Glyph by Percival Everett

Author:Percival Everett
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-55597-086-4
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2013-08-22T04:00:00+00:00

ephexis

No Place for a Pig

Paisley Porkstein and his sisters Peggy, Polly, and Penelope Porkstein rode in the bed of a pink pickup. They were being transported from Paul’s Porkorama in Pomona to the Big Pig Pavilion in Palisades.

While the pickup pressed on along the parkway, Paisley Porkstein poked his head up and said, “I’m feeling piggy? What’s to eat?”

Peggy Porkstein, whose plaid panties peeked from beneath her putrid purple skirt said, “Pipe down, pipsqueak.”

But Paisley Porkstein paid her no mind. He looked at his plain little sister, Penelope Porkstein, and asked, “Wouldn’t a portion of porridge dispatch the emptiness in your potbelly?”

“Not another peep,” cried Polly Porkstein, pulling up her pedal pushers.

Paisley Porkstein peered at the procession of pickups traveling parallel to them. He pointed and said, “That pickup is packed with pecks of peaches, pecans, and pears. If only I could reach over and pluck one.”

“Not possible,” said Peggy Porkstein. “Besides, that would be pilfering.”

“Precisely,” said Polly. “The police might plug you for swiping a pear.”

Paisley Porkstein was positive though that pilfering one peach or pear or pecan from the pickup would not hurt. And when the pickups were packed tight in traffic, he pushed out his pig paw toward the pecks of produce.

“Please, pull back,” little plain Penelope Porkstein pleaded, perceiving peril.

But Paisley Porkstein persisted, pushing and pressing his pig fingers while his plump piggy toes held to the pink edge of his own pickup, the prospect of the peach and its principal parts pleasing his popping eyes.

Penelope Porkstein pulled on her ponytail, she was so nervous. Polly Porkstein pounded her fist against the truck, trying to persuade her paunchy brother to pull back. Peggy Porkstein pouted and called her brother “pigheaded.”

Paisley Porkstein pondered pulling back to pacify his sisters, but the other pickup pitched toward them and Paisley Porkstein saw it as his portal of opportunity and pounced with purpose on a peach. “I told you I would prevail, you pooh-pooher,” said the prankish porker. “I now possess a peach.”

Paisley Porkstein plied the peach from the pile and then plopped, with preterminal ponderings, to the pavement. The pig was about to panic as pickups and Plymouths and Peugeots passed by on the parkway, but the pungent perfume of the peach calmed him down.

Paisley Porkstein peered ahead to see Peggy and Polly and Penelope Porkstein disappear in the pink pickup from Paul’s Porkorama.

The paunchy pig then picked a path through the pickups and panel trucks and Pontiacs until his plumpness was panting at the shoulder of the parkway. “Phew!” he said. “Not a pretty picture.” Paisley Porkstein pondered his pitiful plight. “A particularly putrid predicament and all I got was this piddly peach. This is the pits.”

Paisly Porkstein looked at the parkway and then at the roadside and saw it was planted with portulaca and pennyworts and periwinkle and he thought, “How pretty.”

Then a pleasant pair of people in a puce Packard paused at the side of the parkway to peruse the put-upon pig. “This is no place for a pig,” the pleasant female person said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.