Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

split up into two groups, one to launch an attack, the other to lay in wait. When the foxes released their gases, courageous warriors with mugwort stuck up their noses counterattacked. Our commander, Diao Xiaosan, knew that the foxes could not sustain the level of toxicity, that while the first gassing was lethal, those that followed were only mildly noxious. On top of that, pigs that had survived the first poisonous cloud fought courageously, wanting to latch on to their enemies, even if that meant their eyes might be gouged out and their ears bitten off. One assault followed another until at least half the foxes lay dead or injured; their corpses and broken bodies lay strewn across the shoal; bushy fox tails hung from the tips of red willows here and there. Sated flies darkened the willow branches and weighted them down, like heavy fruit, until they nearly touched the ground. The battle with the foxes turned the pig troops into a veteran fighting force. Serving as a training exercise for the pigs, it was a prelude for a war with humans.
    Old Diao and I were prepared for an attack by hunters from Northeast Gaomi Township; but two weeks after the Mid-Autumn Festival, we were still waiting, so Old Diao sent a few of the cleverest pigs across the river as scouts. They never came back, and I figured they had fallen into some sort of trap, to be skinned, gutted, and chopped into filling for human consumption. By that time, the human’s standard of living was on the rise, and people, having grown weary of eating domestic fare, were on the lookout for wild, edible game. As autumn deepened, that development ushered in a campaign to “eradicate the wild boar scourge,” while in fact the goal was to put wild meat on the people’s tables.
    Like so many major events in their infancy, the six-month-long pig hunt began in an atmosphere of fun. It all started on the first afternoon of the National Day holiday, a sunshiny early winter day when the shoal was bathed in the fragrance of wild chrysanthemums mixed with the aroma of pine tar and the pleasant medicinal odor of mug-wort. Naturally, there were less pleasant smells as well. The prolonged period of peace had taken the edge off our tension.
    So on one lovely day, when a dozen or more boats sailed up the river, red flags at the mast and a steel drum on the lead boat loudly announcing their arrival, none of us believed that a pig slaughter was about to commence. We thought it was just members of a delegation of Communist Youth Leaguers on an autumn outing.
    Diao Xiaosan and I stood on a rise watching the boats draw up our shoal and seeing the passengers come ashore. In a soft voice I reported to Old Diao what I was seeing. He cocked his head and pricked up his ears to hear exactly what was going on. There must be a hundred of them, I said. Tourists, it appears. A series of whistles has them forming up on the shore, I said, as if someone has called a meeting. The whistles and bits of conversation came to us on the wind. Someone is having them line up, he said to me, repeating what he heard. Close together, like a net, and don’t fire your guns. We’ll drive them into the water. What? They’re got guns? I said, shocked by the news. They’re coming for us, Old Diao said. Give the signal. Muster the troops. Diao Xiaosan took three deep breaths, raised his head, and, with his mouth half open, released a shrill sound from deep in his throat, like an air-raid alarm. Tree branches shook, wild grass waved, as wild boars — big, little, young, and old — appeared beside us on the rise from all directions. Foxes were startled, so were badgers and wild hares; some fled in fright, some hid in burrows, and some just ran in circles.
    Our pine-tar, yellow-sand armor made us look as if we were all dressed in brown uniforms. Heads raised, mouths open, fangs bared, and eyes blazing, those two hundred pigs were my army — most of them my relatives. They were biding their time, they were excited, they were jittery, and they were ready to go, grinding their teeth and stomping their feet.
    “My children,” I said to them, “the war has come to us. They’re armed with guns, so our strategy will be to exploit our advantage by being evasive. Do not let them drive you to the east. Circle around behind them if you can.”
    One of the more excitable young males jumped up and shouted:
    “I oppose that strategy! We need to close up ranks and attack them straight on. Drive them into the