The Sky Above And The Mountains Below

“What if…I could change anything? Anything at all? Make this world a better place?”

Boyd Lucht was lying on his back in a generic late spring meadow, deflowering a daisy while watching generic fluffy clouds glide tantalisingly by, high out of reach. His impossibly proportioned and outrageously beautiful girlfriend of sorts, Sarah Kamikaze, was lying close but not too close to him, as it’s not going to be that sort of story.

“What do you mean, make this world a better place?”

“End hunger. Stop the wars. Prevent annoying ear wax build up.”

“Oh, silly. It’s by trying to make things better that we have so many problems in the first place! We try and Q-Tip away our problems, but we just push them further down the canal to the drum. Like, duh.”

“What?” Boyd shook his head, trying to understand his dumb beau.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to meddle in what’s beyond our position in the order of things. We blossom and flourish like leaves on the tree…” she sang saccharine sweetly in a childlike manner. “And wither and perish, but Ni San Ichiiii.”

“What again? How can you think we should live that way? We’d still be in caves.”

“Well, we probably will be again, given the current direction of the economy and the slow yet discernible collapse of late-stage capitalism.”

“All the more reason to try and improve things!”

Sarah sat up, her ampleplus bosoms jouncing in the tropiest way possible. Boyd pretended not to notice. But Sarah noticed that he had noticed that she had noticed them. Maybe local seismologists had noticed them noticing them too, and mused, yep it’s going to be that sort of story after all.

“Maybe some things can’t be improved”, he said wistfully. “But even the biggest…umm issues need exploring and releasing…”

“Stop talking about my boobs.”

Boyd almost looked ashamed. “They keep talking about me.”

“Errr – what?”

“I can read their minds.”

“Boyd. You’re…weird.”

“I note your unsupportive observation.”

Sarah digressed. “So how would you change things?”

“I’d encourage you to wear lower neckline tops, and allow me to…”

“Not that! Things in general, you know, life, everything and the universe.”

“Well, I was thinking. Imagine if something magical happened. Say, something like there was a book that gave me power over people, over life and death. Something like that. Say I had it.”

Sarah produced a shiny red apple and crunched it in her doll-like jaws.. “Boyd. You’re weirder than weird. Such a thing is impossible. And, where are you going to get such a book from? You think it’s just going to fall from the sky, right into your lap? Shut up.” The silence hung heavy around them. Once finished consuming her apple, Sarah got up, stretching herself in such a way that just emphasised her God given talents more. “I’m going home to Daddy. I can’t remember how we got to this godforsaken meadow in the first place. The midges are bitey and you’re being even weirder than usual.”

Boyd, rather stung by her outburst and somewhat feeling like he had been mauled by a rebellious poodle, didn’t turn to watch her go. Theirs was a vacuous relationship, based on two perceptible factors hitherto mentioned. Such was the responsibility that his good looks and quality breeding carried, he thought. So, he lay back and spent time like an addict would on the last day before prohibition came into force, profligate and recklessly. Ah, those two words, the catchphrase of his successful uncle Implausible Lucht, who had created the famous 1-2-3 car for a global car company. Impy (his shortened name) even created the advertising campaign of people compulsively scratching their cars all over, leaving long claw marks in their frenzy. “Ichi Nissan!” they would shout possessively. Destructively.

Genius. A mantra that became heard in every playground from Bogota to Buenos Aires.

He then started thinking of his second cousin removed, the infamous dictator of Porkina Fatso who had invented kitten heels for paraplegics. What a guy, totally cornering the whole global market inside a week. That was vision! Yes, DeGroote Fatso Arooga Wooglashu, he wished that he was two elevenths multiplied by four fifthteenths of the man that he was. He wished, he wished, he wished…

Maybe Sarah was right, he thought. Maybe he should give up thinking as a bad mistake on his part and just muddle through life relying on his good looks and connections to get by and passively accept the cosmic joke unfolding around him, with maybe the odd sloppy bj thrown in to sweeten the deal.

Boyd got up, with resolve, smoothed out his Libido High uniform, and proceeded to walk in the direction of the gate, outside of which was a bus stop and a taxi rank and a helipad and, very usefully, a dock for battleships. But as he began walking towards the exit, he heard a soft plop from behind him.

Boyd wheeled round and saw…a book. A black book which seemed to radiate a powerful aura of foreboding and all that shizz.

He shook his head, sadly. Sarah was right, know your place boy. This world shouldn’t be meddled with, not by the likes of me at least.

He then set off in the direction of the bus stop, taxi rank, cat café, helipad and battleship dock. He walked for some thirty seconds before one word came to him:

STOP!

He finally felt his realisation, slower than an Octogenarians’ twister game late on a Tuesday evening after being submerged in quicksand and stared at by Gorgons. He simply had to have that book! It was free, and damn it, he liked nothing more than a freebie!

And also, maybe it was indeed…The Work Of The Gods ™

Boyd started running. But he wasn’t the only one running. A strong-looking goat, the horniest of goats imaginable, pale white and goat-like, was hurtling towards the fallen book like a hircic comet, with a ravenous look plastered across its goaty chops.

So close…

The goat got there first and devoured the black tome with one soul triumphant gulp.

