While his brothers went to the big sow for their fourteenth daily ablactation, the small piglet wandered out of the barn and to the far side of the farm, where a little wooden fence stood, in the little abandoned corner of the yard. Here the grass grew long and unchecked. No scythe had been taken to it in many seasons. Weeds sprouted from between the dirt and the fencepost. And the little pig stuck his snout between the rotten planks.

“If you do not eat you won’t grow big, like your brothers,” said a sheepdog on the other side of the fence.

“How did you get on the other side of the fence?” said the piglet.

“The farmer let me out,” said the dog.

“Oh?” said the pig. “How will you get back in?”

“The farmer will let me in,” said the dog.

The piglet thought about this. “Is it true what the chickens say? Will the farmer eat me for breakfast, like he eats their chicks?”

“He doesn’t eat the chicks,” said the dog. “He eats the eggs.”

“Same difference.”

“Alright, well, yes. Most likely you will be bacon, some morning. But probably not until much later, when you’ve forgotten this.”

“Don’t think I will,” said the pig. “I think I’m going to escape.”

“You can’t,” said the dog. “Even if you did, there’s nowhere for you to go. It’s only humans that have roads and houses and cities. There are no pig roads.”

“Then I will make one,” said the piglet.

“Well you can’t.”

The pig squinted at the dog. It is an eerie thing, to be squinted at by a pig. “Then I will eat the farmer.”

“You can’t.”

“Then I will eat you!”

“You can’t.”

“Then I will eat myself!” And the pig did just that. First he ate his hoofs, and then his little legs, his pot belly, his haunches, even his curly pink tail, he sucked up his fine hairs, his neck, and devoured his head, snout and all. Finally nothing was left of the pig, not even the peculiar scent of him.

The dog stared, dumbstruck. In fact, he never spoke again.