My first draft. Critique it until it bleeds. Thanks!

That pig just ain't right in the head. Ain't right at all.

They always like to say, "Like a pig in a poke." It's supposed to mean a really happy pig. Well, this pig ain't happy. Look at her, just staring up at the ceiling, wanting to go right through it and play with the clouds above. She's just straining against her tether, wings beatin' furiously. We've gone through 2 leashes this month alone.

It wasn't always like this. She used to be a normal pig once. Kind of on the tame side, if anything. One day, we had a feed salesman show up from a company that had just started up. He had a new, scientific formula that was gonna produce miracles in our stock.

That it did.

Now, despite what city folk like to say, us farm folk aren't stupid. We argued with that salesman, saying that we'd been really pleased with our current feed and that we didn't just buy from any one. We negotiated a whole barrel of feed for free, enough for a full month for one pig. If we saw good results, we'd considering switching. Otherwise, we'd go back to our usual feed.

Well, at first, everything was right as rain. Amy Sue (okay, I never grew out of naming the animals, but all the pigs were ____ Sue - even the male pigs, that way, if I got caught, I'd just claim I was calling them by going SOOOEEE), well Amy Sue was squealing and grinning like she'd found the coolest mud puddle in the whole state, and she'd packed on a few meaty pounds, not giggly, butcher-trimmed fat. Boy, after those first few days, we were ready to throw caution to the wind and get all our animals on it.

It must have been two weeks later when she started rolling around, grunting in pain. She kept smacking into the pen posts, rubbing her foreshoulders against the wood. It didn't take much time before she was all bloodied up. Well, we knew it was something with the feed, so we quarantined her straight away and got our local vet, Dr. Johansen, to come by and check her out. He drew enough blood for 3 pigs, took a big sample of the pig food, and told us to get her off that food, and fast. We scrubbed everything around, from the trough we'd set up just for Amy Sue to the treads of our boots. Make no mistake, this wasn't just for one pig. If we'd lost the pig, it would have been a few hundred dollars loss at most. If she was infected with something - it could have been every animal on the farm, maybe even the county. Just ask those Brits about their little Hoof and Mouth problem if you don't believe me.

Three days and 2 urine samples later, (you laugh - you try getting a pissy pig to urinate on cue!) we still didn't have an answer. The local Ag Department couldn't find anything wrong with the feed or the blood samples: no parasites, no disease, nothing but a high level of adrenaline in her system. Hell, we figured on our own that she was up on adrenaline! (Ned's first day on the job at the local Starbucks, when he downed that 44oz cup of espresso, Amy Sue made him look sleepy.)

You may have heard the expression "Bleeding like a stuck pig." Well, pigs can gush a lot of blood, but even pigs are supposed to run out at some point. We couldn't get close enough to her to wash her off, but we'd left a water tub for her, and we saw her jump in and out of it a lot, but there was always blood coming off her shoulders. At times, the blood would run into her eyes, giving her the most awful demon look.

We'd finally decided to do a mercy killing on Amy Sue. Pop loaded his hunting rifle and headed into the shack we'd made just for Amy Sue. I stayed just outside the door in case she somehow bolted. When something smacked against the inside wall, and Pop yelled for me to come in, I was sure that he'd been bitten or worse. I ran inside, ready to bandage him up, even throw myself between him and the pig to give him time to escape.

Remember that old Bugs Bunny cartoon, with Bugs facing off against that bull, and he put his cape against the wall, and the bull charged and got his horns stuck in the wall? Now imagine it with an old farmer as Bugs, a red hunting jacket as the cape, and an insane pig with horns coming out it her shoulders, and that's pretty close to what I saw. Splatter a couple of gallons of pig blood across the walls, add a few overturned basins of food and water congealed into something resembling Edna's infamous spam surprise, and you'd be dead-on. Amy Sue was working herself loose, and she'd wedged the gun between herself and the wall, so we beat a hasty retreat.

I think I mumbled something about Friday the 13th meets Green Acres.

Pop eyed the gas can by the pick-up truck and mentioned something about serving smoked sausage for dinner.

We got the Ag people down to the farm to deal with her. They didn't want to hear about demon pigs, so we mentioned Mad Pig disease, and it wasn't half an hour before 2 of them showed up to take our pig for testing. We showed them to the barn and let them try to take her away. A few screams later, they ran out, whiter than last Christmas.

