Excerpt

 It was something in her eyes… Resentment, bitterness, pride, fear, pain… As if she had irreversibly locked the tumbler to her soul, she stood there: staring scornfully. Not caring about anything anymore. I was looking at the forsaken shape of a white goat, that chilly winter day. The sky was blanketed with gray clouds that looked like damp wool, and a soft mist hung in the mountains. I had come to this dilapidated farm to be shown what I was told to be a Saanen doe, and it appeared that I was looking at her. Her fur coat was a shaggy, three inches long, but even that couldn’t hide her bones jutting sharply from her gaunt hide. To my sorrow, I learned that this destitute creature was heavily pregnant and due to kid in less than two months. She looked hardly capable of surviving, let alone being pregnant. Her eight month old buckling came trotting up to her and began nursing eagerly. Poor girl, I thought, she’s practically being eaten alive as this buckling, and the kids in her womb steal her preciously scarce nutrients.

My heart went out to this horridly ugly excuse for a goat, and I gently reached out to stroke her. She looked at my outstretched hand and hurriedly moved out of my reach. Despite her impoverished condition, her eyes still glowed with feeling. I saw hatred smoldering like embers in her expressive face. Though she stood in a quagmire of filth and was disgraceful to look at, she stood with her head held high. Like a princess locked in a concentration camp, she knew in her heart that she was more than her prison mates. Trying to not let my emotions get the better of me, I rationalized buying such a creature. It was possible that she could die during labor, due to her critical state. Or she might not be a good milker, which is what I was looking to buy. I was on the hunt for a purebred, preferably registered milking goat, and here I was staring at a neglect case. This goat was by no means purebred, either. She had the build and look of a Saanen, but her ears were a dead giveaway to her other lineage: They were only one inch long. Those ridiculous looking ears screamed La Mancha blood, so I could only presume she was a Saanen/ La Mancha cross.

But her eyes haunted me… Where had I seen something like that before? As if groping for a forgotten history, my mind searched for an answer to this riddle.

Meanwhile, the owner watched my silence and took it for hesitance in buying her. He reassured me that it didn’t matter if I bought her or not. If I didn’t, his hunting buddy would come over the next day and just turn her into sausage. It didn’t matter to him; it was just a goat.

I looked at the wretched creature before me, again, and I thought about the $100 in my pocket. She was too proud, it seemed to me, to be turned into sausage. Not to mention her unborn kids would be killed as well. I sighed, and handed over one hundred dollars. Not only did I want to see what was behind her layer of filth, but something in me also wanted -- or maybe needed -- to figure out where I had seen such a haunted look before. Why did her eyes seem like such a familiar memory in the back of my mind?

This small blurb is from something I've been working on over the past week. Just thought I'd share, and ask y'all for some feedback. :)