Infinite Little Pigs

Alex Zalben
Aug 25, 2017 · 9 min read

Once upon a time, there were an infinite number of little pigs, who were all brothers and sisters, and all lived in houses by themselves. Infinite meant as many numbers as you can ever imagine, higher than anyone could count. Despite that, the infinite little pigs all liked each other and were living happy little pig lives. Until one day, a big, bad wolf came out of the forest.

The wolf got hungry when he saw the first little pig playing outside his house, which was made of straw. “I’m going to eat you!” said the wolf.

The first little pig squealed, and ran into his straw house locking the door, which was most likely had a lock made of straw and therefore was not very sturdy.

“Little pig, little pig, let me come in!” yelled the wolf.

“Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin,” squeaked the pig. Now this was surprising because he didn’t have any hair on his adorable little pink pig chin.

“Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in!” roared the wolf. He huffed, and he puffed, and the straw house blew away.

Terrified, the first little pig ran and hid in his brother’s house, which was made of sticks.

“Little pig, little pig, let me come in!” yelled the wolf.

“Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin,” squealed the first and second pigs, and of note, the second pig had a little bit of fuzz on his chin, but not very much.

“Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in!” roared the wolf. And he huffed, and he puffed, and the stick house blew away.

Terrified, the first and second little pigs ran and hid in their brother’s house, which was made of bricks. This should indicate that he was savvier than his brothers, who clearly weren’t concerned with the structural integrity of their houses.

“Little pig, little pig, let me come in!” yelled the wolf.

“Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin,” squealed the first, second and third pigs, who had clearly practiced saying this in unison.

“Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow this house in!” roared the wolf. And he huffed, and he puffed, but nothing happened.

“It’s a brick house, silly!” snorted the third pig, laughing.

At first, the wolf thought he would try to get in using the chimney, but then he realized the pigs could just run out the door, or make a fire in the fireplace to smoke him out. He was a talking wolf, so clearly he was smart enough to know a trap when he saw one.

Instead, he grabbed the jackhammer from his workshop and broke a large hole in the wall of the brick house.

“Surprise!” yelled the wolf.

Terrified, the first, second and third little pigs ran and hid in their brother’s house, which was made of solid steel.

“Little pig, little pig, let me come in!” yelled the wolf.

“Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin,” sang the first, second, third and fourth pigs harmonizing, and to be honest, they sounded pretty good.

Now as we’ve previously established the wolf was no dummy, so he skipped that whole “I’ll huff, and I’ll puff” thing and cut right to melting a new door in the steel house with his blowtorch.

All four pigs and their distinct lack of lengthy chin hairs squealed and ran to their sister's house, which was made out of glass.

“Little pig, little pig, let me come in!” yelled the wolf.

“Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin,” squealed the first, second, third, fourth and fifth pigs, or they would have if they weren’t interrupted by the wolf throwing a stone at the glass house, causing it to shatter into a million pieces.

Carefully, avoiding all the broken glass, the five pigs tip-toed away, and they had plenty of time because the wolf was also stuck in the middle of a lot of broken glass. “Safety first,” growled the wolf as the pigs made a break for their sixth sibling's house, which was made out of clay.

“How many of these houses are there?” growled the wolf, who clearly hadn’t read our first paragraph explaining there were infinite pigs, in an infinite number of houses. But since he’s a wolf and probably never learned how to read, we’ll forgive him. If someone sees the wolf, please let him know. Thank you.

Pulling out a little hammer, the wolf lightly tapped the clay house, causing it to crack. The pigs ran, the wolf chased, and you can fill in the rest.

The seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second houses were each different types of wood. Specifically: pine, spruce, larch, juniper, aspen, hornbeam, birch, alder, beech, oak, elm, cherry, pear, maple, linden, and ash.

The wolf burnt all of these house down.

The twenty-third, twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth, thirtieth, thirty-first, thirty-second, thirty-third, thirty-fourth, thirty-fifth, thirty-sixth, thirty-seventh, thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth houses were each different types of metal. Specifically: gold, silver, titanium, chrome, copper, nickel, aluminum, magnesium, lead, zinc, rhodium, iridium, platinum, palladium, ruthenium, osmium, and titanium.

Each of these metals presented a unique problem, so the wolf went to college. He was initially turned away because of the whole “not being able to read” thing, so he headed to elementary school, then high school, then back to college. After graduating with a focus on metallurgical engineering, he felt well equipped to tackle the problems of the metal houses. It had been a few years, so the thirty-nine pigs were pretty surprised to see him, and some were now old enough that they had chin hairs.

Still, the wolf made short work of their houses, and they ran all the way to the fortieth house, which was made out of diamond. Luckily the wolf had made a diamond-cutting laser as his final project in Laser Studies 101, so he cut that diamond house to smithereens.

Now, a smarter animal — and he was clearly smart enough to complete a difficult course of study, so he should have known better — would have picked up the scraps of diamond and started a successful jewelry business (perhaps after rebuilding one of the houses he had destroyed to use as a storefront!)

But by this point, the wolf was committed. “I don’t care how many pigs there are,” said the wolf, who clearly had still not read our first paragraph despite now being able to read. “I’m going to eat them all.”

This was a monumentally poor idea. Not that one should eat any talking animals, but eating forty of anything at one sitting will make you sick. It is important to vary your diet!