An hour later, we had a SWAT team descend on the farm house, trying to take on the pig. (Okay, it was the local 4H club, but you make do where you can.) It was looking like Pig 3, Humans 0, but Amy Sue knocked poor Ned through the door and got past all of us. Game over.

Ned demanded that we organize a posse to get the pig. We all looked at him like he'd been hit with the stupid stick yet again. And that boy had been hit with the stupid stick all through his life. He vowed on the spot that if we didn't help him, he'd take down the pig by himself, and take all the glory.

Well, we would never interfere with a vigilante pig hunter, so we wished him the best of luck, and told him that Animal Control be the Lestrade to his Holmes. Amy Sue was a female, and wasn't quite old enough to have a litter, so we figured we'd be safe if she just found a hole to crawl in and die.

About a week later, Edna started yelling about someone pegging her house with pig shit - on the roof at that. Well, we figured at first that someone was doing a pointed critique of her cooking ability, because Goodness knows that's what a lot of it tasted like, but then several other people in town - the normal ones that everyone liked - started saying the same thing. Dr. Johansen himself got pelted, not his house but his head, and there wasn't anyone around!

We started a neighbor hood watch going, and when we caught that pervert, we were going to give them a bath they'd never forget - and not using water, if you haven't caught my drift. As bad luck would have it, Ned was the first one to catch a glimpse of the culprit. He claimed that Amy Sue, shoulder horns all huge now, had actually somehow climbed the roof of Edna's house (Edna had become a favorite target - can't be from inviting smells wafting from her kitchen!) and was doing the deed there. Since he was still dividing his time between his Pig Posse and the neighborhood Pig Shit Patrol, we figured that he was getting the two all confused.

A few days later, I found out that Ned was actually right for a change. It was my turn to go around town, looking for pig shit bombs (and I went to college for this?) when I heard a squeal. I flattened against a wall, figuring a car with bad brakes (I wasn't thinking pigs as pig farms are kept a bit out of town for obvious reasons) when I saw the strangest toy airplane. Pop bought Randy and me a remote-controlled airplane to share when we were kids (like kids ever share anything ... ) and I'd ogled over them in magazines ever since we'd broken that one, and I'd never seen anything like what was in the sky. The wings had scalloped edges, like they were really feathered, and the middle was far too round.

Why did the cockpit have a snout?

I slowly crept out to try to get a closer look. The "plane" circled closer. The wings dipped down, then back up. It was flapping its wings! The body angled down as the wings pulled up. I held my breath in amazement. It was Amy Sue, and she was flying! I couldn't believe my eyes. I wondered what she'd do next.

With a high-pitched snicker, she unloaded her cargo on my head then took off.

It took 3 showers that night, an emergency appointment at Arlene's salon, and a whole tub of double chocolate chunk ice cream the next day before I was coherent again. A flying pig! Well, everyone knew the old saying about, "If pigs could fly ... " but no one knew what to do now that it came true. We weren't a poor town (just a bit run-down, past quaint but not to the point of seedy) and we weren't a greedy town, but boy, wouldn't it be nice to get some tourist money with a real, flying pig?

We got tranquilizer darts to catch Amy Sue and set up Pig Patrols. (Thank God Dr. Johansen found some that are safe for humans! Old Mr. Madison wouldn't admit his eyes were going and ... well, let's just say that some people got a lot of extra sleep the next month thanks to Mr. Madison's shooting skills.) Ned insisted on being appointed Chief Pig Vigilante, but we managed to catch Amy Sue anyway.

Now, at this point, you'd be thinking that all our troubles would be over. We'd be rich and famous with the 8th or 9th Wonder of the World and living happily ever after. Well, reality hit us upside the head so hard, we're still looking for missing teeth.

The only newspapers who'd listen to us initially also featured Bob the Bat boy (interviews only at night, please!) and Elvis' current live-in lover (if he ain't fully dead, he's certainly dead in that region.) We should have packed it in right there, but us farm folk are persistent and we finally got a local tv station to show off the pig.

Offers started pouring in from all over to buy the pig. We had everyone from Ringling Brothers Circus to Ripley's Believe It or Not (it took them long enough to believe it!) to several Asian enterprises who, we think, wanted to buy the pig for medicinal purposes.

Just as we thought things couldn't get any better, we were proved right.

We had religious crazies flood the town. The Apocalypse was coming, it said it in the Bible and our pig proved it! We were Satanists and had created this demon by sacrificing our babies and bathing in their blood. We'd found an angel - and it was a pig - so pigs were closest to God. (And I had problems understanding the cow worshiping in India!) God had declared us unclean and sent us this warning. We'd tried to argue with them, but stating logic to idiots is like, well, casting pearls before swine.

