She couldn’t remember when the pigs first came into the house and she’d no idea when they’d started wearing clothes,

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but it no longer mattered. Thanks to Chan she wouldn’t have to put up with them for much longer. She glanced at the clock and smiled. Tomorrow at this hour she would be far away and walking in a field of stars …
She looked down the table at the pigs and waved a spoon in the air.
“More potatoes?”
Four plates skidded across the bare boards. She dropped dollops of mash onto them and frowned with disgust as she listened to their oinking.
She wished she could remember when they’d first come into the house, but her brain seemed to have turned to treacle. Everything was so blurred and sticky she just couldn’t think straight anymore.
She recalled the doctor saying something about it being her time of life and she should get out more, get a new interest maybe. She’d had to laugh. Was the man mad? How on earth could she leave the farm now that the pigs had come into the house, there was no telling what they’d get up to, it was impossible… but no, that was not right, Chan said you could do anything if you really wanted to, all you had to do was look for the crack in the moon …
Satisfied that the pigs had clean shirts for the pub, she collected the plates, went into the kitchen and thought about Chan. He wasn’t a pig. He was beautiful and full of wisdom and his dark, slanted eyes burned with a compassion and sensitivity that made her weep with a strange and empty longing.
Abruptly she remembered her pills. She’d no idea when she’d last taken any, but she was terrified of missing a dose. The last time she’d forgotten to take them her body had shook with nausea, her heart had hammer against her ribs and worst of all, the treacle had melted from her brain.
To her horror, the pigs had taken on human forms that were disturbingly familiar and brought confused memories of selfishness and sullen rebelliousness from the three younger ones and the miserable ache of dull indifference from the older one. Without any warning at all an empty black chasm of unutterable loneliness had opened up around her and suddenly she was spinning, spinning and falling from a terrifying height down, down, down into a dark abyss of unending misery …
Unable to help herself she’d opened her mouth and screamed and screamed and screamed.
She shuddered at the memory. It was all very hazy now that the treacle had trickled back into her mind, but now and then she caught the glimpse of something lurking in the shadows of her memory, something to do with white walls and faint smells of antiseptic but that was a long time ago and now that the stickiness was back in her brain there was no abyss and no chasm of unspeakable horror, just the pigs in the house ….
Silly woman, she scolded herself why dwell on such things. What was it that Chan was always saying? Forget the past, you don’t have to hide in the shadows when you can dance in the sun. She gulped down two more pills and shivered with excitement. The thought of Chan had lifted her spirits and more of his words of wisdom sprang to her mind, the path of joy lies through the crack in the moon … Almost happy, she mounted the stairs to her bed, repeating the phrase over and over again, like a mantra, the path of joy lies through the crack in the moon … the path of joy lies through the crack in the moon …
She woke late the next morning. It happened like that sometimes when she wasn’t sure about the pills. The pigs had already left and she knew they’d had to make their own breakfast. The old one would be angry she realised, but she no longer cared.
She went into the living room and switched on the TV. Someone was talking about the weather. Rain would come from the east, they said, and it would be cold. Rubbish, she smiled to herself, couldn’t they see the sun shining? It was so bright that soon it would chase away all the shadows on the earth and show her the way through the crack in moon.
She swallowed some pills and wondered what she should do next. Soon it would be time to go, the moment she’d been waiting for, but not yet, not until Chan came to show her the way. For the first time she felt uneasy. What if the pigs came back unexpectedly? But no, it was market day, they never returned before late afternoon. She took a bottle of wine from the cupboard and went into the bedroom.
She hadn’t meant to fall asleep and for one awful moment she’d thought she was too late. Rubbing the wine stains from her mouth she rushed down the stairs to the living room, terrified that she’d missed Chan.
She needn’t have worried, he was waiting for her as he always was. Smiling and serene in a blue and gold kimono, he sat in the lotus position with his hands resting gently on his knees, his forefingers and thumbs joined in everlasting circles of cosmic harmony.
Hurriedly she shook the last of her pills into the remains of the wine and seated herself on the floor in front of the TV.
“Good afternoon,” he smiled, through the credits and the wistful thrum of oriental music. “Are you ready to start your journey towards the light and walk in a field of stars?”
“I’m ready, Chan,” she breathed softly.
“Close your eyes and feel yourself letting go of the past, …. ,” he said gently. “It is time to claim your birthright of happiness and peace …” Her heavy lids slid shut and his voice flowed through her brain like the soothing balm of warm honey “… too long you have lived in the shadows of the night …” he droned, “put aside your fears and sorrows and seek out the crack in the moon that is the pathway to eternal freedom …”
His voice grew faint and far away. Briefly she strained to catch the soft, guiding tones of his words, but then she realised it no longer mattered. She began to float, gently and slowly, spiraling and twirling in a winking, twinkling field of stars, drifting in a tranquil silence of perfect, purifying, peace and reaching with eager, out stretched hands towards the crack in the moon …