The Little Green Pig

The Little Green Pig

By Katurian Katurian

Once upon a time…. A long long way away there was a little green pig. Now the little pig, he really liked being green. Not that he didn't like the colour of normal pigs, he thought pink was nice too, but what he liked was, he liked being a little bit different, a little peculiar. The other pigs around him didn't like him being green though. They were jealous and they bullied him and made his life a misery. And all this complaining just aggravated the farmers.

So they thought “Hmm, we’d better do something about this.” So one night, as all the pigs lay sleeping in the open fields, they crept out and snatched the little green pig and brought him back to the barn, and the little pig was squealing and all the other pigs were just laughing at him. And when the farmers got him to the barn, what they did was they opened up  this big pot of this very special pink paint and they dunked him in it till he was covered from head to foot and not a patch of green was left, and they held him down until it dried. And what was special about the pink paint was it could never be washed off and it could never be painted over. And the little green pig said – “Oh please God, please don’t let them make me like all the rest. I'm happy in being a little big peculiar.

But it was too late, the paint was dry, and the farmers sent him back out into the fields, and all the pink pigs laughed at him as he passed and sat down on his favourite little patch of grass, and he tried to understand why God hadn't listened to his prayers, but he couldn't understand, and he cried himself to sleep and even all the thousand tears he cried couldn't help wash off the horrible pink paint because it could never be washed off and never painted over. And he went to sleep.

But that night, as all the pigs in the field lay a-sleeping, these strange, strange storm clouds began to gather overhead and it began to rain, slowly at first but getting heavier. But this was no ordinary rain, this was a very special green rain, almost as thick as paint and not only that, there was something else special about this paint. It could never be washed off and it could never be painted over. And when morning came and the rain had stopped and all the pigs awoke, they found that every single one of them had turned bright green, every single one except, of course, the old little green pig, who was now the little pink pig, upon whom the strange rain had washed straight off because of the unpaintoverable paint the farmers had covered him in earlier. “Unpaintoverable.” And as he looked at the strange sea of green pigs that lay around him, most of which were crying like babies, he smiled, and he thanked goodness, and he thanked God, because he knew that he was still, and he always would be, just a little bit peculiar