Chapter three - Not my pig, not my farm

The guide settled back into the chair. “There was once a farmer and his wife who were driving away on holiday. They had been on the road for a while when, in the distance, the farmer’s wife noticed another farmer working in one of the fields beside the road.

“As they got closer, she could see that he was struggling. A pig had become caught in the fence, and the farmer was trying to free it.

“‘Slow down,’ she said to her husband. ‘Shouldn’t we stop and help him?’

“Her husband glanced across at the field, then carried on driving.

“‘No, love.’

“She looked at him, surprised. ‘Why not?’

“He nodded towards the field. ‘Because it’s not my pig, and it’s not my farm.’

“His wife frowned. ‘But we could help.’

“‘Maybe we could,’ he said. ‘But it’s still his pig. His farm. His problem to deal with. If he asks me for help, that’s different. But I don’t get to decide that I know what his pig needs better than he does.’”

The guide paused, then, almost casually, added, “Sometimes we become so busy trying to deal with other people’s pigs that we forget to notice our own.”

She looked at the guide. There was the faintest trace of a smile looking back at her.

And then nothing.

The guide fell silent.

She waited for more. Surely there was supposed to be more. An explanation. A question. Some clever piece of advice that would tell her what she was meant to do next.

But it didn’t come.

Strangely, neither did the discomfort she expected. The silence was different. Not nice. Not unpleasant. Just… okay.

She settled a little further into the chair. Without anything being asked of her, she noticed that the noise in her head had begun to slow. Not disappear. Just quieten enough for her to hear one thought more clearly than the others.

She sat with it.

“I settled.”

The guide looked at her. “Settled?”

She stared somewhere beyond the window. For a moment she seemed to test the word.

“No.” Another silence. “I gave in.”

The guide didn’t move.

Perhaps that was what allowed the next thought to arrive. Then another. And another.

She began talking.

At first, it had just been rough and tumble. The sort of thing everyone seemed to dismiss as kids being kids. A comment here. A shove there. Laughter that she was apparently supposed to laugh along with.

So she did.

Until, somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like a joke.

The comments became more personal. The laughter became something she heard rather than joined in with. The pushing became harder. And it kept happening, day after day.

She remembered wondering each morning whether that day might be different. Usually it wasn’t.

She tried avoiding them. She tried pretending she didn’t care. Sometimes she pushed back. Sometimes she became angry. Sometimes she simply tried to make herself small enough not to be noticed.

Nothing seemed to change it.

Then she remembered one particular day. There had been no great moment. No dramatic confrontation. That was almost what made it worse.

She simply stopped fighting it.

She remembered standing there and thinking, I can’t change this.

Her voice became quieter. “I think that was when I gave in.”

The words remained between them.

She waited almost instinctively for the guide to rescue her from them. To tell her she had been young. To explain why it wasn’t her fault. To find something positive hidden inside it. Anything that might make the memory easier to hold.

The guide did none of those things.

There was no parent rushing in to save her. No judgement either. The guide simply stayed.

And somehow that allowed her to stay too.

For the first time, perhaps, she could hold the thought without immediately having to do something with it.

Then something changed.

The guide became completely still. Not frozen. Not distant. Simply… still.

The young woman noticed the silence deepen, and then she felt something. A faint scratching sensation against her skin.

She looked at her hands. Nothing. She turned her arms over. Still nothing.

The sensation came again. Light. Almost delicate.

She glanced towards the guide. The guide was sitting on the other side of the caravan. Whatever was happening, the guide wasn’t touching her.

Then she caught sight of herself reflected faintly in the caravan window.

Something was forming.

She twisted slightly to see. Fine dark lines were appearing against her skin, almost as though an invisible hand were sketching them from somewhere beneath the surface.

Slowly, the lines gathered into an image.

A young tree stood alone in an open landscape. The wind around it seemed enormous. Its branches were being thrown in one direction, its trunk bent so far that it looked almost impossible for it to remain standing.

Almost.

Beneath it, barely noticeable, its roots disappeared deep into the earth.

She stared at the image. She didn’t understand why that particular picture had appeared. Not completely.

But she recognised the feeling of it.

Bent. Tired. Overwhelmed by something that seemed much stronger than she was.

She felt sadness rise in her. Not dramatic. Not overwhelming. Just sadness.

The image was there now. Part of her. A story she had carried for years had somehow found its picture.

She looked across at the guide.

The guide said nothing.

And, this time, she realised she didn’t need them to.