Kill the Pig

I killed someone last night. I can't blame myself, really. It was "kill or be killed" with her. Self-defense.

In fact, I thought I had killed her in 2001. I thought she was a goner and that all that was left was to wait until she wasted away and there was no more trace of her.

But I was wrong. In 2001, she only suffered a near-fatal injury. My fault was in not starving her the rest of the way. She was in the coffin for sure, but every so often, I opened the lid and threw her a sandwich. And now, 8 years later, I realize she has come back with a vengeance. She snuck back, creaked open the coffin lid and crawled out without my knowledge. And she's been living it up.

Until yesterday.

The words of Katherine Pierpoint (in her insightful poem, "This Dead Relationship") are so apropos:

I carry a dead relationship around everywhere with me.

It's my hobby.

How lucky to have a job that's also my hobby,

To do it all the time. . .

This dead relationship.

Or not yet dead.

Or dead and half-eaten,

One eye and one flank open, like a sheep under a hedge.

Or dead but still farting like the bodies in the trenches,

Exploding with their own gas. Hair and nails still growing. . .

This dead relationship.

I am this thing's twin.

One of us is dead

And we don't know which, we are so close.

Yes, with her it really is "kill or be killed." I have decided that I want to live. And I'll be damned if I'm going to carry her around with me forever either. She's dead, and now she's going to shrink away until she's gone completely.

But, as Pierpoint pointed out, I can't yet be absolutely certain that she's completely dead. She may be "not yet dead." She fooled me once. So this time, there will be no sandwiches under the coffin lid when no one is looking. There will be no doubt. I have nailed the coffin closed, and I am sitting on the lid. And I will stay there until she is gone for good.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. She will waste away to nothing this time.

That might take a while. After all, when I killed her last night, she weighed 136 pounds. How long does it take for 136 pounds to waste away?

Well, no matter how long it takes, I can wait. It's better than carrying her dead weight around for the rest of my life. There is hostility in that last statement, and I'm surprised by that. After all, as Pierpoint pointed out, I am this thing's twin. And I never realized until now just how much I hate her.

So, I may not have dealt her a fatal blow last night, but it doesn't matter. She's in the coffin. The lid is nailed shut. And if she's still breathing even the least little bit, she'll starve to death inside. Her 136 pounds is about to come face-to-face with her new best friend, Anorexia.


In 2003, I read Lord of the Flies for the first time. I thought, then, that William Golding was a seriously disturbed man. But now I feel a distant thundering in my soul, a sudden connection to the terrifying chant of the unsupervised, savage boys:

"Kill the pig! Cut her throat! Spill her blood!"