Prose. Tour, entry 2: Pig’s In Zen.

Author note:

When Prose. presented the opportunity for me and my dog to go on tour for winter, to find writers and readers with a grassroots, gasoline-fueled literary mission, two words ran across my mind in scrolling neon red letters against a blackboard of subtle space junk: Hell, yes.

To ride along, follow the tour's hashtag above.

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Pig's In Zen.

At a rest area twenty miles north of Sacramento, two old ladies were leading a huge pig up a ramp into the back of their Winnebago. We talked, and I shot photos. They were used to it: two old ladies and three pigs on the road, one passed out on a couch, one on the floor, and the other in the back. I wanted to ask why it wasn't sleeping with the others, but I didn't really want to know, just like I didn't want to know if the old gals were a couple, because even though my instinct already told me, I had to empty my mind of any bad black and white independent film visuals concerning them, the Winnebago, and their passengers. But a few scenes played out anyway, and I scratched my nose to stop the laughter.

"They're lazy," one of them said, "but whatta you gonna do?"

We said goodbye, and I was back behind the wheel. Chico watched the pig being closed in, and my phone chimed with a text from the social media director of Prose.:

-Web app launches Monday!-

I sent a reply, then texted my buddy in the city, an Android user, and told him not only was his desktop altar almost built for him, but he will soon be able to Prose. from his phone via his web server, while the coders get the Android app locked down in the meantime. We went back and forth, and I looked at the day on my phone: Thursday. Monday would be a good day.

Check the time: 4:35. Rush hour if I don't haul ass to Sacto, where I'm staying for a week to pimp Prose., where the sun shines hot on the house of dear friends and the rain starts up back home, where Elliot Bay is getting pummeled by rolling, grey clouds: Relentless. I crank up the last track on Nothing's Shocking, and think about the pig in the back of the RV, the life it must have. Up ahead the traffic slows into a long, still line, and the vocals come in above my coffee:

Pig eats shit

but only when he hungers

pig's in zen

I know the pig's in zen.