This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while, I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“Tis some visitor”, I muttered “oinking at my chamber door:
Only this and nothing more”.
"Wait!” said a voice. “It’s me, Mel!”
“Mel?” I got up from my sofa. It was the pot belly that I bought from a shop in Corvallis. They said he would never get over 27 pounds. “Wait a minute! Pigs can’t talk!” I wondered. Mel had been acting strange lately. Maybe we had gotten too close, because it seemed like he could read my mind, in some kind of prescient pig way. Either that or he was pissed because my tavern sales were down and I could not afford the good pig slop that he liked.
I opened the door. There he was--a black beast—eyes gleaming, astride my globe. He definitely had his nose in Australia, attracted by some subliminal stench. “Rupert!” he seemed to belch, and suddenly I understood: Rupert Murdoch, the Australian mogal who changed his citizenship to American to avoid taxes, was one of the Neo-cons responsible for the current world meltdown.
“But that’s crazy!” I said as Mel heaved across the Pacific, and tilted toward the east. “Pig’s can’t talk!” Then I realized he wasn’t talking; that Mel communicated not with his mind, but with a more visceral and immediate part of his anatomy. He was like modern man; like George W. Bush, he used his gut feeling, and more...much more.
Even when he was a wee piggy, he demonstrated a swinish sixth sense.
Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
“It’s not like that!” Mel said. “Listen! I’m not some barroom hog!”
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
4
2
2
