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Witbury Scribner awoke later on Monday morning than he did on Sunday morning, but in both cases it was rather early. The previous nights had not been at all easy. He had slept very little, what with all the noise and moving about. He had not expected to wake so early this particular morning, but it is very hard to stay asleep when you’re pulled out of your bed and thrown into your dresser. After gathering himself, Witbury walked to the bathroom with a great deal of difficulty. His normal morning ritual was all but normal this morning. It had not been normal over the past few mornings for that matter. In the shower, he had to try to wash his hair while lying on his back, with his head in the drain. While he was combing his hair, the mirror shattered before he could completely perfect his stylish middle part. Dressing, however, was quicker than normal since he had been wearing the same pants for three days now. They were heavily stained and odorous, but Witbury just looked at them and shrugged.
“Oh well,” he said, and then he picked out a shirt. He tried to make himself a lunch of a sandwich and pudding, but before he could lay a piece of cheese on the bread on the counter, the bread was gone and the pudding was all over the floor. He felt a pinch on his fingers as the cheese disappeared from his hand. Again, Witbury shrugged his shoulders and grabbed a banana instead. “A light lunch for me I suppose,” he said aloud. A fourth of the banana was gone before he left the kitchen. Out at the car, Witbury fumbled for his keys and his windshield collapsed into the car. He opened the door and brushed some of the broken glass into the driveway, but not all of it; there were just so many little pieces. “Quite a while that would take, sweeping them all out,” he said as he was thrown into his door. “I’ll just get most of them and bear the rest.” The car was small and only had two doors. He squatted as he sat down and felt the pressure of the steering wheel on his thighs. As he started off, the rear window fell into the driveway and the fabric on the ceiling was torn down. Witbury sighed and adjusted his mirrors. Driving without a windshield proved quite difficult. There was dust and wind and exhaust to deal with, and Witbury found that he had to squint as he drove. He was coughing from the fumes coming into the car when suddenly his forehead smacked square into the center of his steering wheel. The horn blared and the drivers in the slow-moving cars around Witbury turned their heads in surprise. Witbury turned to them and smiled, and the other drivers smiled back. Whitbury pressed the gas pedal a little harder and passed the cars around him. When he finally reached the building in which he worked, all of his windows were gone and the passenger headrest had been gnawed off. The walk from the car to the building was adventurous; Witbury was constantly being pulled this way and that. Some people noticed that he was walking with a considerable limp which caused him to be exceptionally slow. They thought it odd, but continued on their way. Some of his coworkers paused to smile a friendly smile at Whitbury, and he smiled and occasionally waved back at them. When Witbury finally reached the door, it took him fifteen minutes to go through. It was even harder than washing his hair. “I’m very likely to be late I suppose. Oh well,” he said as he shrugged. Inside, Witbury began to walk to his cubicle on the third floor. Witbury decided that today he would take the stairs. It wasn’t really his decision; the elevators were broken. The repairman stood at the open elevator bay on the first floor and smiled at all the workers passing by. Occasionally he would look into the darkness of the open bay and then turn around and shrug to those who looked at him and smiled. Witbury smiled as he walked by and the repairman waved. Then the repairman grabbed his midsection in excruciating pain. On the stairs, Witbury found that he had to use both hands to pull along the railing. His arms were growing very tired and he decided to take a break on the second floor landing. Through the second-floor stairwell door walked Ramona, a woman who worked in Accounting, but used to do Data Entry with Witbury on the third floor. “Hello Ramona,” Witbury said while looking at his shirt pocket. He was not shy; he just wanted to see if there was anything in his pocket. Before Ramona could answer, she was sent sprawling down the stairs and landed quite awkwardly on the first floor landing. She pulled herself up, and without putting any weight on her left leg, looked up at Witbury, smiled, waved, shrugged, and hopped out the first-floor door. Whitbury continued on. Finally Witbury reached his cubicle, and as he sat down the right-side of the cubicle collapsed. Witbury’s friend Chester peeked around the corner of his own cubicle and called out to Witbury. “Witty old boy! I say Witty! How’s it with you today?” “Not bad Chester,” Witbury responded, “A bit of trouble sleeping, but otherwise can’t complain. “I notice that you have a goat tied to your leg Witty,” Chester remarked. “Did you have that last week? I apologize if I didn’t notice.” “No, no, it’s quite new,” Witbury said. “He’s a lively fellow, certainly likes to move and eat. A fine