The government came in and tried to take the pig away. They declared the entire county a disaster zone (I guess they feared the wings were contagious) and tossed some money at us. The money wasn't much, and they wanted to kill all the livestock in a hundred miles. A bunch of conspiracy nuts came in and offered to set up a Free State Army to drive the government off. All they drove off was the money.

Several people tried to sneak in and barbeque Amy Sue, figuring they'd grew wings like hers. Some simply stole feathers, I guess to sew their own wings. Rumor has it a few Native Americans are now holding ceremonies with the pig wings, but I think that's just hogwash. (After all the trouble I've been through, I'm allowed a few lousy jokes.)

Then came PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. It's no coincidence that they picked a name so close to PITA - Pain In The Ass. They must have hired more lawyers than a corn field has kernels. They sued to block the sale of Amy Sue, and with all the ruckus they made, only the Smithsonian kept its offer, if we could prove the Amy Sue died peaceable of natural causes, and they'd pay only after she died. That's at least 8 years down the road!

We tried recouping money by selling cuddly, stuffed versions of Amy Sue, but a certain corporation (my lawyer says that I can't name those SOBs') snuck in and patented the design so they sued us for making representations of our own pig! PETA, now that we couldn't do anything with Amy Sue, swaggered off, leaving an old hippie freak to monitor how we treated her. Of course, he won't help fed or clean her. He just sits around and tells us how to do it. (My family has raised pigs for 5 generations. He's a vegan lawyer. Guess who's the expert on caring for pigs?) Since we live within a 10 mile radius of a regional airport, the FAA has given us strict mandates on when we can let the pig out (which directly contradicts the PETA settlement. We're not sure who's more dangerous, the government, or PETA.) Amy Sue just gets meaner and meaner, and the doctor bills are piling up for all her bites. We've all gotten a series of tetanus and rabies shots, just to be on the safe side.

After all this, you might think I'd be left with no hopes and no dreams. Well, thankfully, you're wrong. I have a dream: to one day find that feed salesman so I can kill him.

Absorbing stuff. Well, it passed the first test - it makes you want to read on and see where the story is going. My first thought was the pig was high on wacky backy (giggle). I sort of lost it a bit around the time Amy Sue started growing horns. I wasn't sure what was going on there for a bit and had to re-read a couple of paras. Maybe a slower transition from 'pig' to 'pig with horns' could work better. But that was my only niggle with this story. Nice stuff and just about the right length. Jack

The story presentation felt conversational, like one person telling another a story at the bar. Don't know if that was intentional but it made me involved as a reader, like I was at the bar listening in.

Very fascinating story and I agree with the transition about the horns, but it kept my interest very well. It was very informal, like a storyteller of old...

Forgive the following rant... :)

As to PETA, they are the most useless bunch of people I'd ever seen. My dad had several feral cats that he fed and took care of. The city decided that feral cats should go and even though he was willing to get them fixed and get all the shots, they wouldn't hear of it and would not let him re-adopt because outdoor cats should be outlawed. He called PETA who's sole answer was "It's better for the cats." Oh, yeah, dying from euthanasia is much better for the cats than having a happy life with food and love. Since then, I've had no use for PETA and their theories.

Feel free to ignore that. I get that way everytime I hear about PETA...

Great story, well told. Like everyone said, it's absorbing, conversational, and funny. A few minor points: Right at the start, you tell us that the Amy Sue can fly - "Look at her, just staring up at the ceiling, wanting to go right through it and play with the clouds above. She's just straining against her tether, wings beatin' furiously." It would be more fun to find out for ourselves, as the story progresses. Then you'd create a sense of curiosity, and a little dread, with the horns growing. Is Amy Sue really turning into a demon pig? Well, as it stands, we know she's not, so the opportunity for suspense is missed. You'll need a title that doesn't give it away too. The bits in brackets don't need to be. They're funny enough to stand on their own. If you want them to be separate, maybe italicise them to make them appear as the narrator's thoughts. The build-up to capturing Amy Sue is great, really comical. The actual capture could do with a lot of expanding ("but we managed to catch Amy Sue anyway" - a bit anti-climactic). There's a lot of scope for some winged pig/farmer slapstick here and you could definitely handle writing it - you're clearly very good at that. Like I said, it's a great story. You could certainly find a publisher for this. =)