I. This little piggy went to market.

She wore her usual market clothes: big linen pants, tiny top, her father’s old denim button down. Paint spatters on the sleeve. A cyanotype canvas tote imprinted with mushrooms and ferns. A bit of cash, too, because cash is always welcome at market. Cash doesn’t leave a trail, makes it easier to declare less income when tax time rolls around. This little piggy likes tax evasion.

She doesn’t quite go all-in on it—she’s no Capone, and feels that major corporations should actually be taxed more—but, still. She keeps her small side hustle flipping furniture under the radar. What does the government know about paint thinner and epoxy, anyway? Her taxation comes in the form of chemical odor-induced migraines. Tea helps, sometimes, as long as the bottom quarter of the mug holds a thick layer of honey. If this little piggy were honest with herself, she’d just eat the honey from the jar. But she’s no bear—she’s a piggy!—and so she has dignity and tact. She drinks her honey with tea.

At market, the tea vendor smiles and waves. The vendor asks this little piggy how she’s liking the Tulsi: holy basil, good for maintaining cortisol, the vendor says. Your stress hormones, the vendor whispers, as if this little piggy’s pituitary gland were a dirty secret. As if little piggies were the only ones on planet Earth to get a migraine. Still, she smiles her kindest piggy smile. Her ears twitch a bit, involuntarily, betraying her annoyance, but the vendor isn’t attuned to piggy bodyspeak. The vendor sells tea; tea is all they know. This little piggy envies the vendor’s simplicity. Perhaps her migraines would go away if she also married rich, divorced richer, quit her job, and opened a booth selling overpriced leaves to desperate fools at market once a week.

This little piggy quickly corrects herself: I am not a desperate fool. She simply likes the ritual of tea, the sweetness of honey. And steam is good for little piggies, everyone knows that. It keeps her complexion nice and rosy, moisturized. (Mud masks help, too, but they’ve become so cliché in piggie circles that they’re barely worth mentioning.)

It was as this little piggy wandered to the apiary booth that she heard the first shots.

II. This little piggy stayed home.

He’s a pervert. He knows he’s a pervert. Everyone around him senses it, too (it’s the smell). But he can’t help it: the voyeurism, it’s too delicious. He doesn’t even consider stopping.

It started during the pandemic. This little piggy was a good little piggy; he never left his house unless it was absolutely necessary, always wore a mask, and sanitized his trotters until they splintered dry. Sure, he always ate his quarantine rations way too fast, but that’s because he was high all the time and had nothing else to do.

It was a weekday afternoon, after he finished an entire bag of pita chips and a family-sized vat of hummus in one sitting, when he noticed the walkers. With everything closed and everyone sick of their housemates, walking had become a major pastime in his neighborhood. It was a veritable parade, albeit one where the floats stayed six feet apart.

Snacks gone, this little piggy had little to do with his hooves but stroke himself.

At first, he only touched himself when he saw a walker in a mask. The mask kept things impersonal, exotic. He could pretend these weren’t conscious beings, but rather a type of distant pornography. And harmless porn, too: nobody knew what he was doing besides himself. Soon enough, though, it was the maskless who drew his attention. He hate-fucked them with his eyes as they passed below his window. The virus doesn’t care that you’re outdoors, he wanted to scream. You’re killing our neighbors! If he were a monkey, he would have tossed his cum and shit at the maskless walkers in rage. But this little piggy had better manners than that; he ejaculated into whatever empty food containers he had nearby, then washed and recycled the plastic as a matter of course. Pervert though he may be, this little piggy cared a lot about recycling.

In no time and all time, the pandemic dawdled, dwindled, and was gone. Yet this little piggy’s secret habit remained. Fewer walkers passed his house as life returned to normal, with one exception: market day. This little piggy loved market day, as it took place directly across the street and provided five hours of stimulation every Sunday between June and October, weather permitting.

Sure, he could leave his house, cross the street, eat a fritter, and re-enter society with the rest of the market-goers, but where was the excitement? The taboo? The release?

It was as this little piggy spent his load into an empty yogurt container that he heard it: pop, pop, pop.

