June 2023 Flash Lit 10 - By the Bye

“By-the-bye, what became of the baby?” said the Cat. “I’d nearly forgotten to ask.”

“It turned into a pig,” Alice quietly said, just as if it had come back in a natural way.

“I thought it would,” said the Cat, and vanished again.  Alice in Wonderland, Chapter 6

 

 

 

Larry looked into Portia’s little eyes and smiled.  She grunted back at him, which was all she ever really did, being a pig.  But he thought it was an affectionate grunt at any rate.

 

He made sure she had enough water in her trough and scratched between her ears.  She leaned into his hand with all her weight.  “Steady on, baby,” he said.  “You’ll knock me down!”

 

Portia grunted again and Larry thought it sounded like a chuckle.

 

He took off his hat to let the breeze cool his head for a moment and rubbed a hand across the few stubbly hairs left on his scalp.  Portia butted up against his legs again and he resumed scratching.

 

“I know you’re lonely, baby, now that Everett is gone,” Larry told her.  Everett, the old boar, had died over the winter of extreme old age.  Larry knew he should get another pig to keep Portia company, but he just couldn’t face coming to the pen every morning and finding a different porcine face looking back at him.

 

It would be like coming into the kitchen and seeing a woman who wasn’t Josie standing at the sink.  He’d rather see the space where Josie should be.

 

Portia decided she’d had enough scratches and trundled over to the mud puddle to cool herself off.  She flopped down with a grunt that this time sounded like satisfaction.

 

Larry, released, trudged back to the house, shucked off his wellies, and washed up before making himself a cup of tea.  He sat at the kitchen table with its faded red checked cloth and tried to remember the shape of Josie, but he couldn’t summon it.

 

It had come to this, he thought.  I talk to my pig and I can’t remember my own wife’s outline.

 

The phone rang.  It was Larry’s niece Christy, who called every so often mostly, Larry thought, to make sure that Larry was still alive.

 

“By the by,” she said, after telling him all about her kids’ soccer games, her husband’s new job, and the ins and outs of trying to find someone to help out in her gift boutique, “I heard that Chas Bond is looking to buy a farm.  If you’re interested in selling, I mean.  He’d even take the pig.”

 

“Absolutely not,” Larry said.

 

“You treat that pig like it’s your baby,” Christy said.

“She is,” Larry answered, and hung up.