The Goat

I grew up in the Suburbs. There were two different houses. One was in a Muslim community, the other was near a golf course; both were quite comfortable. I’ve lived in a large city for the better part of three years. At the moment, I am living on a farm though I can’t properly call what I’m doing living. Snowed in, I am stuck here with no remnants of the outer world. For my purposes, existence has folded itself up and tucked itself inside of my head.

My head is getting screwed on straight and daily life is becoming purposeful. I put more high-minded fluff into my novel, The Giant Explosion That Killed Everyone, under the assumption that the right combination of high-minded fluff will become beautiful. This is not disparaging. This is the necessary fluff. The drama of the book takes place inside of a single man’s head. Using thought as catalyst for a story requires a lot of high-minded fluff. For authenticity I modeled the character’s thought process after my own. Exploring one Charlie Hoofing III, I learned a lot about myself, namely I think in high-minded fluff—gaudy concepts attached to eggs, etc. When I am not doing this I am eating beans, doing push-ups, making funny faces in the mirror, and reading about baseball.

Sportswriters use very good sentences. They have to. Sports, in and of themselves, are a metaphor, requiring the observer to instill their own sense of meaning.

Yesterday I realized it had been several days since I laughed. I enjoy laughter so I went looking for a laugh. The search for humor led me to the Morton Building, a large shed filled with tractors and miscellaneous debris. I poked through the possessions left behind by the previous owner and found a box of Hentai which is Asian Cartoon Porn. I laughed quite a bit at this I felt as though I willed it to happen and felt very powerful because of this.

I also care for the animals. This is a farm and there are lots of them.

Max is a giant Pyrenees that behaves like a bear. When the snow first fell, he would run forward and thresh his face into the snow like it were one of his appendages. He is a very good dog.

There are seven Horses but my favorite is called Honey. She is pregnant with a foal and has had three miscarriages. This makes me feel very bad for her. It must be very confusing for a Horse to give birth to a dead thing. When I am bored I will feed her a carrot or give her a hug. Hugging her is difficult, I am still very afraid of horse.

George is a Llama. I thought I would enjoy Llamas but I do not. My Father sings a song that roughly goes “I love the Llama. I love the Llama Llama.” I will never sing to this Llama. He spits at me. When he sees me approach, I can hear him conjuring spittle in his bucktoothed mouth.

There were two Goats. As of this morning, there is only one Goat. I went outside to feed the animals and saw a dead Goat on the ground. The other Goat was standing next to it, occasionally licking its head. It did not seem to understand that the other Goat, his brother, was dead.

As a precaution against disease, Dead Animals must be removed quickly. I was the only one home and had to remove the animal. We keep Dead Animals in a crate behind the woodshed. Our tentative plan is to light a fire and cremate the Goat tonight. I have never held a dead thing before. It took several minutes to work up the nerve. When I got brave enough, I picked it up. It was surprisingly light and shockingly stiff. It’s legs felt hard and cold. They were covered in fur but felt more like logs than part of a Mammal.

When I picked up the Goat, it hung limp. It’s limbs dangled, utterly devoid of life. Seeing this made the other Goat understand what death was and that his brother was afflicted. I felt very bad for this Goat. I nearly cried.

I did not want to remove the Dead Goat but I had to. I set it down and walked away for a moment so the Other could say goodbye. Then I picked it up and carried it to a red bin.

The Other Goat immediately started crying. Its anguish was so great; the strength of his howls buckled his vocal chords. One thing about Goats, they sound a lot like humans. Hearing his cries, I imagined that someday when I am besotted by grief that my cries will sound a lot like his.

Outside, he is still crying. The barn is fifty yards away but I can hear him inside the house. It is the saddest sound I have ever heard.

[Posted by resident runaway Joel "The Foal" Walkowski, via email]