The Goodbyes
by Colin Giroux
Fleshy, grotesque bodies surround me at all sides. I can’t move, but there’s hardly anywhere for me to go anyway. The walls that tightly press us all together are made of tin and, as I’ve tried, can’t be penetrated, much unlike the heaps of hay and mud in our pen that some pigs will bury themselves into to sleep.
On most days, I don’t even bother to get up; I just lie in place like some pink, swollen, misshapen blob. But today I owe it to the rest of the pigs to at least say goodbye. In a few hours, I’m to be slaughtered. I overheard the farmers talking a few days ago. Today, it’ll be me, then tomorrow, it’ll be Ginger, Peaches, and Blossom, and so on. By the end of the week, all of us will be dead. Surprisingly, I’m as content as someone on death row could be. In fact, I’d accepted the inevitability of my gruesome death months ago. I overheard the farmers talking—eavesdropping is, after all, how I’ve accumulated the majority of my knowledge (the daily announcements over the intercom system also helped). As a wee piglet especially, you can bet it was a horrifying revelation to learn that I was being raised and fattened for slaughter. For days after first learning the truth, I ran around the pen squealing my little lungs out, begging for someone to hear me, to save me. But the farmers ignored me, and the other pigs didn’t react in the slightest. It isn’t like the other pigs could’ve reacted anyway.
No one else in my litter is like me. I feel like I would’ve been able to see it in their eyes if they were also aware, but every time their bulging stare meets my own, I see only a blank, glassy nothing. I envy these other pigs and their ignorant existence. They just eat and sleep and that’s it, while I’m stuck with these constant, every-firing thoughts.
I think it was the chemicals they injected us with that made me cognizant, sentient—whatever you want to call it. That’s also probably why Hester has an extra tail, Cosmos and Juniper are conjoined, and all of us grew to be three times larger than we ever should’ve been. Looking around, I can’t see why anybody would possibly want to eat us. I know what becomes of our bodies after our deaths, but I still can’t believe it.
When I rise from my resting place around the middle of the pen, my stubby legs wobble. They can barely support the weight of my massive body. I take a few steps, pushing past and, at times, stepping on the bodies lying all around me. At one point, I accidentally crush Charlie’s tail under my hoof, causing him to yelp and leap up into the air.
Sorry, I say. It comes out as a squeal, but he can’t understand me anyway. He merely looks at me then crashes back to the floor, snoozing. Once I’m away from the cluster of sleeping pigs, I begin to make my rounds, squealing my goodbyes to any pig that’s up. They all just blink to me stupidly in response. Still, it’s nice to have this closure. I should be lucky, really; most never get the chance to say goodbye. I never got to say goodbye to my mother. My litter was her final one. A week after having us, she was slaughtered.
I check the time from the clock in its metal cage on the wall. I have an hour or so left before the farmers come for me. I pick up my pace, goodbye-ing my way through the pen. Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye! I try to sound joyful because I don’t want my final minutes of life to be sad ones. It’s honestly more for the other pigs than my own wellbeing. I want to leave them with a happy image of myself, ending things on a positive note so to speak. I get how that’s ironic—the other pigs probably don’t have the capacity to tell if I’m happy or sad. At least, I believe most of the other pigs don’t have the capacity.
I have a hunch. There’s this one pig, okay? Last week, from across the troughs, I saw a flicker of something in her eyes. I still can’t pinpoint exactly what it was, but I know for a fact that it was greater than the empty, glass nothing I see when I look in all the other pigs’ eyes. For the first time, perhaps, in my entire existence, I had hope there was another like me. And hope is such a precious thing too. I haven’t had the courage to go up to this pig in particular, fearing this hope will instantly be quashed. But now, in what I know are my final moments of life, I think: It’s now or never. What do I have to lose?
I do want to make one thing clear first: This goes beyond just wanting to know whether this pig is cognizant or not. In this past week alone, my hope of her potential sentience has grown into something even greater and more pure… That means if our interaction doesn’t go the way I pray it does, the fall’s going to be even higher and hurt even more. But it’s worth the risk. I know it is. I know it is.
Her name is Virginia. I find her sleeping in the very corner of the pen by herself. As I approach, her ear perks up and she lifts her head to me and sniffs.
My mouth goes dry. I can’t find my voice. There’s so much I know I want to say to her, but now, it’s as if I’ve misplaced my jar of words. I imagine Virginia waiting for me to speak, but I simply stare at her, speechless.
Virginia’s head drops back to the floor. Just as she’s about to nod off once more, the words explode out of me. I tell Virginia how she graces my dreams. I tell her how I love the way her nose presses into her face when she snorts; the way the feed dribbles out of the side of her mouth when she eats; the way her body moves and twists, mesmerizing me as she rolls in the mud. Virginia, Virginia, Virginia. I wish we could be together. I wish I told you this sooner, but I was afraid—afraid that you won’t feel the same way because you can’t feel like that. But I’m not afraid anymore. Virginia, I’ve always loved you, and I’ll keep loving you even when you and I are both gone. You’ll be my final thought in this world, and my first thought in the next.
When I’m done speaking, my hooves are buzzing with adrenaline and my ears are flared pink (pinker than normal, that is). I stare at Virginia, waiting for a response, waiting to see if she can even give me a response. Please Virginia! Please be like me!
I keep waiting… and waiting. It’s too painful for me to watch when her eyelids slide back shut, so I imagine Virginia sitting up and repeating back everything I said. In my head, she tells me she feels the same way, and I blink back tears.
Oh Virginia! I picture myself lying next to her and spending the final few minutes of my life, for the first time, happy.
But that fantasy quickly dematerializes. Fantasies rarely last that long after all. Reality returns to me once more, as if I’ve just exited out of a dark tunnel and have to be readjusted to my surroundings. I see Virginia sleeping in the corner, oblivious to me. I’ve known all along that she doesn’t have the capacity to understand me, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
I slump on the floor at the opposite end of the pen and count down my final minutes alone until the farmers come to take me away. When they do, I feel a surge within me, a desire to plead, to beg to stay, to fight. I always imagined myself going willingly, but the truth is I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die! I become frantic as the farmers lasso a rope around my neck and begin to lead me away. I try to dig my hooves in and resist, but one of them smacks me from beyond with a long metal rod and I get shuffled out of the pen into a metal corridor.
I’m squealing, but not on my own accord. It’s as if some bestial, instinctual cry is burning in my lungs. I’m going full animal, losing all the dignity of my sentience in an instance. I’m screaming and fighting and biting. Another smack from the metal rod shuts me up, and I reclaim back some of my awareness.
I need to show them. The thought rings in my head as we get closer and closer to my doom. I need to show them that I’m like them—and not like the other pigs. Not like Blossoms or Cherry or Charlie or… Virginia. No, I’m human. I suck in a shaky breath. I’m human.
I thrash my head in my noose to try and find the eyes of one of the farmers. If they could just see—see that there’s more in my eyes than a glassy nothing, maybe they’ll know too.
But the farmers are solemn. None of them look at me.
Dread sinks in, but I don’t give up. I try to speak to them, but my words come out as squeals that the farmers can’t decode.
I’m one of you! I try to say. Please, I’m one of you!
But almost as soon as I finish speaking (squealing), I immediately see the faults in my words. I’m not one of them. I’m not really a human—as if that wasn’t evident from my four hooves, snout, tail, and obtuse pink form. If not a human—and if not a pig either—what am I?
We arrive at the slaughterhouse, where it finally dawns on me, leaving me with nothing left to mull over, nothing left to question or debate. It’s an almost mocking thought—I’m meat.
On most days, I don’t even bother to get up; I just lie in place like some pink, swollen, misshapen blob. But today I owe it to the rest of the pigs to at least say goodbye. In a few hours, I’m to be slaughtered. I overheard the farmers talking a few days ago. Today, it’ll be me, then tomorrow, it’ll be Ginger, Peaches, and Blossom, and so on. By the end of the week, all of us will be dead. Surprisingly, I’m as content as someone on death row could be. In fact, I’d accepted the inevitability of my gruesome death months ago. I overheard the farmers talking—eavesdropping is, after all, how I’ve accumulated the majority of my knowledge (the daily announcements over the intercom system also helped). As a wee piglet especially, you can bet it was a horrifying revelation to learn that I was being raised and fattened for slaughter. For days after first learning the truth, I ran around the pen squealing my little lungs out, begging for someone to hear me, to save me. But the farmers ignored me, and the other pigs didn’t react in the slightest. It isn’t like the other pigs could’ve reacted anyway.
No one else in my litter is like me. I feel like I would’ve been able to see it in their eyes if they were also aware, but every time their bulging stare meets my own, I see only a blank, glassy nothing. I envy these other pigs and their ignorant existence. They just eat and sleep and that’s it, while I’m stuck with these constant, every-firing thoughts.
I think it was the chemicals they injected us with that made me cognizant, sentient—whatever you want to call it. That’s also probably why Hester has an extra tail, Cosmos and Juniper are conjoined, and all of us grew to be three times larger than we ever should’ve been. Looking around, I can’t see why anybody would possibly want to eat us. I know what becomes of our bodies after our deaths, but I still can’t believe it.
When I rise from my resting place around the middle of the pen, my stubby legs wobble. They can barely support the weight of my massive body. I take a few steps, pushing past and, at times, stepping on the bodies lying all around me. At one point, I accidentally crush Charlie’s tail under my hoof, causing him to yelp and leap up into the air.
Sorry, I say. It comes out as a squeal, but he can’t understand me anyway. He merely looks at me then crashes back to the floor, snoozing. Once I’m away from the cluster of sleeping pigs, I begin to make my rounds, squealing my goodbyes to any pig that’s up. They all just blink to me stupidly in response. Still, it’s nice to have this closure. I should be lucky, really; most never get the chance to say goodbye. I never got to say goodbye to my mother. My litter was her final one. A week after having us, she was slaughtered.