Point is, the wolf had reached a turning point here, and he wasn’t turning away. Instead, he continued to chase after the pigs, threatening to blow down their houses regardless of how many chin hairs they threatened him with.

The forty-first house was made out of plastic.

The forty-second out of foam.

The forty-third, paper.

The forty-fourth, leather.

The forty-fifth was a house of wax, which was a pretty solid joke, ask your grandpa about it.

The forty-sixth was a house of style, also a pretty solid joke, ask your aunt about it.

The forty-seventh was a shoe, which to be frank, seemed to be in the wrong story.

The forty-eighth house was made out of fire, which was handily taken care of by the forty-ninth house, which was made out of water.

The fiftieth house was a big white house, and the wolf was only able to remove the pig from in there after massive protests and a vote by a super-majority of other pigs.

The fifty-first house was just an old, hollowed-out tree.

The fifty-second house was made of fishnets.

The fifty-third house was made of that fuzz that gets stuck in your bellybutton.

The fifty-fourth house was made of hyperbricks, which are like bricks, but a little bit more, you know what we mean?

The fifty-fifth house was made of an alien substance called phlebgru.

The fifty-sixth house was made of Steve. “Hi, I’m Steve,” said the house, before the wolf blew him in.

The fifty-seventh house was made of ducks’ bills, which begged the alarming question of what happened to all those ducks.

The fifty-eighth house was made of twisty straws, while the fifty-ninth house was made of crazy straws which were way more exciting but less efficient to drink from.

The sixtieth house was made of grapes. The sixty-first house was made of pineapples. The sixty-second house was made of cantaloupes. The sixty-third house was made of watermelon, and the wolf briefly considered giving up and making a fruit salad, but then remembered he was all into eating those pigs.

The sixty-fourth house was made of yak wool.

By the time the wolf had destroyed many more houses — including ones made of party supplies, airline magazines, old cans, licorice, VHS copies of ice skating competitions, sporks, magnets shaped like cats, cats shaped like magnets, a pile of garbage, and even one that seemed to be made of other pigs — he was exhausted, hungry and on the edge of giving up.

“Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in,” gasped the wolf with a raspy throat, his dry lips parched from all that huffing and puffing.

“Not by the hair on our chinny chin chins!” yelled millions of pigs.

“Surely this is it!” cried the wolf. “Surely there cannot be any more pigs!”

“Didn’t you read the first paragraph?” asked millions of pigs.

Confused, the wolf looked up. And then up, and up and up at the words over his head, until he saw the top. Climbing on the piles of ruined houses, he slowly made his way to the first paragraph of the story.

Stunned, realization dawning in his eyes, the wolf paused for a moment, and then turned back to the pigs. “But that means — ”

“Yes,” said the pigs simultaneously.

“But if there are an infinite number of pigs,” thought the wolf out loud, “that would mean you would fill up all the available space in the universe, and more so. It’s impossible to have an infinite amount of anything, because existence is, in fact, finite.”

“…but this is a story,” added the pigs. “Where the real world, bound by rules, and its length and its width and its depth — even if the world is bigger and with more places and people and pigs than you’ll ever see in your entire life, or a hundred lives, or a million lives — is finite, not infinite… Your imagination can stretch forever.”

The wolf was confused. How could something that doesn’t exist be bigger than something that does exist?

“That’s the beauty of stories,” the pigs said, sensing what the wolf was thinking. “They only exist as words on a page, but when they enter your mind, they become infinite. And you can imagine an infinite number of things. Then it’s up to you to decide which of those things becomes true.”

At that, the wolf sat silently. Here he was, a fictional character with an infinite number of possibilities before him, and he had wasted decades trying to eat pigs and destroy their houses. Is this what he wanted? Is this what he was meant to do? Or, if the bounds of what he could do were truly infinite, could he do anything?

The wolf sat like that for a long time, as the pigs went about their pig business. Day became night, and became day again. Weeks passed, but because this is a story, it is only as long as it takes you to read this sentence.

After a time, the wolf stirred. “Little pigs, little pigs, will you come out?”

“Not by the hair that grows on our snouts!” said the little pigs, who actually did have some hair on their snouts.

“Then I’ll ask, and I’ll beg, and I’ll bloooow you a kiss.”

And he did. There was a pause. And then one pig stepped out of the house, which was made of pickles.

“Are you going to eat me?” said the brave little pig.

“No,” said the wolf. “If there are infinite possibilities, why go for the bad?”

Stretching out far in the distance the pig could see that the wolf had put his knowledge to work. All the houses were rebuilt. One by one, millions of little pigs came out of the pickle house, and were joined by more pigs until it became the biggest party that ever, or would ever, be thrown.

It was exactly as big as you can imagine.


Once upon a time, there was an infinite number of little pigs, and a wolf, who were all siblings (except the wolf) and they all lived in houses together. Infinite meant as many numbers as you can ever imagine, yet higher than anyone can count. Despite that, the infinite little pigs and the wolf all liked each other, and were living happy little pig (and wolf) lives.

And they knew that with an infinite number of possibilities, they had picked the absolute best one.


Except for the ducks.

)

Author of “Thor And The Warriors Four” for Marvel. Comic Book Club Live! for Nerdist. Sketch comedy with Elephant Larry. Formerly MTV News/UGO/AMC. Other stuff.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade