The family pig was eating corn behind the mountain shack where Jeremiah lived with his parents. He was an only child; his birthing had nearly killed his mother. There were a lot of chores to be done, and looking after the pig was the least enjoyable of them, so Jeremiah was pleased that the pig would buck and snort and roll its eyes insanely whenever he came near the pen.

His father wasn't pleased. Slopping the hog should have been Jeremiah's job.

"What you do to that hog, boy?" his father would ask every day as he emerged filthy and stinking from the pen, collaring Jeremiah so that the stink would be on him, too.

"Nothing, Pa."

And his father would shove him aside and take a swig from the whiskey crock on the porch. "Musta done something. Threw stones at it, something."

"I didn't do nothing, Pa. He just don't like me."

"One a these days I gonna catch you, boy, hear? And I gonna give you a lickin' you won't forget."

The pig was going to get him a licking, Jeremiah knew, whether he did anything to provoke it or not. His father would use any reason to beat the boy for not slopping the hog himself. Damn fat pig, Jeremiah thought as he leaned against the corncrib at a safe distance from the animal. Probably eat anything, eat until it burst. His fingers played at the crinkly dry ears of corn in the crib. Pig food.

And suddenly, he could see it, an image so real, it blocked out all the sights and sounds around him, a picture in his mind more intense with color and texture than anything in reality. The image was of the pig gobbling up corn until it exploded, raining pork chops all over the yard. It was a funny image, but so real that Jeremiah's laughter was more hysterical than mirthful.

At the same time the picture popped into Jeremiah's brain, the pig began to huff and skitter around its pen, drawing toward the trough, where it began to eat voraciously.