I check the time from the clock in its metal cage on the wall. I have an hour or so left before the farmers come for me. I pick up my pace, goodbye-ing my way through the pen. Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye! I try to sound joyful because I don’t want my final minutes of life to be sad ones. It’s honestly more for the other pigs than my own wellbeing. I want to leave them with a happy image of myself, ending things on a positive note so to speak. I get how that’s ironic—the other pigs probably don’t have the capacity to tell if I’m happy or sad. At least, I believe most of the other pigs don’t have the capacity.
I have a hunch. There’s this one pig, okay? Last week, from across the troughs, I saw a flicker of something in her eyes. I still can’t pinpoint exactly what it was, but I know for a fact that it was greater than the empty, glass nothing I see when I look in all the other pigs’ eyes. For the first time, perhaps, in my entire existence, I had hope there was another like me. And hope is such a precious thing too. I haven’t had the courage to go up to this pig in particular, fearing this hope will instantly be quashed. But now, in what I know are my final moments of life, I think: It’s now or never. What do I have to lose?
I do want to make one thing clear first: This goes beyond just wanting to know whether this pig is cognizant or not. In this past week alone, my hope of her potential sentience has grown into something even greater and more pure… That means if our interaction doesn’t go the way I pray it does, the fall’s going to be even higher and hurt even more. But it’s worth the risk. I know it is. I know it is.
Her name is Virginia. I find her sleeping in the very corner of the pen by herself. As I approach, her ear perks up and she lifts her head to me and sniffs.
My mouth goes dry. I can’t find my voice. There’s so much I know I want to say to her, but now, it’s as if I’ve misplaced my jar of words. I imagine Virginia waiting for me to speak, but I simply stare at her, speechless.
Virginia’s head drops back to the floor. Just as she’s about to nod off once more, the words explode out of me. I tell Virginia how she graces my dreams. I tell her how I love the way her nose presses into her face when she snorts; the way the feed dribbles out of the side of her mouth when she eats; the way her body moves and twists, mesmerizing me as she rolls in the mud. Virginia, Virginia, Virginia. I wish we could be together. I wish I told you this sooner, but I was afraid—afraid that you won’t feel the same way because you can’t feel like that. But I’m not afraid anymore. Virginia, I’ve always loved you, and I’ll keep loving you even when you and I are both gone. You’ll be my final thought in this world, and my first thought in the next.
When I’m done speaking, my hooves are buzzing with adrenaline and my ears are flared pink (pinker than normal, that is). I stare at Virginia, waiting for a response, waiting to see if she can even give me a response. Please Virginia! Please be like me!
I keep waiting… and waiting. It’s too painful for me to watch when her eyelids slide back shut, so I imagine Virginia sitting up and repeating back everything I said. In my head, she tells me she feels the same way, and I blink back tears.
Oh Virginia! I picture myself lying next to her and spending the final few minutes of my life, for the first time, happy.
But that fantasy quickly dematerializes. Fantasies rarely last that long after all. Reality returns to me once more, as if I’ve just exited out of a dark tunnel and have to be readjusted to my surroundings. I see Virginia sleeping in the corner, oblivious to me. I’ve known all along that she doesn’t have the capacity to understand me, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
I slump on the floor at the opposite end of the pen and count down my final minutes alone until the farmers come to take me away. When they do, I feel a surge within me, a desire to plead, to beg to stay, to fight. I always imagined myself going willingly, but the truth is I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die! I become frantic as the farmers lasso a rope around my neck and begin to lead me away. I try to dig my hooves in and resist, but one of them smacks me from beyond with a long metal rod and I get shuffled out of the pen into a metal corridor.
I’m squealing, but not on my own accord. It’s as if some bestial, instinctual cry is burning in my lungs. I’m going full animal, losing all the dignity of my sentience in an instance. I’m screaming and fighting and biting. Another smack from the metal rod shuts me up, and I reclaim back some of my awareness.
I need to show them. The thought rings in my head as we get closer and closer to my doom. I need to show them that I’m like them—and not like the other pigs. Not like Blossoms or Cherry or Charlie or… Virginia. No, I’m human. I suck in a shaky breath. I’m human.
I thrash my head in my noose to try and find the eyes of one of the farmers. If they could just see—see that there’s more in my eyes than a glassy nothing, maybe they’ll know too.
But the farmers are solemn. None of them look at me.
Dread sinks in, but I don’t give up. I try to speak to them, but my words come out as squeals that the farmers can’t decode.
I’m one of you! I try to say. Please, I’m one of you!
But almost as soon as I finish speaking (squealing), I immediately see the faults in my words. I’m not one of them. I’m not really a human—as if that wasn’t evident from my four hooves, snout, tail, and obtuse pink form. If not a human—and if not a pig either—what am I?
We arrive at the slaughterhouse, where it finally dawns on me, leaving me with nothing left to mull over, nothing left to question or debate. It’s an almost mocking thought—I’m meat.
Colin Giroux is a current student at the University of Southern California. He's from Chicago, Illinois.