Pearl

by Josh Malerman

The doors closed but the image remained, strong, vivid, as if the man (Bob Buck?) was immune to obscurity, unable to be blocked out, like the pig, the pig Pearl, who haunted this man because this man haunted him, because this man lined pigs up and slit their throats in front of other pigs, and suddenly Susan was seeing, seeing Pearl’s point of view, Pearl’s perspective as if Pearl was a slave rising up, rising up from the mud and blood to kill his captors, to slay those who slayed his mother, his father, big pigs who had their own purpose not to be slit or slayed by men like this, the waving man, the man preparing to drive out to Kopple Farm to face his ghost, his monster, ready within, or perhaps so haunted, so changed that he thought he was ready and didn’t know what ready was anymore, weak, dying, the end of things, saying goodbye, waving, this man who drove all this way to ask a girl where the pig was on the farm, not ready after all, so scared that he had to ask someone who knew something, anything, because the idea of going out there without talking to someone first would have broken all his bones, would’ve shattered him instantly, the idea of driving out there as the pig grew in his mind, grew so big that he blotted out the moon and the night sky and became all he could think about, taking root in his mind, coloring every thought a fleshy pink, ruling his mind so that by the time he arrived at the farm he’d believe he was driving a pig, his hands upon a steering whe...