World Spins Madly On

Pigs on Fire : Chapter 1

The car pulled out of the driveway and Nathan took one last look up at the house he had lived in all his life. This was it now, just minutes later, and he would be out of town forever. The house that had been his life, to him would be gone. He at least wouldn’t be here for many years, he knew that. That’s about all he did know just now. He didn’t know where he was going, well, apart from that it was called Hagton: a place he’d never heard of in all his life, and a place he knew absolutely nothing about. He didn’t know where he was going.

His new school would be Hagton Academy. His new house would be 27 Birchway Gardens. His new lifewould be in Hagton. He had no idea what was going to happen to him. And he was scared. He was also angry; it was bad enough his life being torn apart, but now for him to be expected to forget the first fifteen years of his life, to pretend they never happened. But they had happened, and for the most part they had been happy. They had been normal. Then she died.

The silence was broken as his father put on the radio and started to play about with it in his mission to find something worth listening to, or just something to break the silence. Somehow make him feel better about himself, to pretend everything was going to be OK. Why couldn’t he just accept what had happened?

He continued flicking through channels whilst giving majority attention to the road. An array of musical genres circulated Nathan. He almost shouted out to leave it on a station, but quickly hushed himself. His father had never listened to anything he had had to say before on any such matters, why should he now.

Why should anything be different now? No matter how hard Nathan ever tried he would never be able to forget what had happened, and he didn’t want to. He would never forget his mother. He would never forget his old home, his old friends, what would soon become his old life. The only person who had ever actually ever listened to him and treated with respect, since her death, was his uncle. But even he had tried to convince Nathan the move would be for the best, that a fresh start would help them move on. Then him and dad had fallen out that same day, and Nathan could guess what over.

“Dammit, I forgot to fill up the tank before we left, we’ll have to stop in somewhere before lunch.”

Nathan replayed in his mind the last time they left town. The last time he had seen the beaches, the sea, the go-karting, the bowling, and all the other landmarks. The place he had always said was “boring”, the place he had always planned to leave as soon as he was old enough, the place he would give anything to be staying in. Why couldn’t his father see he didn’t need to move on, he’dhad enough change. He didn’t need any more change. Why couldn’t he see that?

“Nathan, please stop ignoring me when I’m speaking to you, when are we going to get past this.” Past what? He didn’t want to be past anything, he wanted to be back.

He turned his head to look out of the bars of his moving prison. He could still see the sea in the distance. They were just passing the golf course where him and dad has used to go play. He remembered the first time he had went, but pushed all this out of his mind. He didn’t want to remember that. He didn’t want to remember a time he liked his father right now. But he had. Why had his father changed so much? He tried to think if it was just after the death.

He turned forward again, and closed his eyes. He felt so trapped. He felt so helpless. And he felt his anger building up inside him. Let him out of here. Stop dragging him forward. Just stop.

Nathan put on the most detestable voice he could manage, “I’m feeling sick, stop the car somewhere”. His father looked around slightly, a little unsure, but soon pulled into the side. Nathan swung open the car door and jumped out.

There were fields surrounding him, but a little along the busy road he found a path and decided to walk along a little. He needed some fresh air right now. Turning around he could see his father still with the car, and he seen the smoke rising. Nathan had known for several weeks now his father was smoking again. His attempts to keep his smoking, his one sign of weakness, that somewhere he had been damaged, a secret actually amused Nathan a little now. It also gave him a little comfort that under it all he was still feeling some pain, that as much as he pretended he hadn’t truly forgotten. So why move? Did he really believe that this was going to solve everything. That everything would be great and his dead mother would never have existed.

It was now late morning, and it was a nice day, weather wise. The sun was in the sky in front of him, decreasing his vision a little, and forcing him to look down. The stony path wound on through fields, and Nathan questioned whether he should be here. It appeared to be private land, but the path had seemed public.

He continued walking along, thinking to himself, breathing in the air. When he looked up he seen the outline of a barn, with what looked like several other small buildings and objects surrounding it. He decided it was now time to turn back. But there was something else up ahead. He heard it first.

The sound of the morning breeze was blown to pieces by a horrible screeching noise. It must have been some sort of animal, it sounded like it was screaming. Up ahead there was something even brighter than the sun now clearly visible, flames bursting from it. Some kind of animal was on fire, and running around in the distance, clearly in panic. What should he do? The creature charged inside the barn. Nathan stayed directly on the spot, unsure if he was to move, which way he should run. A gun shot was fired somewhere far ahead, it echoed all around. Another shot was fired a few seconds later. And the screaming stopped.

Whatever had just happened, Nathan was now sure he most definitely shouldn’t be here. He turned around and ran back to the car. Although he knew it must have been killing him, his father didn’t even ask where he had gone. However, he might have even gotten a response if he had bothered.

The car started up and pulled on. Pulled along the track of a destination unknown.

Nathan sat staring blankly in front, somewhat disturbed by what he had just witnessed, even though he hadn’t really witnessed anything. He tried to run explanations through his mind for what had just happened, but couldn’t really think of any. Finally he decided it must have just been time for the pig to die, for meat or whatever. Now he thought of it, it did sound like the sort of noise, he at least thought, pigs made.

But then why had it been on fire?

The whole thing had been very strange, but there was probably nothing sinister about it. He’d maybe even mis-seen it a little. The sun had been very bright.

He might mention it to dad later.

Nathan realised for the first time how hungry he was, but knew it would be some hours until they stopped for lunch.

They went on, soon joining the motorway. And the journey went on.