III. This little piggy had roast beef.

His boyfriend was a vegetarian, and he knew this meant no kisses until they got home and he’d brushed his teeth, but frankly this little piggy did not give a shit about kisses right now. If his boyfriend thought it was okay to post naked curly tail shots online without checking with him first, then he figured it was okay to eat this greasy roast beef sandwich on the sidewalk. Was it grass fed? Non-GMO? He didn’t give a fuck; he’d eat the beef even if it came from a tiny little cage in Chernobyl. This sandwich was his revenge.

He just wished it tasted a little better, that’s all. And he wished his boyfriend would hurry up and apologize about the photos.

They’d been having a perfectly lovely Sunday. They slept in together and slowly woke each other up with kisses and tickles. This little piggy gently nibbled on each of his boyfriend’s fourteen nipples, and after they screwed, they dozed off for another half hour. Eventually, they got brunch: French toast with crème fraîche for the misters. Bottomless mimosas. Yogurt parfaits. They even played trottsies under the table, like children in love. And that’s what they were, this little piggy thought: two children in love. Never mind that they grew out of their spots long ago; when they were together, they were giddy with newfound youth. Love is love is love everlasting, and this little piggy was beside himself with peace.

That is, until his boyfriend remarked about the likes. Likes? he asked. Stupid, so blind and naïve.

Oh, his boyfriend laughed. Well, you know how you were playing with my tail this morning…?

This little piggy raised an eyebrow and nodded.

His boyfriend continued: It made me feel really good…

Both eyebrows were raised now. The cautious hint of a grin.

And so I thought, fuck it, I feel good and I want to document it. So I took this picture, he slid his phone across the table and smiled. They were waiting on the brunch bill and planned on walking to the market to pick up some apples next. They were going to bake a tart that afternoon. It was a good plan.

The photo showed this little piggy’s boyfriend in the bathroom, naked. He was perched on the lip of their granite sink, ass to the mirror, half twisted to look over his shoulder with phone in hoof. Only one eye was visible, but his expression was coy. It was a good photo, one that this little piggy would have been delighted to receive as a random, titillating text in the middle of a humdrum workday. Not the sort of photo he wanted to see posted online, though. Not after—he refreshed the post for an accurate tally—157 others had already liked it.

He was mad, of course. And his boyfriend quickly became mad in response.

What gives you the right to tell me what I can and cannot post online? This is MY body, MY tail.

I just wish you had at least warned me first!

So I have to receive your permission before I post online now? Is that how it is?

That’s not what I’m saying, I just feel a little bit betrayed right now. Where was I when you took that photo? Oh yeah, that’s right, I was still in bed dying for some mouthwash after oinking you off.

Honey, however bad you think I taste, just know that I put up with so much worse from you.

What’s that supposed to mean?

When’s the last time you scrubbed your hocks? Do you even remember? That’s all I’m saying.

My hocks are clean, and you know it! But are yours? Are you clean? How do I know if I can trust you after this? How many other photos like this are online?

Five or five hundred, it doesn’t matter, because it’s my right and my empowerment, and if you don’t support me then you can leave.

And so this little piggy stormed down the sidewalk and stopped at a market food truck selling roast beef sandwiches. He relished every last greasy, meaty morsel, even though he was already full from the brunch that had concluded only minutes earlier. As he chewed the last bite, his boyfriend came into view. Was he coming to apologize? Or continue the argument? This little piggy wiped his mouth with the back of his pettitoes and braced himself for either outcome.

That’s when he heard the shots, the screams, and smelled the unmistakable odor of gunpowder in the air.

IV. This little piggy had none.

The thing about homeless shelters is they’re only open at night. During the day, you’re expected to pass your time looking for gainful employment, or something.

For this little piggy, afternoons were a depthless void. She’s constantly amazed by how much time there is in a day when a day is all you possess.

