A Short story the Old Goat Lady

There once was an old lady who lived in the old green fibro house down the road from my house. She had an old male pet goat or as they are called a whether. I think that it is a funny thing to call a goat. She called him Bob and she could be heard talking to him as if he was human.

Every morning she would get him out of his little tin shed in her backyard and take him around to the front yard and tether him to on an old car wheel on her lawn.  She would then give him water and some green vegetables, before sitting down on her veranda and read the morning newspaper to him.  You would swear that she was talking to a man, the way she carried on.  She would comment on a story or article and then it was as if the goat had made his own comment because she would answer an unheard question or give an explanation.  But no one ever heard the goat make so much as a sound.  If you forget the crunching of food and the odd stamp of a hoof.

The last winter that anyone saw either of them again, was a bitter, cold one.  Some were even saying that was the coldest on record.  Even the old goat lady found it hard.  She stopped talking to Bob and she didn’t stay outside to read him the newspaper.  That winter seemed to last forever.  The rain and wind was never-ending.  The old goat lady was getting around slower and slower.  Poor Bob was left with no one to talk to.

One day there was this terrible noise coming from the old goat lady’s backyard.  Bob was crying and kicking the sides of his tin shed.  He went on and on for hours.  The next day the police and an ambulance arrived outside the old lady’s house.  Poor Bob was still crying and kicking.  One of the police officers gave him fresh water and some food, while the other forced open the front door and went inside with the ambulance officers.  They were only inside for a short time.  The ambulance officers were seen pushing a trolley with a long plastic bag on it.  We were told that the old lady was in the bag and that she died in her sleep from, what the officers believed, was a heart attack.  We stood in the street watching as they placed the trolley into the back of the ambulance and slowly drove down the street.

 What was going to happen to Bob? We all wondered.  The police told us that they had arranged for him to be picked up and taken to a goat farm just outside of town.  Then sure enough an old Holden ute towing a trailer pulled up outside.  The trailer was full of goats.  The man from the ute talked to the police who then show him around to the backyard.  Bob could still be heard crying and kicking.  The man returned, leading a stubborn Bob.  Bob saw the other goats as he got into the trailer. 

The police helped the man put Bob in the trailer.  The man thanked them then drove down the road and out of sight.  Some of the old residents in the street cried softly into their hankies.  Everyone else just slowly and quietly walked away.  Back to their own homes.