In the darkness of
his flashbacks, there was a single light.
Memory flickered as if a flame in the wind. A desire, and, trepidation.
Both beside the couch
and within his flashbacks, he heard someone demand, Well! It was Dominique
pushing the tall, skinny one, whom Philippe knew as Johnny, for a
response. In his flashbacks, the voice
belonged to his father. It lay somewhere
in the darkness. There, the word implied
something more than expectation. Duty
demanded obedience. And, it was spoken
with impatience if not disgust.
Philippe bent down as
he’d been taught to, taking hold of the pig behind its shoulders. In reality, Johnny felt Philippe’s hold of
him as something of a force against Dominique’s relentless onslaught. Now, he prayed that someone would stop
her. No one did. No one, it seemed, would dare. She was a force not of nature, but, of
something equal to it.
The gun-shot, of
course, was verbal. But, in his
flashbacks, it burst from the darkness like a moment of creation. It was instantly blinding and simultaneously
deafening. The pig seemed to fall in the
very same moment, its belly surrendering to gravity. Philippe recalled his curiosity at the legs
falling away. It was as if they’d never
been there.
His own legs buckled
as he came face to face with the pig.
The wet of the earth was warmer than he’d expected. It felt as though it was welcoming the both
of them. He held the cloth bag to the
pig’s forehead, where his father’s shot had passed squarely between the
eyes. He collected the blood. Surely,
he forced himself to believe, these were
its memories. After they had
coagulated, he imagined, he would eat them.
They would be brought back to life in him. But, in this moment, they were pouring out
even while the life had already drained away.
It was with irony’s
touch that reality returned with a wholly different and stuttering
flashback. His mother. In the years before her own death. Standing.
At the backyard fence. In
conversation, with the neighbour. Summer
breezes flowing, between laundry hung out to dry. The both of them, trading secrets. Savouring the taste of pickled pig’s
feet. Philippe heard his mother, sharing
her recipe for blood sausage. Johnny-in-the-bag, she called it.
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