Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

legs and bowed in the direction of the huddled sows. He blew them a kiss. Despite the fact that dirty blood was still dripping from his nose and despite the fact that the blood had badly soiled his chest, the sows raised a chorus of cheers. That made him even more pleased with himself. Taking large, confident strides, he walked up next to me, grabbed the broken, fruit-laden limb with his teeth, and pulled it out from under my hindquarters. The insolent bastard! But I was still dizzy. La-la-la — La-ya la-la-ya-la — I just let my eyes follow him as he dragged the fruit-laden limb out from under me and backed away. He rested a few seconds before continuing on his way. The limb made a scraping noise as it scratched the surface of the ground. La-la-la — La-ya la-la-ya-la — Little Brother, aren’t you something! — I was furious and itched to charge him again, but I was still too dizzy to do anything. Diao Xiaosan dragged the limb up to Butterfly Lover and stood up on his hind legs. He then took a step backward with his right leg, bent over at the waist, and held out his right front hoof, like a white-gloved gentleman. With a half-circle sweep of the hoof, he said, For you, young lady . . . La-ya la-la-ya-la — Turning to the dozen sows and the castrated boars farther off, he waved them over. With a chorus of joyful oinks, they converged on the limb, quickly tearing it apart. A couple of the bolder males made an attempt to sidle up to the apricot tree, and so I stood up. I saw a sow strutting proudly away with a heavily laden branch she’d managed to get away with, her big, floppy ears slapping her cheeks. Diao Xiaosan walked around blowing kisses until a sinister-looking castrato stuck his front hooves in his mouth and sent a loud whistle knifing through the air. The pigs all quieted down.
    I fought to compose myself, knowing that in a contest of raw courage I’d suffer a humiliating defeat. That I could live with, somehow, but not the loss of a wife and harem to Diao Xiaosan, because in another five months, the farm would be increased by several hundred new pigs — long-nosed, pointy-eared little monsters. I made my tail twitch and shook out my limbs; I spit out the mud in my mouth and, while I was at it, scooped up some apricots that blanketed the ground, nearly all of which had fallen to the ground when I hit the tree — ripe, sweet, honeyed. La-ya-la — La-ya la-la-yala — Mama’s straw hat is flying around the moon, changing from a golden color to a silvery one — Chewing and swallowing several apricots calmed me down and soothed my mouth and throat. And so, seeing no need for anxiety, I slowly ate my fill. I watched as Diao picked up an apricot with his hoof and put it up next to Butterfly Lover’s mouth. With little-girl coyness, she refused to eat it. My mother told me I wasn’t supposed to eat just anything from a boar, she said with sweet affectation. Your mother doesn’t know what she’s talking about, Diao said as he shoved the apricot into her mouth, enough of a distraction for him to plant a noisy kiss on her ear. Kiss! the pigs all called out. Kiss! La-ya-la — La-ya la-la-yala — They’d forgotten all about me, I figured. They must have thought the outcome was clear, and I had no choice but to admit defeat. Most had come from Mount Yimeng with Diao Xiaosan, and they favored him. God-fucking-dammit! The time had come. I mustered all my strength and charged Diao Xiaosan again, soaring in the air and inspiring Diao to repeat his previous tactic of slipping under me as I passed overhead. Well, my friend, that’s exactly what I wanted you to do. I landed solidly at the foot of the skinny apricot tree, right beside Butterfly Lover. In other words, Diao and I changed places. And the first thing I did was lift a front hoof and slap Butterfly Lover across the face, then I pushed her to the ground, drawing a shriek from her. There was no doubt in my mind that Diao would turn around and come at me, and at that moment, my two enormous balls, the most vulnerable and treasured part of my body, were hanging out there in his line of sight. If he butted his head into them or took a bite out of them, that’d be the end of that. It was a dangerous game of chess, like cutting off all avenues of escape. So I looked behind me out of the corner of both eyes, knowing I had to seize the moment, and saw the blood that was spurting from the savage beast’s wide-open mouth and the ominous glare in his