Blog 7-The Pig Game-Roger's Journal

The sun comes down through the trees. It touches us all with infinite hot fingers. Shadows fall around us. The thrill of covertly sneaking through the bushes toward our goal fills me. The dark leaves fall and lie, discarded on the ground like the way we have cast aside the old society. It was worth it. Jack, our total leader, has commanded us to do this. Ralph murmurs something to Jack and he raises a hand to stop us. We stop. Ralph and Jack tell us to stop and Jack bends down to examine the traces. I feel a surge of admiration for Jack. He is a powerful hunter and a very charismatic person. He wields his power with the same ease that he holds his spear. He beckons onward. Ralph says something of no consequence that Jack appears to hear. I am too far back for Ralph's sniveling to be audible to me. Jack nods and calls for us to gather fruit. We pull fruit off the branches. Stripping it from the twigs, we devour it. Jack is near Ralph. I can see Ralph looking distastefully around at us. Some thing in his eyes holds contempt for us. I snarl slightly to myself. He makes such a pathetic leader. We move onward. Roger shows Jack some other traces that he has found. Ralph's eyes look strangely unfocused. Suddenly with a crash something huge crashes from the bushes. It charges at us. Jack is in the front. Before he can react the beast-like thing has torn at his arm with it's tusks. Ralph stands his ground and throws at the creature. It strikes it in the snout. With a bellow the animal stops mauling Jack and thunders off through the forest. Ralph gloats his small victory. He insists.
"I hit it. I wounded it. My spear struck it and I hurt the beast." Even though he knows that there is no beast he likes the implications of having hurt it. Jack puts a stop to his nonsense.
"That was a boar and not the beast." Ralph still praises his victory.
"But I wounded it." Jack pulls up one of his sleeves. He turns his arm over.
"It got me. It came so fast I didn't have time to move my spear. One of it's tusks got my arm." The cut seemed shallow but bleeding furiously. Robert mock-charges at Jack in imitation. He blunders around the circle pretending to be the boar. Jack fakes a charge at him. Eventually everyone has joined in even that stick-in-the-mud, Ralph. Robert has become the boar. I look at him with my eyes suffused with blood lust and see the beast albeit a smaller, captured version. Robert/Boar screams aloud. Jack grabs him by the hair. I feel the power surging through the crowd. Raw emotions come to the surface. I feel the fierce wild joy of the hunt. Something in me responds, first timidly like a lion cub first out in the sun then it matures and roars like the ferocious pride leader. The sky goes red. I see everything through a bloody haze. The scarlet is reflected in the flashing of Jack's knife. I sense the urging in me to stick my spear into flesh, to rip and tear and maul. Even Ralph is fighting near me to get closer. I hear another scream. Finally I get to the center of the ring but by then the red has faded. In the middle is Jack and beside him the terrified once beast, Robert. He sniffles.
"That was scary." Sagely, Ralph agrees.
"That wasn't good." He looks around. "What about Piggy?" His concern for his useless lieutenant is touching. Or would be if Piggy wasn't so very, very infuriating. Simon volunteers to go off alone to tell Piggy. He leaves into the darkness, his little form disappearing into the black. Jack responds. I zone out of the conversation and go back to contemplating the idea of cutting once more into living flesh. By the time that I have been awakened from this fantasy Jack and Ralph have chosen me to go up the mountain with them. By now it is dark and I can see Ralph tremble. Pathetic. He has to save face so he goes with us. Shadows lengthen. The air grows cold and sinister. When we reach the top Ralph's cowardice becomes apparent. He refuses to go on. Uncompromisingly, Jack insists. Finally Ralph hits enough nerves for Jack to leave us behind. We sit down on opposite sides of the log. I tap my spear in an annoying way. I can almost hear Ralph grinding his teeth. When Jack returns his face is pale in the moonlight.
"The beast is up there."he says quietly. Nervously, Ralph and I stand up. We continue to trek up the mountain since Ralph doesn't believe in the beast. Once we reach the top though he has a new opinion. The beast is there in plain sight. Dark, unseeing eyes glint in a strange half-wrecked face. When the figure moves not one of us sticks around long enough to learn anything more about the monster. We race down the mountain. The moonlight glimmers on an darkened figure with something flapping like giant batwings that haunts me when I close my eyes.