The Pigs

A humid day, mosquito clouds swarm along a red dirt road to the farm. There are grimy rows of pig pens, hazed dark by humming hordes of black fly. Bob (an old friend), chuckles. “Man, you picked the wrong time of year to come visit.” The hogs grunt and squeal. He waves, “be with you soon.” It’s slop-time - the air is turgid with the many notes of a stale miasma, everywhere there is the splatter of slime and muck. He carries smeared green buckets; a deleterious, partly consumed gunk that reeks of that semi-solid swill hogs grow fat upon. On the low walls there are slick stains, layers of grime; a smeared feculence corrugated into noxious layers. Even behind the stalls there are a heaps of sludge and slurry. Bob flushes surfaces down with his long hosepipe. He bends to his tasks whistling happily while I explain to my new wife that he used to work for the C.I.A. I can see she’s surprised, maybe impressed. Long pause… watching Bob wade knee deep into his labor of love. “Yea”, I sighed, “he got real tired of all that." ``````````````` an edit