The damn pigs will kiss God's face in their sleep. He can already smell the pungent blood dripping from the blades, seeping into the soil. He can almost hear the thud of metal slicing through fat and flesh. And then the crunch of bones breaking. Krekk! Any night now, any night. That's how he manages to smile for the first time in this God-forsaken day -- the heat of the afternoon has already gone into his head, making him crazy and dizzy and sleepy at the same time. He needs sleep. How tired he feels. How very tired.

[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich

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