Well, she possesses a few other things, too, but that doesn’t sound as poetic, does it? Behold the poetry within her dirty backpack: a Bic lighter, toilet paper, a thick marker, cardboard, a few crinkled bills, a pack of cigarettes that rattled with loose butts pilfered from the neighborhood ashtrays. She liked to shake the pack and tell people it was full of baby teeth. Baby teeth were a boon. All she had to do was put them under her pillow and in the morning, viola, financial security. She was only waiting for the right economic market to maximize her gains.

In truth, this little piggy did not actually believe in the Tooth Fairy. She did, however, believe in hope. In the fantasies we spin to survive.

Another fantasy: the Myth of the Lipstick Lady.

There is a woman in this town who smokes Marlboro reds and leaves dark lip stains on the butts. To the untrained eye, the butts are mere trash, detritus of the lowest order. But this little piggy is a connoisseur—while most cigarette butts are trash indeed, those belonging to the Lipstick Lady are a treasure map. Although they may not point the way to an exact location (this little piggy is imaginative, but she’s not insane), they do bear the unmistakable marker of a woman who wears a specific shade; a woman who can afford the nice cigarettes; a woman to whom vice is no stranger, and for whom this little piggy would sacrifice everything. (Everything, in this case, is hardly anything at all, but the sentiment remains.)

This little piggy imagines the day she recognizes a woman on the sidewalk by the color of her mouth. She will approach the Lipstick Lady non-threateningly, humbly, with downcast eyes, and kindly tell her tale—neglected, abused, scorned, forgotten, mistreated, mistaken, misunderstood. Most of all: lonely. This little piggy will ask if, perhaps, the Lipstick Lady might be so generous as to donate—not money, but a few minutes of her time. To show her how to be beautiful. Please, she will ask, could you help me be like you?

Of course, for someone as important as the Lipstick Lady, time is scarce. This little piggy knows she will be asking for a sacrifice, and she lowers her snout in shame at the thought. She is unworthy. She blushes at her own hubris, her secret: that her empty pack of cigarettes is not actually full of baby teeth. Instead, what rattles is a collection of cigarette butts once belonging to the Lipstick Lady.

Some nights, in the frightening bathroom of the homeless shelter, with its harsh light and foul sticky floor, she tries to scrape off the dried lipstick residue and apply it to her own ignoble piggy mouth.

She walks across town as she considers her fantasy hope of transformation. Suddenly, all hell breaks loose.

V. This little piggy went…

First, he went to therapy, where he told lies.

Then, he went to school. It was a Sunday, so there weren’t any classes, but he needed to stop at the campus bookstore to buy an overpriced used Economics textbook. But this little piggy forgot his student ID at home and campus security wouldn’t let him through. He thought they were being unreasonable, power-hungry dicks, so this little piggy left, sweating with rage.

Next, he went to the church gun bash. It cost five dollars to park, ten for a ticket, and $600 for a rifle. A steal at twice the price, the camouflaged seller said. He threw in a full magazine for free.

This little piggy laughed—easier to buy a gun than a textbook.

Hell yeah, brother, said the seller, a jackal, already moving onto the next one.

This little piggy didn’t have a plan for what came next. He knew it would involve a lot of commotion and only a little bit of time. He imagined screaming and running and power and fear. But this little piggy didn’t have a plan, only a gun, and so he decided to head home to work on the former while studying the latter.

A block from home, a yellow wooden traffic sign barred the street. It said, Road Closed for Market. By now, this little piggy was irate and also really had to pee, so he parked his car on the curb, pissed himself with utter abandon, grabbed the gun from his backseat, and did a thing that happens all the time and isn’t all that special except for the fact that it is special because it’s horrible and evil and preventable and cruel.

This little piggy did not know how to reload the gun he so recently bought. After a few seconds, he dropped his now-empty killing machine in front of the cowering tea vendor and made a sopping-wet urea-soaked mad dash back to his car.

One little piggy hid behind an apiary’s booth, head in her hooves, mind aching with fear. Another little piggy, sequestered at home across the street, called 911. Two little piggies held each other tightly behind a food truck, wishing they had never left their sweet Sunday bed. A wounded little piggy gurgled dark red blood from her mouth and thought: am I beautiful now?

Sirens followed the last little piggy—wee, wee, wee—all the way home.