25718: day 36+

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I have 20 chapters, with four separate storylines/sets of characters (two with pairs of characters, two with single characters, and one character who has moved between two lines as of last night), and they're finally beginning to cross with eachother. Two of them will merge soon, and I will declare an end to Novel Part 1. Each chapter is ~1000 words, and I try to make each one a self-contained scene, usually with the characters arriving at and then departing from some locale. I am writing a sort of travel novel?
**

“I don’t eat pork,” said Ezi, frowning.

Momoko smiled approvingly. “No meat at all?” She pulled the cabbage out and closed the cabinet, and started peeling leaves off and stacking them on the counter.

“Not if I can help it. Especially not pork.”

“Why not?” Momoko asked, producing a knife from a slotted container attached to the cabinet.

“I like pigs. They have nice personalities. I went to an animal psychology retreat last month, and we talked with some pigs directly over the feed, but we were right there with them at the same time.” Ezi was getting excited. Momoko laid the cabbage out and started slicing, and waited for the girl to finish her story. “They told us that they like to eat, and they liked rubbing up against things, and that they didn’t mind people because we brought them things to eat, and that they wondered sometimes why things are the way they are.”

“They really wonder that?” asked Momoko, smiling as she watched the knife slicing through the cabbage leaves.

“That’s what they said. Two different pigs said it, the same thing. We tried to explain that we were students, and that we were there to learn about pigs and other animals, and how they thought, but they didn’t understand at all. We asked them some questions, but mostly they didn’t get it, and sometimes they gave dumb answers. Dr Levitz was able to get them to give better answers, because he could give them other types of commands, since he works with them all the time. But they were nice, so I don’t think we should be eating them.”

“I guess that’s reasonable. Look in there,” Momoko pointed at a cabinet, “get some noodles and boil some water.”

Ezi complied, and kept talking. “I haven’t gotten to talk to any other animals yet, except for dogs and cats and horses of course, but no one wants to eat them at all. Dr Levitz said you could talk to cows too, but he said chickens were hard, and didn’t have much to say anyways. He said the pigs can talk to each other over their feeds, and that they mostly talk about smells and food and needing to shit. He didn’t say if a pig could talk to a dog, I didn’t think of that until later.” She was filling a pot, also pointed to by Momoko, with water, when a cry arose from the other end of the room.