I felt them as I moved into the main bay, every pig asleep and dreaming in its cage. They tingled like extensions of my body, limbs I never knew I had, and when I whispered, “Awake,” I could feel them open their eyes, fear keeping them silent, confusion making them anxious, for they were aware of me as a predator, but they perceived no threat from me.
Unlocking the cages was the only truly difficult part of the whole process. I had to kneel and put both hands on the metal grid floor, extend myself through it to the entire iron system of cages and doors and locks, smell the overwhelming almost-fatal stink of the ocean of pig shit that waited beneath me, for every cage was built on the same grid, so excrement could pass easily through. I felt for the locks, fumbled around the bars and slotting mechanisms, grunted and thrusted a couple times before they moved, and then they only rattled against their own restraints. And then I was shaking every door, lifting and pushing, pulling and easing, and the pigs began to whistle and snort anxiously, and then—the gates swung open as one. Two thousand pigs stepped daintily into freedom.
Pigs are omnivorous. Pigs eat people all the time. And some of these pigs were big, with fierce tusks and eyes full of rage. The kind of totally understandable rage you’d have if you spent your whole life in a cage so small you could not turn around.
And once they were out, when it was too late to turn back—that’s when it occurred to me to be afraid. They might eat me, I thought.
They stood still, or wandered around, snuffling nervously, socializing awkwardly. Once again, as I had at Bastien’s party, I pierced the veil of separation. I understood that the same divine spark lived inside of them. I could feel on my skin, in my arms, in my brain, the army of docile minds at my command. When I turned and headed for the exit, they followed me.
Here is something you maybe don’t know. Up close, like really close, close enough to make eye contact and feel weird about it . . . Pigs are freaky. There is something so close to human about their faces. And something so intelligent, too. If science discovered tomorrow that pigs were a race of hyperintelligent aliens who had spent thousands of years studying humanity to prepare for some horrific mass extermination, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.
Pigs are monstrous-looking things. And I marched my own army of monsters into town.
As we moved, I wrapped myself in a thick wide cloud of pheromone smell, a fog that said, Do not look here, there is nothing to see, there is no one, which was as close as I could come to an invisibility cloak.
They grew boisterous as we marched. They had never experienced freedom before. They had never felt night air on their skin. They made loud noises. They rooted in garbage. They fought. They did not mind the cold. Whether through pheromones or mere force of will, I controlled them as effortlessly as my own arms. And as we went, my anger seeped into them.
I felt the layout of the town ahead of me. Smelled where everyone who had ever done me wrong was sleeping. I broke two hundred pigs off from the pack, sent them to Ott’s house. I sent two hundred more to the high school.
Destroy, I told them. Break windows, tusk down doors, get inside, roar, squeal, swarm, rip down curtains, shred paintings, crush toys. Harm no people, but ruin everything they own. Make them wish they were dead. Eat whatever you can eat. Shit on everything.
Lights went on as we walked. Screams sounded. I felt bad, knowing how many good and innocent people would be terrified in their beds by my squealing army. And dimly, distantly, I wondered if so much collateral damage was necessary, when who I really wanted to hurt was my father.
But no. There were lots of people I really wanted to hurt. And I would get to all of them.
McDonald’s. Wal-Mart. The correctional facility. Everywhere people made a living exploiting other people, working them like animals, I broke off a smaller group of pigs to decimate and disrupt. And I could see them, hear their breath and watch the world through their eyes. Feel their joy at shattering glass, snarfing down gaping mouthfuls of frozen french fries, shredding stuffed animals, tipping pharmacy shelves into a domino effect of chain reaction chaos. I tasted the food they ate. But it did not diminish my hunger.
I took my pigs through the rich neighborhood. I ravaged every expensive beautiful thing I would never have. And each new spray of broken glass thrilled me, rocked me with waves of pleasure. Every act of violence and destruction thrummed in my body like a chord on the guitar of me. To punish the guilty, to destroy the proud—it felt good, righteous, intoxicating, like when you beat a hard level in a video game.
But when each act was over, I was hungry again. Hollow again. Violence temporarily filled the void, but it faded fast, and the void remained. Cold emptiness and the sound of sirens.
I took off my shoes, felt the frozen earth beneath me. Felt every single fire. Breathed out, fed them oxygen, saw them swell. I fanned the flames with every step I took. A hundred spiraling swirls of flame blossomed behind me as we moved.
A gun shot. Two gun shots, followed by pigs shrieking. Pain flared through my shoulders, where one of my pigs had been shot. The other pigs felt it, too, the agony threaded through all of us as we shared one porcine mind. They squealed as one, and then they got angrier.
By the time I got to where I was going, I had sent so many off on separate missions of violent mayhem that I only had three hundred pigs left, but that was more than enough to utterly destroy Bastien’s house. At a clap of my hands they charged the doors. Two climbed onto the backs of others, to better bash in windows. Smash, I thought, ravage. Crush, dismantle, gut, mutilate—the thesaurus pulsed in my veins, the sheer pleasure of words combining with the joy of violence.
I smelled them inside. Both of them.
“Come out!” I called to Bastien, but mostly his father, this man who could so heartlessly make decisions that hurt so many people, and never be punished for it, and would in fact most likely be rewarded, promoted, considered a hero for putting more money into the pockets of corporate shareholders.
Silence. My pigs paused, listening.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” I said gleefully, laughing, quoting a movie monster. “We’re just going to bash your brains out!”
Pigs poured through the broken-down door. They charged up the twin staircases, barreled into the kitchen and dining room. Broke beautiful expensive things in an orgy of glee.
Remember: throughout this process, I was barely half-present. Watching myself move, somewhere between joy and terror. Controlling the pigs, telling them where to go and what to do . . . it never occurred to me to wonder, Can I do this crazy thing? I stretched out my arms, and it was done.
So when I held out both hands, palms up, and then reached out—feeling my reach go beyond my physical body, felt it go beyond the limitations of time and space. I felt like I could have grabbed anything, a fistful of the sun, a rock from Jupiter, my father. I would get to him next, when I finished this warm-up. He was the main event. For right now, what I wanted was much closer.