This was the third grocery store the man had been to today. The man was looking for some matches. Those long, wooden fireplace matches in particular. The kind that are made for lighting pilot lights, fires, or anything that requires a little more flame-time than a regular match can deliver. And at a further distance.

Finally, he found them at Jewel. He paid cash and walked the three blocks home in the chill, early fall air. On the way he passed the house with the cats. It was a standard small brick bungalow, typical for the neighborhood. But this one always had two cats lounging around the front porch. "The Guards," he called them, but only in his mind. This time the thin, black one was sleeping on the second stair of the porch. The smaller, cream-colored one was sitting on the stone railing, casually watching him walk past. She stopped to bend her head between her hind legs, lifting one leg straight into the air to lick her haunch. Cat yoga. Stupid animals, the man thought.

He started walking again, only then becoming conscious that he had stopped at all. He briefly wondered if the owners had seen him staring at the cats. The Guards would only taunt him for so long. Someday maybe they wouldn't stare like that anymore. But for now, he had things to attend to.

He walked purposefully now down the main hall of his house, glancing into the adjacent four rooms as he passed: kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, dining room. These moments arriving home, he always wished for more space. He dropped off his purchase in the kitchen, and went back down the hall. He never much enjoyed the cleanup part, and if he had more space, he could at least put off cleaning in one room for a few days and just use another. He continued this absentminded wish as he walked into each room, turning on the fans. He noticed the sun was setting.

The damned thing was braying again. (Or was it neighing? Do goats bray, or neigh? Or are they just a good lay?) The man laughed -- a short, loud hoot -- as he opened the door to the closet. It must have fallen asleep while he was shopping and awoken when he returned. The smell from the closet briefly swayed him. He pulled on the rope that had already been tied around the barnyard animal's neck, and it came obligingly out of the cramped closet. In his other hand, the man held a box of baking soda, which he now dumped liberally around the floor of the closet as the goat resumed its bleating. (Do they bleat or screet? Either way they're really neat.) The man chuckled to himself and led the goat down the hall to the front room.

Once there, the two performed a simple momentary tango as the man wondered where to attach the goat for the time being. The closet door handle would be too noisy when the goat pulled, as it invariably would. The end table legs were too spindly. The heavy glass coffee table leg would suffice, so he tied a looped knot in the end of the rope, lifted the corner of the table and stuck the loop under the table leg. After being secured again, the goat seemed to relax, and quieted a little. It glanced up at the man with its dumb, soulless eyes. It doesn't even have the intelligence to wonder why its here, he thought. It just knows its here, in this house, right now. And that's all it knows. It doesn't remember its mother, or the small suburban backyard it grew up in, probably. And people get so upset (they become quite illogical, really) whenever anything bad happens to an animal. Even if it's for the good of all humankind.

Not that anything the man ever did was any good, and he freely acknowledged this. But he also acknowledged that everyone has their silly whims and wants. Right? One person orders magazines over the telephone. Another buys certain photos from the parish priest. Another perhaps picks up his young daughter from school and doesn't quite take her home, just yet. And maybe another likes to have her body hand-painted by strangers. And on and on. This was the man's particular whim, was all.

As the goat settled itself on the floor next to the coffee table, the man went around the apartment gathering his supplies. First, the plastic sheet from the front closet. Then the matches, lanolin, and the large bottle of Everclear from the kitchen. Finally, the syringe.

Back in the front room, he wheeled the shearing table from against one of the walls toward the center of the sparse, large room. It was always this intense physical effort that started his blood flowing. After a few minutes of pushing and pulling, he had centered the 100 pound shearing table over the plastic sheet.

The goat continued to sit, and had started gnawing at the rope. Not for long you don't, the man thought as he jabbed the syringe into the goat's hind leg, emptying its contents into the flesh a few inches above the knee joint. It gave a quick bleat, and returned to its gnawing. The man arranged his supplies near the shearing table and placed the footstool near one end. Then, he noticed the goats eyes fluttering, and its head beginning to turn oddly from side to side. It resumed its gnawing once more, then stopped again and gave a few weak bleats. Finally, a swift erection made itself known against the front of the man's black pants. He lifted the rope out from under the table leg and yanked the goat to its feet.

He had to move quickly now, as he noticed the goat's reaction to the injection was a little faster and stronger than he had planned. His timing was normally impeccable, he had to admit, smiling. It was the genius of the whole thing, really. However, this one must be a little younger than he had estimated. He certainly remembered its mother fondly as he shoved the goat onto the shearing table and expertly secured its legs and neck into their respective holds. The goat didn't fight the process and actually stood still for a few seconds, seemingly thankful for this new support of its faltering body. Then it resumed its screams, and began foaming at the mouth, eyes fluttering.

The man opened a drawer under the end table and procured a plastic lighter and a thick, black cone-shaped wooden pipe, already loaded with sticky brown-green leaves. He held the pipe vertically between the fingers of his right fist, lighting the contents from the other end, and inhaled deeply. As he held the smoke in his lungs, he regarded the beast and gave a few quick snorts through his nose, laughing but trying not to exhale the magical fumes just yet. He walked around to the front of the shearing table and grabbed the goat's nodding head in his hands, exhaling into its foaming nose.

Then he put down the pipe, grabbed the box of matches and bottle, walked to the rear of the shearing table, put down the matches. As the goat convulsed a few times and finally quietly expired, the man began to pour the Everclear on its still body with one hand and spat into the other, creating a smooth surface with which he began quickly stroking his cock. When the bottle was empty, he tossed it aside to light a match and throw it onto the goat's back. He grabbed its hind end, remembering the lemurs.

drawings by Cathy Haibach