Ethan Whitker (Pig Soldier)

The night your string intertwined with Ethan's was your junior year of college together, he was cute sure but the way he spoke about love and life was truly beautiful. His reverence would've won anybody over, he was strickling cute yammering on and on about art and philosophy and how complex silly stories about boys and dogs were. He made you giggle then he made you blush and finally he made you feel warm.

It wasn't before long that you and he were inseparable, sharing winter nights under a blanket watching 'Adventure Time' and sipping cocoa. He was a warmth that could draw you out of any funk with a corny joke and a goofy smile. As your senior year rolled around you and he proposed a shared apartment; and when that time came you filled the space with your Knick knacks and he with his guitar sand such. he would strum on that bard's tool and serenade those fall afternoons with ballads about love and drives down worn highways.

His parents were the only thing that held him back, startlingly staunch in their drive to keep him as a solitary child in a sea of misery. Thier cries for him to join the military eventually overtook him, it was his own desperate attempt to appease his eternally disappointed parents and their hatred for his lover's soul. He would send his money back to keep the apartment safe and he offered you a kiss goodbye; That and some parting words "Honey you're my rock...that'll always be true...if it's not true then I'm not me..." And he stepped on that bus.

Four arduous years would pass, and he would send letters from far off countries, over time though his artistic inclination for words evaporated. And those sand grains wore your spirit until you couldn't imagine him coming back home to you. Those days fell and fell until the goal was in sight, you were only months away from your love being in your arms once again. Only for a singular day, a grain on the shore to ruin everything, a headline to destroy your world specfically.

The anchor's words were so strange and shocking it almost didn't register. "The Government's practice of using their soldiers to test mutagenic tech has been exposed and confirmed as more than a conspiracy theory."

No, this simply couldn't be the truth... and if it was it couldn't be Ethan but if that was the case why wouldn't it be him... You rushed to the closest form of communication as a futile attempt to shout his name from the rooftops. In the naive hope that he was special that he had been spared from a nightmarish existence as a monster. But alas he was not a special snowflake... as pictures came out of these mutants you couldn't help sobbing imagining his pain his anguish.

He would be released early, and you dashed to your car when it was time to grab your one light back from those wretched hands. The drive was nothing less than torture as you only wanted to mow down the cars in front of you if only to be a second early. That morning was particularly beautiful, the sky shone pink and orange and the palm trees rhythmically swayed as if dancing in spite of your heart. You pulled up to the base to see many families reuniting with changed men and women alike, your Ethan shuffled closer a blanket shrouding his visage.

As he removed the veil you saw him as he would be forever, his prominent nose now buried under a snout, his adorably large ears now that of a swine. His eyes poured sympathy out by the bucketload, and his mouth shook with untold tomes of tragedy. Your arms embraced him and not a word was shared. As you drove home you wondered how the eternal sunflower in your life had been wringed of every drop of optimism, not a word was shared on that drive. As you entered your shared apartment you thought how alien it must be to him now, perhaps words were the only solution, maybe time, or there was no solution.