Singing the pigs to slaughter - by Ruby Kester (aged 16)

 

Every spring, Pepe’s pigs gave birth to a mass of squirming, pink piglets, and every subsequent six months he would sing them to slaughter.

The mountains where he alone lived were remote, untouched and had an air of Old Spain about them. The sun beat down on the parched ground, creating cavernous cracks. The trunks on the walnut trees were as withered and gnarled as the fruit they bore; the grass yellowed and coarse; flies buzzed, bees hummed: the air was alive. But the ground appeared dead. The rocks rose up from underneath the soil like tumours- unexpected and threatening. Untrodden paths wound steeply up through them, barely visible, with the dust of ages mounting up like records of time. It was a place where not many animals could survive: with a little help though, pigs could and donkeys, and snakes, lizards, insects…  In fact, there was an abundance of life. Pepe knew of these lives, these little beating hearts which occupied his back yard and beyond, and treasured them dearly. 

He was a silent, shy and withdrawn man who had short, deep-brown hair - as curly as the back-hair on a buffalo - and he considered himself plain. It wasn’t that he was unattractive, just that he wasn’t obviously handsome. As he was one of the types of people who preferred solitude over having to deal with others, the mountains were a perfect place for him to live.

Pepe only came into contact with others five times a year. Four of those times were when he walked down to the nearest town. He went, for three days every three months, to sell crops, buy the odd item for repairs, and to collect his mail. With such a chasm going between letters being sent and him receiving them, often he was late for news. Once, he received a letter telling of his great grandmother’s death (at 104 years of age!) and an invitation to the funeral. Knowing he had missed it, he set out and arrived two months after the event, by which time everyone had forgotten she had even existed.

The fifth time was when the pigs were sent to the butcher’s. The butcher’s daughter would arrive in her rickety old van. Her name was Maribel Sanchez. Her brown hair was always tidied up into a ponytail - swinging first this way then that, sending the scent of her signature perfume his way. She would load the limp hunks of meat into the back of the van, smiling a dazzling smile which lit up her eyes and chattering, as though the blood on her hands was of no consequence. Pepe would watch on grimly, knowing that he always did his best to mop up the excess before she came, so the blood would be of no consequence.

He also did his best to clean himself up, with a freshly shaved chin and a neatly ironed shirt. However, try as he might, he could not spruce up his personality. Shyness would take hold and he’d be unable to talk in the free, unrestrained way that he did with the just-killed pigs. Every year running up to her visit, he would wax lyrical to all the world endearments he wished to say to her, and, every year, when she arrived, his pigs would die, and so would his sweetnesses - unuttered. It was a viscous circle, for he was all too aware of his short-comings to chance anything.

Yet she did not shun him. Far from it - driving to her father’s to sort out payments, she would talk and talk. When his lack of replies would have stopped even the most talkative woman in her tracks, she would prevail until at last, she had coaxed a sentence or two out of his shell.

After fifteen long years of the same tiresome failings to reach out to her, she arrived at his house early. He was at the end of his annual ritual for killing the pigs and so did not see her arrive. He walked majestically; incense in one hand, in the other, a rope, tied around a pig’s fat, bristle-covered neck. He led it up a path to a plateau overlooking the world at the top of the mountain above his farm. There was nothing but a long knife, clear of all stains, and a view to rival that of Paradise. He was smiling a beautiful, wide smile, but tears streaked down both his cheeks. And he was singing. Such songs of pain and love, which were so pure and heart-felt, were like nothing she had ever heard. It both broke her heart and healed it in a second. She left and went back to her van, allowing him to spend those last precious moments with his friend, alone. 

When he came down from the ledge he was shocked to see her, but even more so to discover her crying. When he inquired why, she looked up at him and smiled through her tears. “I am crying for the beauty of your voice,” she said, and then, beseechingly, “Why do you sing to your pigs like that?”

As she had arrived early, he had not had time to work himself up into a nervous disposition, so he disregarded his be-draggled appearance and answered her truthfully.

“I sing for joy because you come soon, and for sadness because I love my pigs.”

“Then let me sing with you from now on, please!”

“Why?” He asked.

“Because I love both you and your pigs” was the simple reply.