The goat was chasing the dinosaur all over the farm, and the sun kept rising and setting right in the middle of the day. There was this odd hazy feeling all the while, and the goat was not sure whether he was really a goat or not. Sometimes things got sort of out of focus, and he lost his power to remember where he was and what he was doing.
There was this man and woman and a little boy that lived in the house. Then the man disappeared, and there was a whole lot of crying and carrying on for a while. The goat didn’t care because someone kept feeding him, and as long as he wasn’t tied up he could fend for himself anyway. After a while things got sort of back to normal and they quit that crying and screaming all of the time. Occasionally you might see a tear running down a cheek when the boy or his mother thought they were alone, but other than that things was okay again, but the man never showed up again.
After two winters went by a different man showed up. He didn’t look at all like the man that used to be here. This new guy had as much hair on his face as the goat did. The first guy was always clean-shaven and walked around with this little leather bag when he got in the tin box and drove away. The new guy began to show up more and more often. He didn’t pay any attention to the goat at all, like the other guy had. The first guy used to pet the goat and rub his ears which the goat liked immensely.
The goat had a big area to roam, and he could find lots of neat stuff to do so as not to get too bored. Sometimes he would run and kick up his heels in pure enjoyment. Other times he might just lie down for hours at a time and chew his cud. He liked to do that. It was such a comfortable feeling. Once in a while, if he felt mischievous, he might run up over the top of the tin box. If he launched himself just right he could hit the top without ever touching that shelf on the back end. One more short little bounce onto the front part, another onto the ground, and he could start all over again. Another favorite playtime was to go over to the back part of the lot, where the trees were, and butt them into submission. After he got done with them every one of them would stand at attention, like the good little soldiers he pretended they were.
The new man had moved into the house now. There had been a big party one day with dozens of other folks around. There had been music playing, and the people were all holding each other and moving around the floor to the beat of the music. There were flowers everywhere, and everybody seemed to be having a good time. Except the little boy, of course. He had seen the boy over in the trees crying two different times that day. But everyone else was having fun.
One day the new man fenced off a small section over in the woods and planted some stuff in it. The goat heard him tell this other man that came once in a while that he had planted a stash, whatever that was. The stuff grew all that summer into large plants with big leaves. The goat wondered what it was like but couldn’t find out because of the fence.
When it was getting nearly time for the white stuff to fall from the sky, there came along one night a big windstorm. The wind shrieked around the corners of the house, nearly all night long. Sometime in the middle of the night a tree came crashing down with a big whooshing sound. The goat lay in the lee of the house watching and waiting to see what would happen next. Before first light, he got up on his feet and went to inspect his property. The tree that had fallen in the night had fell partly on the fence built by the hairy man.
As the fence was laying flat, the goat could see no reason he shouldn’t go in and inspect this stuff that had been growing there all summer. He sniffed it all over, and found it to have a strange odor that he had never smelled before. As he walked among it, he decided to take just a taste to find if it was edible. It wasn’t all that good, but still it had a nice tang so he tried a little more. Well, it sort of grew on him, so he chomped away for a few minutes until he had satisfied his hunger, and then went up and lay by the house again for a snooze.
He awoke chasing that dinosaur with the purple spots.
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