Between the wars, the twins on Gwyrdd Hill kept a strange creature, half-boy half-hog, pent-up in the corn-crib at the edge of their property. Reclusive bachelors, the brothers would shyly deny its existence. But at night you’d hear the thing howling. A desperate, heart-sickening racket that might have come from a human child. So it was disturbing to learn later that the brothers had slaughtered it. They sold the organ meat, it was said, to an unwitting butcher in Ffestinoig. But the sweet belly pork and the hideous rubbery mass of the head, preserved in vinegar, they saved for themselves.
Author bio: I have a PhD from Harvard University. Poems, stories and artwork of mine have appeared or are forthcoming in more than fifty journals, including Exquisite Corpse, Wigleaf and Pear Noir. This year two of my stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Woah.
ReplyDeleteThis is disturbing, yet superbly written. Nice work on this macabre piece.