I.
When on some February mornings his sturdy frame filled up
the doorway, hindering the sun from peeking into the pigsty, the animals
began to stomp with apprehension; unlike us, they could always sense
their own death lying ahead. Outside in the yard, the unlucky
one ran around in circles, squealing hammer and tongs while children
cheered and men grunted, all teeth and spit, playing the game of
hounds: put down the wooden ladder to block its way out, enclose it
by prods, then let the chieftain come forward; only he knew how to kill
a pig with one precise shot between its eyes – an old-school
slaughter.
II.
If in springtime cats around the farmhouse started to reproduce too quickly, he
with his two calloused hands would grab the kittens by the soft hair behind their
necks, put the mewling mess into a bucket of cold water and – to Misha the Dog’s
delight – drown them one by one; through and through, my great grandfather was
a practical man: after a cock had tried to blind me, those same hands
cut off its head and then we fed it
to the dog.