Family

It all began in the summer of 1876, in which Brother Clive Werthings had returned from feeding the sow. He walked through the kitchen door and into the morning light shining in from the window. With great distress he uttered the following: “The eyes of the pigs came alive! Their dead eyes and ordinary pig faces We’re preaching to me! Squealing Away with you, away with you! They shouted! I swatted them with my hands And as my hand swung towards their pinkish flesh My fingers turned to hooves! My arms shrunk to the size of their front legs! It was blurry, muddy, and I could not think straight And so I started to pray and I forgave God for all the things I swore against him if he’d just release me now… Brother Werthings took a deep sigh as his family of on-lookers watched breathlessly. He had been to the asylum once, his mother thought in communal privacy with the others. And now this, she thought. She watched him finish: “And then he did. He released me. The next moment I was on my feet Staring at the stupid pigs. I simply turned around and Walked back into the house. A new man. Brother Werthings took a profound step forward, consequently out of the ray of sunlight coming in from the window. He then repeated in the shadow: “I am a new man now.” The family lived on, living out their lives: a proud ship, slowly rotting in the vast sea. And years from now, one looking out, or looking in, could never know the full truth regarding the validity of Brother Werthings’ statements. Though on his deathbed, struck by tuberculosis, he demanded on his tombstone be chiseled: Clive Werthings 1847-1897 The Eyes Of The Pigs Came Alive!