Free I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid Page A

discomfort.
    â€œHe decided he better try to move them. Dad almost fell over backward when he lifted up the first pig. But he did it. He lifted and turned it. He found its belly was swarming with maggots. Thousands of them. It looked like its entire underside was covered in moving rice. The other one was even worse than the first. Both pigs were literally being eaten alive. From the inside out. And you’d never really know if you just looked at them from afar. From a distance, they seemed content, relaxed. Up close, it was a different story. I told you: life isn’t always pleasant.”
    â€œHoly shit.”
    â€œThe pigs were old and their immune systems were probably shot. Infection set in. Rot. They’re pigs, after all. They live in filth. It probably started with a small cut on one of them, and some flies landed in the wound. Anyway, Dad had to put the pigs down. That was his only choice.”
    Jake steers us out and starts walking again, crunching through the snow. I’m trying to use his same footsteps, where the snow’s been compressed a bit.
    â€œThose poor creatures,” I say. But I get it. I do. They had to be put down and put out of their misery. Suffering like that is unendurable. Even if the solution is final. The two lambs. The pigs. It really is nonnegotiable, I think. There’s no going back. Maybe they were lucky, to go like that after what they’d been through. To at least be liberated from some of the suffering.
    Unlike the frozen lambs, there’s nothing restful or humane about the image of those pigs Jake has planted in my mind. It makes me wonder: What if suffering doesn’t end with death? Howcan we know? What if it doesn’t get better? What if death isn’t an escape? What if the maggots continue to feed and feed and feed and continue to be felt? This possibility scares me.
    â€œYou have to see the hens,” says Jake.
    We approach a coop. Jake unlatches the entrance and we duck inside. The chickens are already roosting, so we don’t stay in there long. Just long enough for me to step in some runny, unfrozen shit, of course, and to smell the unpleasant smells and see one of the last non-roosting hens eating one of its own eggs. It’s not just the barn—every area has a distinct smell. I find it eerie in here with all these chickens sitting up on thin rails, looking at us. They appear more disgruntled by our presence than the sheep were.
    â€œThey’ll do that sometimes, eat them, if the eggs aren’t collected,” says Jake.
    â€œGross,” is all I can think of to say. “You guys don’t have any neighbors, do you?”
    â€œNot really. Depends on your definition of neighbor .”
    We leave the coop, and I’m grateful to get that smell out of my nose.
    We walk around behind the house, my chin pressed down against my chest for warmth. We’re off the path now and are making our own way in the unshoveled snow. I don’t normally feel so hungry. I’m famished. I look up and see someone in the house, in the upstairs window. A gaunt figure, standing, looking down at us. A woman with long straight hair. The tip of my nose is frozen.
    â€œIs that your mom?” I wave. No response.
    â€œShe probably can’t see you. Too dark out here.”
    She stays at the window as we keep walking, plodding through the ankle-deep snow.
    MY FEET AND HANDS ARE numb. My cheeks red. I’m glad to be inside. I’m blowing on my hands, thawing them out as we step through the door into a small foyer. I can smell supper. Some kind of meat. There’s also that smell of burning wood again, and a distinct atmospheric scent that every house has. Its own smell that its inhabitants are never aware of.
    Jake yells hello. His dad—it must be his dad—answers that they’ll be down in a minute. Jake seems a bit distracted, almost antsy.
    â€œDo you want some slippers?” he asks. “They might be