Sniffy & Piggy
Finding your inner pig
Do you remember the quiet summer days as a child, when all you had to worry about were mosquito bites and how many pages you could read in one day in your favorite book? Those leisurely days that were lovely and calm and comforting, both then and to remember now.
What follows below is an excerpt from an unpublished book I wrote. It’s called Sniffy & Piggy. Here is the first part that I published here on Substack, if you want to read the story from the beginning.
You can read more about the book here; My Pig Book. It sits there, in a folder, year after year and gnaws on me. You know? At this point, what the heck — here, read a bit of it “for free” as they say. If you have patience, please let me know what you think. After all, isn’t that what this Substack’s all about? Sharing our writing?
I do love these pigs and their world so so very much, and I hope you will too. It’s completely different than the usual sci-fi stuff you see here on Cabinet of Curiosities. Sniffy & Piggy drift into the Finnish forests and fantasy world of my childhood. A little bit of Moomin Trolls and little bit of Pippi Longstocking.
Here, I’m sharing the next chapter with you now, so you will get to know these diametrically opposed friends as they search for their inner pigs. I hope this brings you back to a warm breezy summer day in your childhood. Perhaps you’re sitting in the shade under a maple tree in your Grandmother’s backyard? A feeling of leisure surrounds you…
Persistence
The rain had watered the garden overnight so Sniffy walked over to the billboard labeled "TO DO" and drew a line across "Water garden." Then he stepped out on the tiny porch and looked toward the small cottage.
Piggy emerged and waved a hello, and skipped up the flat stone steps toward the larger cottage. He hummed on three notes that he liked, and timed each note to the steps he took on the stepping stones.
His hind legs were muddy and so were his ears. Sniffy suspected Piggy had taken a tour in the forest in the early morning hours. Piggy said it kept him in tune with his inner pig. Sniffy's inner pig, on the other hand, felt in tune when everything was clean and in order.
Wearing overalls had already been an uncomfortable transformation for Piggy, and he did it mostly because he thought that was what civilized pigs were supposed to do; wear overalls.
So, every morning before the sun rose, Piggy would do a walk in the forest surrounding Sniffy's property. And that walk always began with a mud bath mixed with some herbal rubbings. Then, and only then, was Piggy ready for a new day. He would quickly jump into a pond to wash off the mud before returning to his new home and resume his life as Sniffy's guest.
And what a life it was. Sniffy offered the guest cottage to Piggy for as long as he liked. Piggy could not quite understand why Sniffy was so kind to him, but it was rare to meet another pig in the forest so Piggy was glad to have a friend.
He suspected Sniffy felt the same way. Piggy had spent the first weeks in a joyous mix of elation and sloth. He had followed Sniffy around like an obedient puppy, watching Sniffy work in the garden, watching Sniffy cook supper, watching Sniffy organize the calendar and to-do list, and keeping him company.
Then one day Sniffy asked him if he would like to learn how to garden. Piggy was a fast learner, and enjoyed weeding the rows of vegetables. Little by little Sniffy also introduced Piggy to cooking and cleaning, and he even let Piggy cross off completed items on the "TO DO" list.
Piggy sometimes wondered what had happened to his spot beneath the juniper tree, and what had become on his food stash. But then he would hum on the three happy notes for a while until he felt better inside. This was, in a way, like a vacation, he thought. And this thought made him a little anxious because of what his father had once told him. Whenever he got worried he tried his best to hum on the three notes and it helped a little.
"Looks like we can cross off the "Water the garden" on the "TO DO" list!" said Piggy as he came closer to the front steps.
"Just did!" Sniffy smiled. "It might be a good day to pickle some vegetables and get that out of the way, since it looks like it might rain again."
"Sounds good, I'm ready! Oh, and everything looks good around the fence."
Piggy said this every morning. It was just something he had taken a habit of saying, and it was true: everything looked good around the fence.
"Thank you, thank you," Sniffy said, as he did every day upon hearing that everything looked good out there.
Sniffy had not been on a journey in a very long time, and he rather did not want to take one for that matter. He had everything he needed here and besides, he had only one relative left in this world that he knew of, Aunt Frilly, and she lived far away on the other side of a very wide river. Yes, Sniffy had everything he needed right here and right here is where he was going to stay. Besides, Aunt Frilly had clearly told him to never try to travel back to her.
For a long time, after Aunt Frilly had brought him here he kept asking her why he had to stay and why she would leave and go back. One evening, as they sat in the kitchen and enjoyed some lemon cookies, Aunt Frilly told him the story of his family.
When Sniffy was little, his parents had to leave and go and live in a place far away and they could not take Sniffy along. Sniffy remembered how much and often he had cried after they left. Would he ever see them again? Aunt Frilly explained that there was something called "Prized Pigs" and that his parents were such, as was she.