And yet so far…

Boyd looked at the goat with utter annoyance. They had been there for hours, himself and Miss Kamikaze, and the goat was nowhere to be seen. All of a sudden, lo and behold Goaty McGoatface had appeared out of thin air, devouring a free and suspicious notebook that he had been randomly musing about.

What were the chances? Lower than a part-woman part-octopus from the Vatican City winning Miss Universe. Pah! Aw shucks, guess he would never know now.

*&%*&^* goat”, he exclaimed loudly, and walked back towards the bus stop, taxi rank, cat café, torture chambers, helipad, and battleship dock etc. He couldn’t feel more annoyed, he mused, as he stomped off. He stepped deeply in a crater of steaming cowflap, feeling the gooey warmth spread down to his toes almost immediately, which soured his mood further. His phone then buzzed. He had received a text from Sarah’s beloved Daddy, describing in graphic detail how Sarah apparently had snapped her spine due to the gravitational forces she was implausibly under and Died Horribly. Even more annoying. His news feed then flashed up: an oxygen tax of 112.98% per annum would be introduced retrospectively from the year 1609 forward and levied proportionately based on the projected maximum length of one’s middle digit. Sigh. Life was so damned inconvenient.

Boyd walked past the sailors and the combat helicopter pilots and cat groomers and torturers and waited for the bus. As he waited, he felt something brush against his legs. It was the *&%*&^* goat! “Hey *&%*&^* goat!” he shouted. All the sailors and combat helicopter pilots and cat groomers and drunk taxi drivers and torturers looked his way, bemused. One walked towards him. “Do I know you, kid?” It was one of the taxi drivers, squat and bearded, his name “Jimmy Goat” clearly visible on his ID card, hanging from a handbag strap chain around his neck. “No sir, I meant the goat here…” Boyd pointed down. “Er, okay kid,” Jimmy muttered, eyes wide, and backed away for the safety of his Nissan which he dementedly started clawing.

A thought suddenly struck Boyd: maybe he was the only person who could see the *&%*&^* goat. He looked at it again. It had changed colours to black with patches of blacker black and blackest black on its coat. There were small tufts of white around its hooves. Its horns were hornier than ever before, hornier than a rush-hour traffic jam in Naples. Its eyes were huge and burned with malevolent meteor red. Despite its violent appearance, it stared passively down the road, past the sailors and combat helicopter pilots and cat groomers and drunk taxi drivers and torturers and old ex-Soviet Union chess players.

A bus drew up. The goat didn’t even register its arrival. Boyd clicked his fingers near the goat.

It was obvious. The goat was deaf.

It was a deaf goat.

Boyd had heard of leppards being deaf, but not goats. Everyday was a school day, he mused. But enough hysteria.

He got on the bus, and the goat trotted on, like it was some sort of satanic pet. The driver snarled:

“Hey kid! Who’s going to pay for that?”

“For what?”

“For the imaginary goat that only you can see.”

“I can’t see him.”

“Ah. So he must be my imaginary goat, then!”

“Guess so.”

“Righto,” The driver said decisively, as he paid the goat’s fare. Boyd carried on, with a shrug.

“Hey kid! Kid!”

“What now?”

“You haven’t paid yet. For yourself.”

“I’m imaginary, too.”

“Righto,” the driver paid his fare.

Boyd carr…

“Kid! Kid! Nice try. But you’re not imaginary. Your dead girlfriend just texted me and told me not to fall for your party tricks!”

Party tricks? “All right,” Boyd said, taking off his top hat and conjuring the fare from inside.

Boyd sat down. The goat hopped up onto the seat, straddling his lap and looking out the window.

Soon, they were back in Tyoko City. The bus drew in to the depot and Boyd and the goat got off. “Goodbye, you five!” the bus driver chortled.

Boyd felt glad to almost be home. Of course, like every other teenager in Tyoko City did, he lived alone in a high-rise apartment block. With his first love interest and childhood friend living right next door, of course. Sweet, loyal, obsessive Hitomi. There were also sailors, sailors and combat helicopter pilots and cat groomers and drunk taxi drivers and torturers. Of course. And Lord Lucan. But they were vastly outnumbered by the hordes of teenage boys and girls living alone, often next door to their first love interests. And the old ex-Soviet Union chess players.

And life could be so lonely there.

They went up in the lift with one such chess player, the goat continually butting against the doors, making sizable dints in the polished metal. Oleg Mytidskyh, intercontinental GM, didn’t even notice the carnage in front of him unfold, his mind instead focused on mating possibilities with twin bishops. “Da! Da!” he would periodically mutter. As soon as Boyd opened the door to his flat, the goat charged in and started bouncing on the bed. Boyd watched in disbelief as the goat bounced, bounced, bounced on the bed. He felt palpable anger as it was something he never had managed to do with Sarah – God rest her buxom soul! But then resignation took over.

Boyd joined the goat in bouncing, bouncing, bouncing on the bed. He felt so much better.

The goat stopped. Boyd stopped.

In the corner of the room, a card appeared, about A3 size if you must know and the colour of blood, mysteriously hanging in the air. Fear shot through Boyd as it started unfolding to take the shape of a tall figure. Green slime started dripping from its head. A banana appeared, and the figure started greedily peeling it.

“Greetings! My name is Yuck. And I am…an Origami.”