“Wait.” A voice arose from the evil hoard of evil goats. It was weak, feeble, yet screeched as rocks across a chalkboard so that every evil hair on the evil goat’s evil backs stood up on end as if to hear better. “Let me say something.”
An elderly figure limped forward from out of the crowd. The emaciated figure struggled to crawl onto the pile of gravel where Charles had leapt so nimbly from just moments before. “I want to say something.”
Nobody really knew where Boo the Elder, as the elderly goat was called, hailed from. For that matter, nobody really knew how old he was. There were rumors that he came from the Great Forests to the west, back before the great earthquake had shaken the Land and created the beaches that the evil hoards of evil goats once called their homes, before the great Exodus to the cities and villages and towns of the interior. These, however, were merely rumors, never really believed by anyone, passed around like stories about Santa Clause, or the Easter Bunny, or like Economics. Most chose to believe the most likely explanation: that he was spawned out of the Primordial soup that reigned so many years ago and has been old ever since.
“I have a story. One that concerns all of you, and all of your fathers, and your father’s fathers.” The evil hoard edged closer to the gravel pile so as to hear what this old and respected goat had to say. Boo the Elder began his story:
“Once upon a time, many, many years ago, back before the great Exodus to the cities and towns and villages of the interior, we evil goats lived a carefree life along the beautiful beaches of paradise. Playing and laughing in the sand along the shores of the ocean by day and by night leaping, nay bounding from craggy crag to craggy crag along the cliffs of the Great Escarpment. There was general evil mischief and mayhem making. Ahh yes, those were happier days.
“Food was plentiful and never anything to worry about. The humans would just throw us the remains of what they caught from the sea, and we were free to play amongst their children as we pleased.”
“Yeah, we know all about that, get on with it!” Todd, the impatient Liberté goat from Liberté 3, shouted.
“Alright smarty-horns, do you all know the story of how we ended up in the cities and villages of the interior then?”
“The Great Exodus, duh. Everyone knows that!” Todd responded.
“Does anyone of you what the Great Exodus actually was?” Boo the Elder asked. “Think about it. Why would your father’s fathers have traded in a life of plenty and craggy crags for the dusty dangers of the cities and villages of the interior? Do you think that your father’s fathers wanted to raise their kids in an environment where they could get hit by the mis-named Cars Rapids at all, no matter how un-rapide they be?” He paused for a moment, to let the question sink in.
“Well, what do you think over there smarty horns? Do you know what the Great Exodus really was about?” Boo the Elder shouted at Todd.
Todd stood silent, dumfounded. It was a question he had never thought to ask himself. It was just one of those things that one understood happened: the sun rose, Boo the Elder had been an old goat since time immemorial, and their father’s fathers left the beaches for the cities and towns and villages of the interior during the Great Exodus. There was no why.
Boo the Elder continued. “One day, Charle’s father’s father, the legendary Alham the Nimble saw a great cloud in the sky a ways off to the north. In and of itself, that was nothing strange. Clouds passed to the north all the time. But something about this cloud was different. Most clouds at that time moved west to east, but this one was heading due south, straight for the evil hoard of evil goats living and playing along the beach.
“Alham knew that a southerly heading cloud was up to no good so that night he conveyed a meeting with all the evil goats of the area to raise his concerns. All of the other goats however, felt that there was nothing to be worried about. ‘I mean sure clouds moved west to east, but why should a cloud be locked into one pattern of movement?’ they said. ‘If it wanted to move north to south, or south-southwest to due east who were the evil goats to stop it from doing as it pleased?’ So the evil hoard of evil goats stayed put. But the cloud kept coming.
“When the cloud finally arrived, the evil hoard saw that it had made a terrible mistake. For this southerly-moving cloud was not just a normal cloud. No my Brothers, this horrible directionally challenged cloud was none other than an eviler flock of the eviler pelicans! The eviler pelicans landed on the beach with a terrible hunger, and very soon ate every fish in the sea for miles and miles around. With no more fish, the humans living in the village had to start growing corn, and a good many of them moved to better lands in the interior, thus forming the first cities and towns and villages of the interior. And the evil goats were forced to follow them, forced to leave the lands where they had grown up, forced to abandon the craggy crags of the Great Escarpment for the flatter than a pancake plains of the interior! All because of the eviler flock of eviler pelicans that descended like a plague from the north!”
Boo the Elder was shouting by this point, and his screeching voice was shattering windows, setting off car alarms, and making babies cry all across the city. The evil hoard of evil goats, for its part, was unmoved.
“Wait a minute,” said Todd, ever one to offer a helpful comment, “If all this is true, why haven’t we heard this story before?”
“Because you have the average intelligence of a seven year old human!” Boo the Elder responded. “Humans aren’t told this story until they’re at least nine.”
“Then how come you know it?” Todd asked.
“Because I’m as smart as a 12 year old human, that’s why.” Boo the Elder said.
“Oh, ok,” Todd said. It made sense, with age comes wisdom. “But I still don’t see what this has to do with the eviler flock of eviler pelicans plotting to attack
“Don’t you idiots see?” Boo the Elder’s voice was now waking babies in the next administrative district. “The eviler pelicans have already kicked us off our lands once, and that led to nothing but generations of prancing about the flatter than a pancake plains of the interior. Now that we finally have some place where our kids can jump and play like our father’s fathers, the eviler pelicans are coming to kick us off it again!” Boo the Elder was shouting himself hoarse by this point, no small feat for an evil goat whose entire natural state can be adequately described as “hoarse,” whatever that means. “We can’t just keep leaving every time the eviler pelicans show up or else we’ll be forced to spend our days in the flat and empty lands of
When he finished his speech, he stopped and looked at the evil hoard of evil goats standing before him. They were silent, but this time it was a different silent. Instead of the awkward silence and weight shifting that followed Charles’ plea for help, the evil hoard of evil goats was now standing on the edges of their hooves, straining their necks forwards to hear every hideous syllable that Boo the Elder rasped.
“Let’s do it! Let’s fight!” someone shouted in the back. Immediately there was pandemonium. Evil goats everywhere were shouting a din so evil that the demons that had previously been forced to flee back into Hell from whence they came were forced to flee deeper; they fled to
Enjoy it...
Love,
Jake
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