Edna
In a distant, grey village north of the planet lived a young sow named Edna.
She was tall and sturdy but had nothing special to turn the heads of the pigs in the area.
In the past, she had deluded herself by saying that she was a young starlet ready for television success like the more famous PeppaPigma. But unfortunately for her, every dream had ended in a dustbin because she had let herself go with no chance of a comeback after a series of love misadventures.
Every day was the same for the sow. She spent time behind the windows of her shack spying enviously and jealously on the animals, her neighbours, seen as more fortunate and beautiful, while swallowing tonnes of chips and stale cookies, becoming heavier and uglier because of this.
But still, she uselessly demanded a red carpet under her paws whenever she roamed the country and an ‘importance that no one, except her pig relative, could give her.
Cockslodge
The farm where Edna lived was nothing special.
It had once been a huge, luxurious, well-maintained home for a rooster and his purple hens, which is why it had been called Cockslodge, inspired by English friends who vulgarly called the male hens “Cocks.”
But after the arrival of the avian flu, all the birds were abandoned to their fate and fat pigs took over the house.
Without talent and intelligence, accustomed to living on handouts and theft, they turned that elegant house into a derelict one.
Now Cockslodge was just a long street built on old pyrite mines, where old and popular tin shacks stood perched like owls on dry branches, choking the only small store run by a couple of lemurs trying to survive among the poverty hidden or exposed in the pockets of those pigs.
Most of these four-legged zombies were indeed old and shabby and wandered around aimlessly, showing toothless mouths or wide, bald skulls. The younger ones, on the other hand, lived by the day after lowering all barriers to alcohol and drugs created with the mandrake they secretly cultivated in the back of their enclosures, so in the end, in that strangeness, no one could utter a single syllable with any precise meaning apart from their vague and unmistakable “Oinkpet Oinkpetpet Oinkmipet.”.
Only the naive Edna tried to be the centre of attention whenever she put her fat ass out the side door of the hut, thinking she was attractive and interesting in a short red and blue plaid skirt cut out of an English flag stuck to a branch near the window, where she spent hours and perhaps years spying on the neighbours. This skirt that barely covered her large paws fit perfectly with a rag of the same colour clinging clumsily to her long ears tattooed by an ignorant and vulgar peasant equal to Enna a few years earlier after an argument for trivial reasons but not content. Thinking to be sexier, the sow hurriedly piled her long yellowish hairs on her broad head, managing to transform herself into an obscene and horrible freak show clown.
Edna did not have much to do during her day once she got her little piggy back from the local school.
She was just vulgar, ugly, ignorant, and mean, so she would sit most of the day hiding behind the battered curtains made from the usual English flag, wondering angrily what she had done wrong to find herself so fat and unfamiliar.
But the unhappy sow and a liar even to herself knew perfectly well the origin of her every misadventure, so she would close her eyes and ears as soon as possible while she swallowed a mandrake drink and, intoxicated by the poison of the planta, she would sink into a deep sleep so as not to hurt herself with her own poison.
But especially on full moon nights, that incessant nastiness and dissatisfaction returned to her stingy heart and uncontrolled words pulsed in her broad head without respite:
“You are jealous and envious of all that is best about you, including the richest manure of your pig friends,” shouted a small voice in her sick mind.
“You have ruined yourself with your own hands by thinking that a pest and a piglet could set you on the road to success. But unfortunately, the voice continued, “You were dropped into the deepest tar-filled, slime-filled puddle that lies three feet from the back door of your shack.”
Edna clutched the pillow tightly, trying not to cry out so as not to wake the little piglet and parasite lying next to her, deeply asleep after swallowing the same mandrake drink.
The worst started as soon as she learned that there were three newcomers to the Cockslodge farm. After a few years of this suffering, the nasty stuff that had been hidden in her dry, discoloured heart started to grow unchecked.
Newcomers to Cockslodge
They were a pair of felines and a canine, possessing copious amounts of gold coins that they utilised for journeys to far-off and exotic locations, pricey goods, artwork, and delectable cuisine. Above all, though, they were free from foolish, clucking pigs to manage and no mandrake drink concealed the truth from them.
The reason behind their visit to that pitiful farm remained a mystery to all, but a few clever pigs questioned the possibility that they were secret agents sent to spy on and apprehend the group of miscreants.
Sadly, Edna became even more envious and jealous of this newcomer, and her skin tone gradually turned from pig pink to an acid green.
In front of the mirror, she moaned incoherently in her broken English, “Oh, poor this pet. I am getting as ugly as a real witch and soon even my stupid little piggy will have trouble introducing me to the other mothers of his school friends.”
I really need to try hiding this new colour as soon as I can.”
So, over the next few days, she bought moisturisers and laid for hours in the pale sunshine, trying to burn off the grease on her wrinkled skin to bring back a pink complexion, at least on her broad square face. But all was in vain.
His mind raced towards the success of the newcomers in every moment of his useless life, like an angry river without banks.
The Parasite
The parasite, a simple amoeba, Edna’s companion, hitherto indifferent to the sow’s ‘envy and jealousy, decided to calm her down by furnishing her malodorous and disused yard with gymnastic implements and encourage her towards a healthier life, forgetting forever that strange obsession that gripped her arid and uncivilised heart.
She bought these gymnastic implements on “epets” for a few coins and within five days they appeared like sunken shipwrecks in her backyard, covered with tar and foul-smelling slime, where only the rude little piggy could resist.
Contrary to the expectations of the ‘Amoeba , the sow decided to use the height of these gymnastic implements to better spy on those who were ruining her life. So on the same day of their arrival, Edna began to jump like a heavy, graceless kangaroo on the trampoline to see what was going on behind the fence and soon her jumps became daring and unpredictable because of that insane curiosity and fury hidden in her bitter bile.
The spectacle for the neighbours was almost amusing to see the poor, desperate sow wiggling like a demon,while with her giraffe neck, she tried to see what was going on in the house of the mysterious neighbours.
The incident
But one day, the heaviness of her wide derriere betrayed Edna’s athletic expectations.
As she jumped without respect for herself and her neighbours, hissing between her tight lips now green with envy, “I’ll kill you”, the trampoline suddenly gave way, and the poor sow in less than two seconds sank into the putrid slime of the quagmire, creating an endless chasm in the ground below.
At that point, the old pyrite mine, dormant until that moment, awoke and became hungry like an old dinosaur, opening its jaws wide and swallowing the poor sow. Everything was so fast that no one noticed this comic tragedy. The mine, an unusual creature of Cockslodge, did not complain for a second but, on the contrary, thought that it was a good lunch after all those years of forced fasting. Only one thing was not appreciated and quickly regurgitated it in disgust after a few minutes.
The Happy End
After a few days, the disconsolate little pig found in the pigsty behind the shed that little piece that the sow held proudly on her big head, but he did not seek any explanation because the little brain was too busy playing with the gymnastic implements bought by his father. And meanwhile, the pest — what was he doing? Well, after Edna’s disappearance, he did not flinch, as usual. He was too busy smoking his mandrake and shouting to the world that he was not a parasite.
Laura Bernardeschi Nelson artworld and travels 