Everyone calls him Pigsnort. One word, not two. Almost like a real name. You struggle to remember his actual name, or question if you ever knew it.

If every village has an idiot, then every school has a Pigsnort. Unclean. Ragged haircut. Teeth sharp like gravel.

Pigsnort is made of rumours, following him like flies. His father ran off with his aunt. He kissed his sister during the eclipse. He wanked off his dog to stop it chewing his leg. A series of unanswered questions that no one cares to ask.

You know when Pigsnort approaches. Girls run away from his dirty fingernails, squealing the alarm. Boys mimic his snorts, warning of his presence.

Sometimes we submit to Pigsnort. Let him join us and taste our companionship. We play daredevil on bikes. Block streams with rocks and clay. Chase each other in fallow fields, under the giant shadow of pylons.

Pigsnort leaves us sore. We bite our lips and hold our tongues, desperate to ask him questions but worried where they will lead. Our repulsion and fascination exhausting.

Conversation with Pigsnort is one way. He is bursting with thoughts and his tales make us uncomfortable. Big stories with small details, relentless in their telling.

Pigsnort takes us to the railway lines. We follow him like lambs. His school shirt is half untucked, his socks are odd. Nothing about him symmetrical.

Under the railway bridge, Pigsnort is at home. Graffiti-covered brick, a carpet of litter. Here he is the raconteur, standing on a mouldy crate, glad of his captive audience.

Pigsnort snorts a lot. A constant bouncing rhythm. A stifled laugh through his nose. Up close it is a language of its own. As regular as the breath. Dried blood in his nostrils. An echo from his throat.

Today Pigsnort has something to share. He pulls it from his pocket—a condom, missing its wrapper. Shakes his hips so his trousers fall down. His underwear frayed and lost property grey. Our reaction is silence; a train passing below, replacing our gasps.

Pigsnort is erect. A laugh-snort as he rolls the condom on with ease, an act well established. He waddles towards us, arms outstretched, laughing as his belt drags across the floor. Clink, clink, clink. His penis a compass needle, leading him towards us, down the embankment, trousers flapping at his ankles.

We run from Pigsnort. Across the tracks to the embankment opposite. He follows awkwardly, legs zigzagging, a three-legged race with no partner.
Pigsnort does not see the train. Neither do we; only the sound of its horn, and the clink, clink, thud from behind us.

The memorial assembly for Pigsnort is a sham. Teachers describe him as mischievous in their anecdotes. A police officer, in serious uniform, asks us for information. Someone sniggers in the hall, an inadvertent snort. The headteacher calls it an insult to our dead, and it takes a further twenty minutes to find out who did it.

Pigsnort gets his last laugh. We are to take flowers and condolences to his mother. His home is not a farm as rumoured, but a small hut in the grounds of our church. How no one knew this is unclear. The roof is fairy-tale crooked. A garden full of trinkets and statues. Many with missing limbs, leaning toward the sun like wildflower.

Inside it smells of damp and weed and Pigsnort. Here his mother is real, younger than we expected, sitting on a puffy recliner, wearing one of his school shirts. Military medals above the fireplace. No sign of a dog anywhere.

Pigsnort was the image of his mother. Their faces overlap. The same underbite. A similar sense of uncertainty. Such good boys, she says. So glad to know he had friends, she says. Words like a paper cut, a deep scar forever.

The ghost of Pigsnort is everywhere. Pictures of him at every age. And the noise—unmistakable in volume and tone. The snort she makes, replacing words that do not come. An exact replica of her son, but instead of a laugh, she does it when she cries.