Challenge The Proud

The Flying Piglet

"Flying Piglet." - Challenge No.2

JEN FEARED THE STORM and the voices that came with it - screeching, howling, unnatural voices. This will be a harsh winter. Jen tried to remember the last time she had ever felt safe. She couldn't. The only thing she recalled was her father's weakened voice uttering these words: "In this shitty world, the likes of us get to be happy only when pigs fly."

Then her father had grinned exposing his lack of teeth, coughing until he couldn't cough anymore. A shell staring up at her with blood-shot eyes. This had happened only two winters ago, when Jen had been eight years old.

She was sitting on a crate, hugging her legs, chin on her knees. Jen breathed in deeply and let out a long exhale just so she'd be able to watch her warm, white, milky breath take form in the winter air. Her nose felt dry and her bare ears burned. She had no hat - the tall, skinny boy from the corner of 2nd and 3rd had stolen it just minutes ago.

Jen had run away from him, not wanting any trouble. She was all too familiar with what men could do to her and she didn't think that boy was any different, especially since he was a street kid just like her.

She still had her old boots, too big for her and with too many holes in them, her wool gloves, dirty and with the seams undone here and there, and her father's coat, brown and with its pockets ripped, but anything was better than nothing.

This was the only place she knew that kept her out of sight and provided some kind of shelter. It was an abandoned shed that the hospital had been using for vegetable storage until a couple of months ago when the hospital had been shut down. They fenced up the hospital grounds and covered all of the windows and doors of the main building with wooden planks. But Jen knew a way into the yard, a place where she could slip under the fence and sneak along some shrubbery to the shed, so that the security guard wouldn't spot her.

Her hands refused to move and she could no longer feel them. It felt as if she had plunged her fingers in a large pot of glue and was now stuck there. In fact, her entire body felt that way. Stuck. Still. Numb.

Jen knew she had to force herself to move, and so she did. Her feet could barely hold her weight and she leaned against the wooden walls of the shed, slowly heading toward the flimsy door. It wouldn't close all the way and it kept making an awful dry sound, slamming over and over again to the wind's fancy. The storm unleashed outside just as darkness fell upon the city and she knew this would be a hard night.

Desperate to keep the door still, Jen sat by it on the floor, clinging on to the handle. The howling winds breached the shed through its poorly constructed wooden walls. The current changed direction, lashing against Jen from all sides, ruffling the old newspapers she had collected there to use as blankets.

It wasn't until well after midnight that the storm had settled. She could finally let go of the door handle and enjoy the silence. Everything hurt - every knuckle and bone and every spot along her back. She knew that this pain meant that her body was starting to relax. Maybe get some sleep.

Her gaze fixed upon the snow covered yard and it seemed to Jen that the moonlight played tricks, making the cold, ruthless blanket sparkle white and joyful under its touch. Such beauty...

When she first heard it, she thought it was just her foot scraping on the floor. That scratching and growling sound. What was it? Some kind of animal?

She peered outside at the gray landscape and saw the figure of a small pig rummaging through the snow. Jen held her breath studying the creature, waiting for it to prove to be an illusion, or just a dream. The piglet was looking for something in that cold blanket of snow and she thought it was food. What else could a piglet want?

It stopped prodding around with its snout and kept its head lowered, as if he was staring at something he had found in the snow. If it was food... Maybe the piglet would be willing to share.

But it wasn't food. The piglet snatched the object from the ground and lifted it looking up at the stars. It was her hat but it was new and pretty. Who knew it was actually blue?

The piglet threw the hat up into the air and it landed on its head in a flurry of sparkling snow.

Jen laughed - for some reason, none of this was frightening or odd to her. Was she dreaming?

Suddenly, the piglet dashed up from the snow and it flew away, towards the stars where everything was but a peaceful glimmer of diamond jewels attached to the dark velvet that made up the night sky, and the piglet finally felt safe.