When Pigs Fly

When Pigs Fly= something that will never happen

    Madelyn made her way to the cow barn, sweating as she pulled a trolley full of hay. The morning sun was extra brutal, making it a hot day. Helping her grandpa was her summertime gig, since selling lemonade didn’t pay off. 

    She always dreamt about things she 

wanted to buy, like a pair of roller skates

 to play with her friends. She worked at 

the big barn her grandpa owned to get 

an allowance.

    She made it to the barn and plopped

down the heavy hay. This was her last task of the day. She was only a child either way, so it’s simple tasks she had to do to get her pay.

    Heavy footsteps behind her on the grass, making her turn around. There, was her grandpa, sweating in his dirty workshop clothes.

    “I finished all my tasks, grandpa”, Madelyn exclaimed, gesturing around at the cows that were laying on top of the hay. In her eyes, they looked like black and white printed sack of potatoes.

    “Good job, Maddie…but”, he started before throwing the praise down the drain, along with the smile on Maddie’s face.

    Maddie didn’t even get a second to enjoy the praise before he said ‘but’. She knew it meant that he wanted help. 

    She didn’t mind helping her grandpa, she rather enjoyed it. But it was the weird requests that made her hate it. Such as:

-Helping build a pavement for the cows to feel fancy.

-Sew dresses for the baby chicks (which were usually made from cupcake wrappers). 

-Read the donkeys’ bedtime stories to make them happy for the next day.

    He treated them like they had feelings. Like they were his children, which Maddie sometimes envied for some reason.

    The amount of times she had to sew dresses for animals came to the point where she could just make her own roller skates and get out of this stinky barn. No offence,grandpa.

    “Could you help me give the horses a massage so they could-”, he continued but Maddie cut him off.

    “When pigs fly grandpa! Horses don’t need massages!”, Maddie argued.

    “But they do. They have feelings-”, her grandpa protested gently, trying to convince her child brain.

    “No they don’t!”, she pouted and crossed her arms dramatically.

    “Please darling. What will it take for you to give them a massage?”, grandpa tried again with her, but she wouldn’t budge

    “Like i said, when pigs fly.”, a solid no from her. She turned around, her pigtails swinging around with her as she headed away.

    Madelyn stormed off dramatically, feeling like she just made a statement. Absurd of a request to her. Animals don’t have feelings. 

    Maddie didn’t look back, but also couldn’t help but imagine her grandpa’s sad face. She felt guilty but it wasn’t her fault was it…?

    She looked back but didn’t find her grandpa. Did he go to massage the horses by himself? She glanced at the horse stable and didn’t spot him. He must’ve gone home.

    After making it back to the house, she still didn’t fine her grandpa. She went straight to her room and jumped onto her bed, taking a nap after that exhausted hot day.

    A few hours later, Maddie woke up to someone shaking her.

    “Get up Maddie”, Her grandpa said as he gently helped her out of bed, guiding her back to the field.

    “Get ready to massage some horses”, he said, grinning at Maddie who was rolling her eyes. 

    Did he not hear her? “No grandpa! I said when pigs fly! That’s a no-”, Maddie protested.

    He cuts her off by pointing up at the sky. It wasn’t the beautiful sunset that caught her attention. It was the chubby pink blobs that were squirming in mechanical wings, looking confused and nervous as they looked down.

    Madelyn’s eyes widened as they flew

around. The wings working non stop to 

levitate the chubby pigs.

     “W-what!?You made this?”, She knew 

her grandpa loved designing random things but her expectations weren’t that high.

    “Yep. Kinda funny how confused they look, ay?”, He chuckled, wrapping his arm around her shoulder as they watched the pigs fly around.

    After a couple minutes of watching the pink blobs fly, it was then that Maddie was massaging the horses with her grandpa under the sunset.

    She never saw this coming, but she did see how the horses neighed and made happy faces and dances after the massage. Maybe animals do have feelings after all, which made her wonder…

“Hey grandpa…?”

“Yes, Maddie?”

“How are these pigs gonna get down?”

“…uh…”

High expectations when it comes to imagination.

The End