Sniffy thought it sounded wonderful and he imagined it must have been something very important. Aunt Frilly told him that she had won a prize because she was a leading "Prized Pig." The house they now stayed in was bought with the money she had won. Sniffy had never seen money but he knew it was important and that in order to have a house one needed money.
Then Aunt Frilly told him something that had scared him ever since. She told him that he was in danger. That he was not a "Prized Pig" and that it made life very dangerous for him. She had brought him here, to the house, to keep him safe, and she would return once she had taken care of some business back where Sniffy and his family had lived, far away along the big river. The following morning Aunt Frilly left, and she had not returned since then. And that had been a long time ago.
Sniffy was very afraid but he took his aunt's words to heart. He believed he would be in danger if he left his home. So, he made the cottage as cozy as he could, and used all the gardening skills and cooking tips Aunt Frilly had taught him, and little by little he began to settle into a routine that felt reassuring. When he was safe it felt good. This cottage and yard and garden was his home. Sniffy felt safe here inside the white picket fence.
So, Sniffy and Piggy settled in with the pickling work and only spoke when one of them needed a new bowl of vegetables or a knife or something. Then it was time for lunch, and while they ate a vegetable soup both of them sunk into another quiet type of work.
Sniffy liked to read while eating, and Piggy liked to look at the third billboard. The one with the secrets written on it. "3 Secrets to Success..."
"Persistence, persistence, persistence."
Piggy thought it was an error. That someone had written the word three times. He knew a little about jokes, and finally had come to realize that this must be Sniffy's type of humor. But he never dared to ask Sniffy about it. It had taken him a few weeks before he figured out what the word "persistence" meant. He had looked it up in a dictionary and read:
"per·sis·tence
noun \pər-ˈsis-tən(t)s, -ˈzis-\
: the quality that allows someone to continue doing something or trying to do something even though it is difficult or opposed by other people
: the state of occurring or existing beyond the usual, expected, or normal time"
"Persistence." Merriam-Webster.com.
"Now it's raining again," said Sniffy and closed his book.
"Do we have enough rainwater collected?" asked Piggy.
"Good question, let's check. I'll take this side of the house and you take the other side."
Sniffy directed the rainwater spout into the large oak barrel that stood in the corner of the cottage. It was half full. As he approached the other corner the rain suddenly stopped, and a ray of sun hit the opening that was his property. Just a small break in the clouds that allowed light to settle on his land.
It was late summer and so the light had a tinge of tiredness in it, and as it rested on the ripening vegetables a sort of golden shimmer reflected off the intensely green garden below the small hill where his cottage stood.
Sniffy looked at it for a while and felt both happy and a little sad, but he did not exactly know why. Then he looked beyond the fence, at the spot where he and Piggy had met some months ago.
What a good friend he had found in Piggy. They were completely different but still somehow managed to get along. They had fought about two things; when Piggy tried to bring a few buckets of mud into the guest cottage "just in case" (just in case of what, Sniffy thought) and when Sniffy wanted Piggy to wear a shirt with his overalls.
The rift had lasted for a few days, until one day when they had to fix the well pump that had sprung a leak. They got both an unplanned mud bath and ended up working in muddy overalls. Afterward both pigs were so muddy and tired that they sank down next to the well and laughed each time they looked at each other.
Afterward Sniffy spent an hour in his water bath, and Piggy swam around in the pond and used a few birch twigs to loosen the mud on his feet. After that they bickered only about small trivial things, but Piggy tried his best to be more like Sniffy even though he felt a bit different inside.
Piggy began to realize that the inner pig was a different pig in all pigs. Piggy was getting less anxious about living in a real cottage instead of under a juniper bush. He had begun to feel an unusual and light feeling inside, and sometimes days would go by without him feeling worried or scared when the sun set and it was time to rest. In the forest that time had always been the most dangerous time, and Piggy never slept well in the forest. He always had to keep watch, just in case a wolf or something else that liked pigs would come by. But he was used to it. Now he slept in a bed, inside a house that had a lock on the door.
Sniffy woke up from his thought by something that came flying out of the forest toward the fence. An owl. Sniffy sent a quiet thought to the sparrow family. The owl swooped past the mulberry bush and continued across and over the garden and up the small hill toward the house.
Sniffy stood up straighter and slowly reached for a rake that leaned against the wall. The owl settled silently on the edge of the oak barrel, and it was so close to Sniffy that he could have touched it.
He did not know this owl. He had not spoken to an owl before, only sparrows and smaller birds. And the few crows and ravens that would come by and occasionally taunt him. But never an owl.
This is my submission for the Soaring Twenties Social Club Symposium. We are a group of creatives and writers who share ideas and companionship. Each month, STSC members create something around a theme, this month's theme being “Leisure”.
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