Pigs Might Fly (Part One)

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

Dave Daffy Dolloway owed his nickname to the Looney Tunes cartoon duck. The name had stuck for many years because he was a bit of a joker, and even now, as he approached fifty, he still liked to have a laugh. It was a Friday morning, and he walked up his garden path just as the bin lorry pulled up in front of the house and two burly men in Dayglo orange safety jackets started hauling the green recyclable materials bins to the edge of the pavement. “Where's yer bin, mate?” one of them said, a cigarette hanging limply from his mouth.

“I've bin to the paper shop for a newspaper an' a packet of fags,” he said, looking down at the folded copy of The Independent tucked under his arm as he fumbled in his pocket for his keys. “You wouldn't make a very good private detective, would ya?”

“No, where's your bin?”

“I've bin on me 'olidays, but that was nearly a month ago.”

“Bit of a comedian, are we? Where's your wheely bin, mate,” the refuse removal operative said, hands on hips, and it was clear that he was beginning to lose his rag.”

“All right, it's a fair cop, I've bin for a wank in that patch of overgrown Buddleia bushes opposite the paper shop, it's quite private once you get to the middle,” Daffy said without cracking his face, and both men doubled over with laughter. “I 'ad you wonderin' there, didn't I? I bet you thought you'd stumbled across a right fruit and nut case.”

“You 'ad me 'ook.line and sinker, bud,” the bin man said. “I'm telling that one down the pub tonight, it's a fuckin' cracker.”

“The bin's on the back yard, I forgot to put it out – I'll go and get it now.”

“Cheers, pal.”

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“I 'ad the bin men thinkin' I was a complete nut job a minute ago,” Daffy said to his missus after he had dragged the bin onto the street.

“I know,” Sheila said as she put the kettle on. “I 'eard every word, you terror, I was puttin' the washing away upstairs and the window was open. You wanna watch your step because one o' these days you'll 'ave somebody thinkin' you really are loopy rather than 'armlessly eccentric. Remember when you marched into Boots with my entire stock of make-up and complained to the woman on the cosmetics counter that you'd used the products for six solid months an' you still failed to 'ave men falling over themselves to get at you? She called the manager, an' that 'uge albino gorilla of a security bloke escorted you out of the store and told you never to darken 'is doorway again.”

“Yeah, how could I forget one of my finest hours? It was a bloody classic, the look on the face of the over-painted, well past her sell-by-date strumpet on the make-up counter was a picture. I wish I could get me 'ands on the security camera footage, think of the 'its it'd 'ave on YouTube.”

“I'm going to put the dinner on now, love,” Sheila said as she handed her husband a cup of coffee. “I 'ave a lot to do, peelin' vegetables and makin' pastry and whatnot, so don't give me any 'assle, OK?”

“I won't, sweet stuff,” Daffy said, batting his eyes innocently as he settled down on the sofa in front of the TV. “I'm, gonna watch the match on Sky and read the paper, I won't be any trouble, 'onestly.”

“That remains to be seen,” Sheila said as she went into the kitchen.

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“Sheila, you'd better get your arse in here a bit sharpish,” Daffy said a few minutes later. “Somethin' funny is going on.”

“What do you mean by somethin' funny?”

“I 'eard a rumble of thunder an' it was goin' dark, it looked like it was about to rain cats and dogs, so I 'ad a butchers outta the window. The sky's gone a funny colour, an' there's a massive cloud comin' over. A few people 'ave come out into the street to see what's going down. It looks like the sky in that film we watched about Christ's crucifixion.....”

Sheila looked up at the sky through the kitchen window as she kneaded pastry in a large plastic bowl. “It does look a bit ominous, the sky's an odd greyish green, but that's nothin' unusual. It looks like we're about to 'ave a summer storm like the bugger we 'ad last week – I was shoppin' down the market, an' I was soaked to the bloody skin by the time I'd lugged the shoppin' to the bus stop.”

“Then you obviously can't see what I can see. You can't see the cloud from there, cock, it's 'orrible, it's like somethin' out of an 'orror film.”

“Oh all right, I'll come an' 'ave a look if it'll make you 'appy, just gimme a minute to wash me 'ands.”

Daffy stubbed out his cigarette and sat in the armchair nestled under the bay window. The underside of the bloody cloud was speckled with black dots. They were objects, he realised, there were a great many of them and they were hurtling Earthwards. “'Urry up, Sheila, somethin' else is 'appenin! There are things falling out of the cloud, movin' things. What are you doin', woman?”

A surge of dread rushed through his mind, and he rushed into the kitchen. His wife was standing in front of the sink, the tap was running and she was washing her hands, but her attention was firmly fixed on the sky. As he looked up Daffy saw another bloody cloud rolling in over the rooftops, and like the one at the front of the house it was disgorging a cargo of black, wriggling objects. “What the fuck are they? Your eyes are sharper than mine, love, I can't find me soddin' glasses.”

“You won't believe me if I tell you, Daffy,” she said after a sharp intake of breath, her voice unnaturally calm and a faraway expression on her face.

“Well tell me anyway. They're not cats and dogs, are they? It's not raining cats and dogs, but they are living things.”

“They're pigs,” Sheila said. “They're enormous pigs. Can't you hear the fuckers squealing? Look, as they get closer they're turning red, they're getting hot, they're bursting into friggin' flames.....”