skit #12: two halves of a whole

A&J's Freezer Co. double-parks and and underpaid day laborer unlatches the rear handle. The door squeals as it retracts, cleaving a two-foot slit. Cloven hooves tumble out the aperture like forbidden roses through a picket fence. A deck of laterally-split pigs is stacked high into the truck's cargo hold until the dim dawn light shows no more.

The laborer slides two half-pigs out of the cargo hold onto the asphalt. There are still too many curly tails and snouts to notice a difference in the scrum. 'Hup!' helps him schlep the half-pigs over his shoulders, wet-side-out. Since the skin has no blood, only that which drips around the division stains his bleach-white butcher's smock, resulting in two crimson auras circumscribing two porcine snow angels.

The two pigsty lovers had rubbed loins briefly before the slaughterhouse. They could die happy. Now they lay side-by-side, two halves of a whole, on butcher hooks.

A shapeless man and shapeless woman are seated perfunctorily at Chez Panisse. The waiter suggests the pork loin, deeming it suitable for their evidently blue collar palates, hoping to earn a tip exceeding the guests' budget. The shapeless man laughs convincingly at her plagiarized jokes which neither of them understand. They drink wine and delight each other, symbiotically seducing each other.

The two suburban lovers had rubbed loins briefly before the economic collapse. They could die happy. Now they lay side-by-side, two halves of a whole, on 1200 thread count Egyptian linens.

Before Apocalypse comes, desperation rules the land. Financial instability induces governmental collapse. Agile revolutionary factions stage a coup here, a coup there; But, even the iron-fistedest tyrannies erode. Juntas, martial law, pogroms, futile pandemic quarantines, and purposeless labor camps seem trivial alongside global crop failures. First soup lines, then bread lines, then grain lines, then no lines. Starvation breeds reports of kidnappings, cannibalism.

The farmer always picks the feistiest or brightest ones first, so as to thwart chances of an insurrection. The man and woman were towards the middle of the list. The farmer takes a chomp out of her thigh and his shoulder. 'Food shortage, my ass.' he belches. He ambles to the captives' pen to add the half-eaten carcasses to the slop.

The livestock lovers had rubbed loins briefly before the harvest. They could die happy. Now they lay side-by-side, two halves of a whole, in the humansty trough.