Ryan linked me this picture and told me he thought I might enjoy making up a story in my head as to how this picture arose.
So I decided to write out a whole story to him, and now I'm going to share it here because I never go to effort with things unless I can blog it to the whole 5 people who read this.
Also listen to this as it is relevant to the story.
The Riverside.
So there was this pig, and his mother, a sow always told him that one day he would get to learn to swim.
But unfortunately for this pig he was born in a pig factory.
He never got to see more water than the bucket in the corner of the 2 square metre pen that he shared with his siblings.
He didn't mind too much though because he knew nothing else, and at night, after the day is over and the pigs that are going to be taken away are taken away ,
(where do they go? They don't come back)
his mother would sing him a song.
It went:
"Down by the river, by the boats,
Where everybody goes to be alone,
Where you won't see any rising sun,
Down to the river, we will run."
And so it went that every night the pig would fall asleep with this tune in his head imagining running down to a river.
He didn't even really know what a river was, but he liked the idea.
He heard it was more water than you can ever drink, and it was clean water too.
He liked that idea because usually there wasn't much water at all, and when there was it was very very dirty.
Despite the rumours that he sometimes heard the factory workers saying, pigs actually like to be clean.
His grandparents used to bathe in muck when the were allowed outside but that was because apparently there is a fire in the sky outside, so you need some way to cool down.
This little piglet always wanted to try this out. He thought it sounded great. Being outside. Seeing a fire float in the sky!
These were this thoughts as he drifts off to sleep.
And so when he dreamt, he dreamt that he was human.
He dreamt he was outside at some building, drinking some unfathomable liquid that made you feel good.
It made you happy, and carefree. And he dreamt that he was drinking it with a human woman.
In his dream he felt elated.
He had feelings he had never had before, but he noticed he wasn't completely in control of his body.
Was this was down to the drink, or maybe this was all just a dream?
This thought quickly fled his mind as the woman (because that's what human females are called this piglet knew) took his hand and brought him down to the riverside.
Sitting by the river she started to sing a song to the exact same tune as his mother would sing.
It went:
"When by the water we drink to the dregs,
Look at the stones on the riverbed,
I can tell from your eyes,
You've never been to the riverside".
And upon this last lyric he woke up again, to hear his mother continuing the tune.
"Down by the water, the riverbed,
Somebody calls you sombody says,
Swim with the current and float away,
Down by the river every day."
This thought made him feel positive today.
It was a good way to wake up.
To wake up dreaming of better places.
So he spent his day as he spent everyday, in his pen with his family, but today was positive.
Until today became different...
See sometimes mum was taken away for treatment by the human workers, and she always came back.
But today she didn't come back...
She was gone for so long and this piglet was worried. His brothers and sisters didn't seem to take much notice, but come that night they were all separated.
Each was put into a new pen with less pigs in them, but they were bigger pigs.
This piglet knew something bad had happened. He had heard that you only get to live with your mother for so long, but how could he fall asleep tonight? Where was his mother?
So for the longest time he lay there, until it was no longer night but was day again.
That day went much the same as his previous days with his family; He stayed in the pen all day.
Throughout the day he heard talk from pigs in pens nearby that his mother had been taken away, as all pigs are when they come of age.
This made piglet terribly sad since he knew in his heart, no matter what he hoped, he would never see her again.
So that night when it came time to sleep he said goodbye to his mother in his own way.
He picked up her song and added to it.
It went:
"Oh my god, I see,
How everything is torn, in the river deep.
And I don't know why, I go,
The way, down by the riverside"
And with that thought he fell asleep.
And once again he dreamt.
This time he dreamt he was by the biggest amount of water he had ever seen.
There was heat coming from the roof, it didn't look like any ceiling he had ever seen before though. He couldn't even see where it stopped!
There was some sort of natural light in the sky too. This must be the ball of fire he had heard about.
He thought to himself that even humans could have no power to turn that off!
And there were massive white curtains in the sky that could block it out, but they moved in the wind and came and went and it seemed like everything was in harmony.
As he stared at this scene he heard his mother talking from behind him.
He turned around but she wasn't there.
He was alone.
But again as he turned back to face this mass of water, he heard his mother again. She told him that now he would learn to swim.
Knowing she wasn't behind him he approached the water, thinking that this must surely be what a river was.
So much clean water could surely be nothing other than a mighty river, he certainly couldn't drink that much water anyway!
And so he ran into the water.
While there he decided now he would finish his mother's song.
It ended:
"When that old river runs past your eyes,
To wash off the dirt on the riverside.
Go to the water so very near,
The river will be your eyes and ears.
I walk to the borders on my own,
To fall in the water just like a stone,
Chilled to the marrow in them bones,
Why do I go here all alone.
Oh my god, I see, how everything is torn, in the river deep.
And I don't know why, I go, the way, down by, the riverside..
Oh my god, I see, how everything is torn, in the river deep.
And I don't know why, I go, the way, down by the riverside..
Oh ohh, why, Oh ohh why, Oh ohh, why..
Down by, the riverside.
Down by, the riverside"
