WHO: Marceline Cox, her pigs, and implied others. WHEN: 7/16, early morning. WHERE: The Cox Farm SUMMARY: Marceline feeds the pigs. WARNINGS: Implied murder.
It was early enough to still be cold, the mist of the Pacific Northwest driving a chill down her spine.
“Dorothy!” She heard her ma call out from the house, and Marceline rolled her eyes. She must’ve left the movie on. It had made for good background noise when she had been preparing the morning meal. She hadn’t done a good job of it, but that was fine. Slop wasn’t meant to be pretty and if her ma found it before she had a chance to clean it up, she’d probably understand if she had a chance to explain herself.
Anyone who knew Blaze would understand it.
The weight she held on her shoulders was not poetic: no, it extended only as far as the hundred something pounds of ground up problems in the buckets of slop she held in her hands.
Whatever. Live and learn. Or not.
“Here, pig, pig, pig,” she called as she approached the pen, where she was greeted by pigs both fat and small, squealing and dancing and happy.
The first bucket was emptied. Then the second. It sloshed, muddled brown and red and foul. Her lips twitched as she watched them step up to the plate.
She lit a cigarette. She inhaled liberally.
“I think there’s a play like this,” she spoke to them. Hunk stopped eating and looked up, as if waiting for her to continue.
“I just think it. I donno if it’s true.” Puff puff. “Something about eating pies, I think. But you’re not so dignified for all that and I ain’t about to feed her to Blaze, so slop it is.”
Hunk continued to eat what remained of her problem from Canada.
Finishing up her smoke, she snuffed it out with her ruby red converse and started the long walk back to the house.
There were easier ways of getting rid of people than dropping a house on them.