Pig-A-Palooza

Daisy & Violet's Excellent Adventure

This is a very short story (998 words!) in response to the November Flashy Fiction Prompt Party hosted by

Fictionistas

. The prompts for character were: a person with lots and lots of cats, pig, or owner of a hot-air balloon. The story card was: first night in new home. I hope you enjoy it!

Pig-a-Palooza was the most anticipated event of the year. All guinea pigs - short-haired, long-haired, small, plump, shy, and gregarious - twitched, wheeked and pranced with excitement.

Daisy was positive they were going; her sister Violet was not as sure.

"Listen Violet," she said, "I've got a sixth sense about it. I heard that big boy talking about it. Besides... Look, see? The piggy airplane is sitting right there," she said with a smug grin. She was always right. Next to their cage sat the pink pig carrier replete with fresh blankets. It was a sure sign they were going.

Violet, contrary to the evidence presented to her, lay despondently on the floor of her wooden hut, chewing the door. "We'll see," she said in her meek sing-song voice. Unlike her older sister Daisy, who was boisterous, well-girthed, and adventurous, Violet was a delicate, thin pig, who had an "inner chill" and spent most of her time hiding under blankets or in her wooden hut.

"If you remember, Daisy, it's quite breezy in the plane. I dare say it's not safe at all, especially when the boys fly it," she added. Daisy rolled her eyes (or rather rolled one eye, the other always a tad askew and never quite under her control).

The day for Pig-a-Palooza had finally arrived. Outside their mesh airplane window were throngs of people with pigs: pigs in dresses, pigs with bowties, pigs in suits, pigs in hats. Daisy, sighed, "And, look at us. We're just plain old pigs in blankets."

Disappointment lasted only a pig minute, disappearing entirely the second they were lifted out and presented with "Guinea Pig-a-Palooza" cupcakes.

"What a feast!" Daisy exclaimed. Reaching over to bite a chunk off of Violet's, she mumbled, "You need some... (gulp, munch, chew) ...help with that?"

Meanwhile, both were unaware they were in line to take the ride of their life. Just then, with cupcakes only half consumed, Daisy and Violet were placed in a very small blanketed box. Bright lights blinded them from all directions. An unfamiliar high-pitched voice squeaked from somewhere in front of them. Then, a funny smelling hand waved carrot sticks; Daisy without a thought, took one into her mouth like a log in a sawmill.

Half way through, the carrot suspended in her mouth, Daisy stopped. Reveling in a burst of insight, she turned to Violet and said seriously, "Wait, Violet. My good eye has now just adjusted. Look, see? We are in a flying contraption!"

They heard the squeaky high-pitched voice again: "Up, up and away girls! Say cheese for the camera!"

Daisy was disoriented as lights flashed. She blinked and turned away, nearly blinded. Looking behind her she saw something quite unexpected. Violet, whose head was fully tucked under the blanket whispered, "This is terrible!"

In awe, Daisy let the half-munched carrot fall from her lips. "Violet..." she said tremulously, "We are up high." And, then slowly, she added, " Look, see?"

Violet cringed, hiding her face in the blanket. "Are there hawks? Duck, Daisy, duck!"

"There are no ducks here and no hawks, either" Daisy retorted, annoyed at her pea-brained sister. "This is the sky and we are flying. See the clouds?"

They both looked up. What a glorious sight to behold. A cornucopia of vivid colors swirled above them.

"It's a rainbow, Violet! Rainbow circles! What luck!" Daisy wheeked, twitching and prancing, squishing her sister against the side of the twig box.

In the ten seconds it took to snap the pigs' pictures, Daisy and Violet climbed to unfathomable heights. They soared across the sky accompanied by friendly eagles whose preferred dinner was voles not pigs, past mountains and over oceans. It seemed to last a pig lifetime. But, as with all wonderful things, the ride soon came to an end. Daisy caught her breath, her little heart finally slowing to a gallop. She remembered nothing from the rest of the day; only the colorful billowing circles and the feeling of freedom.

When they returned home, another surprise: their old dingy home had been replaced with a new one in honor of the boys' birthdays. The girls frolicked in its newness. They ran up the ramps; Violet got stuck and had to be helped down. They splashed in the new water bowls; Violet overturned hers and had to be dried off. Daisy sawed off pieces of a twig ball and Violet, finally in her element, gnawed on the side of her new wooden box.

That night, the boys' mom sneaked into the darkened living room. She placed several boxes on the table. They were wrapped in sky blue and dotted with rainbow circles and twig boxes.

"What fortune!" exclaimed Daisy. She stood on her back legs for as long as she could, the sight of Pig-a-Palooza balloons emblazoned in her mind's eye. Soon sleepy, Daisy curled up next to her sister and dreamed of flying off to a large field of Timothy Hay. There she basked in the sunshine, under the hawkless sky, enveloped by the delicious scent of freshly-cut straw. This is where she belonged.

Pigs do not live very long. They know when it's their time. Ever since Pig-a-Palooza, Daisy talked incessantly about how the rainbow circles were coming soon to take them away. There was to be no rainbow bridge for them, said Daisy. Pigs like them deserved to leave this earthly world in style, airlifted to the great Timothy Hay field in the sky. Violet, too, knew a change was approaching and was now less apprehensive about taking her second and final ride in the hawkless sky.

One day, the time had come. A grand display of rainbow circles arrived, carrying an ornate twiggy box, fit for two queens.

"Look, see, Violet," Daisy cried, but with a little less gusto than she would have in her younger months. She was tired. They both were. And, they were ready.

"I told you it would come and take us away." And, so it did.

Daisy and Violet at Pig-a-Palooza. RIP 2019.