goat I imagine, though I’m not much of an expert on them.” “How did you get such a fine goat?” Chester asked. “He’s strapping too, quite big he is.” “Yes, quite a specimen I suppose. As far as how I got him, I’m afraid I don’t quite remember. I first noticed a few days ago. I woke up on Saturday morning and there he was, right at the foot of the bed. Taken a bit of getting used to.” Whitbury snapped his head towards Chester, “Just today - when I was talking to Ramona, for example,” he started. “There she was, standing on the landing and the goat butted her in the stomach and sent her tumbling down the stairs. I suppose she’ll have to be more careful from now on. You as well Chester, mind the goat I should say.” “Thanks much old friend,” Chester said. “Saturday morning in the bedroom, and he’s been there since then, eh? Well, best of luck with that. I’ll have to keep my eyes out for others with goats tied to their legs; perhaps he’d quite enjoy a friend.” “Thanks Chester. I’m sure he’d enjoy that – friendship seems to be a nice thing. I would like to know how he got there though.” “A bit of a pickle I’d say,” Chester said as he scratched his chin. Then, suddenly, he snapped his fingers and whisked them across his face. “Here’s an idea. When I lost my wife Donna and the kids, I decided that I would try to remember everything that happened in reverse order. Retrace my steps you see. That way, when I thought back far enough, I would remember what happened to me kids.” “That’s a fine idea!” Witbury exclaimed. “So I thought back and thought back and remembered that the last place I had seen Donna and the children was my car, so that’s where I decided to look.” “And they were there?” Witbury asked. “No, but I tried my best,” and at that Chester shrugged his shoulders and turned back to his work. Witbury put his elbow on his desk and his chin in his hand and started to ponder. What happened right before this moment? he asked himself. And suddenly he was excited, I talked to Chester! Maybe he’ll know how this goat got here in the first place. “Chester old chum!” Witbury yelled out. “Witty old boy! What can I do for you?” Chester responded peeking back around his cubicle. “Looking for a bit of help,” Witbury started. “Any idea how I got this goat tied to my leg? I was thinking back, like you suggested, and remembered I had just talked to you. Thought you might know a thing or two.” As he asked the goat shattered Witbury’s pen organizer. “Well old Whitty, I must say that you’ve got the right idea with retracing your steps there. Just like I did with my wife and kids, a real knockout idea if you ask me. But I think you might need to go back a bit farther for this one.” “Ah,” Whitbury said, “Good point, perhaps I’m not thinking back quite far enough.” “Saturday he showed up right?” Chester asked. Whitbury nodded. “Maybe think back to then old pal. And if you can’t remember all the way back then, oh well, things could be worse. It could be a bear or an eagle or something much nastier than a goat.” “A wise point Chester, thanks again for the help,” Whitbury said gratefully. “Quite a scene that would be Whitty,” Chester laughed. “You in here with a bear on the leg. That would be something.” Whitbury agreed. He tried to turn back to his desk, but the goat pulled both Whitbury and his rolling chair ten feet down the hallway. Working his way back, he tried to solve his little mystery. Well, Witbury thought, maybe I need to think back a little further. He thought. I talked to Chester, that’s for sure. Before that I remember talking to Ramona. Ah yes, I remember that butted her and she went for a tumble down the stairs. Ah yes – the stairs! I remember that I had to pull myself up the stairs because the goat did not want to walk. So it must have happened before that – now I’m getting somewhere! In his excitement, Witbury leaped up and patted himself on his back, then sat. The goat ate one of his sleeves. Witbury sat back down in his chair. Alright, so I talked to Chester, then fell down the stairs, then talked to Ramona… His thoughts trailed off. Something seemed off. Something seems off, he thought. I seem to remember that I remembered things differently the last time. I seem to be getting confused. He needed help. He thought for another moment and decided to ask Chester for more help. “Chester old salt!” he cried out. “Witty old bread!” Chester answered. “Have a bit of a question for you. I’m trying to retrace my steps for the past couple of days, like you said, to try to solve the mystery of this goat. The problem though, is that as I start to remember, I seem to remember things differently each time. Any suggestions old pal?” “Hmmmm, never had that happen before Whitty. I always remember things exactly as they happen. Like when the family disappeared, I distinctly remember the wife telling me that she and the kids would wait in the car until I came back. Always watch out for liars Whitty my friend. Well, let me think about this problem of yours. If you’d asked me before I started my work, I might be able to concentrate a little better.” “I probably should have asked you earlier. Perhaps this would all be over,” Whitbury apologized. Witbury made a mental note to ask Chester for advice more often. “So then, any ideas?” “Well, let me think a little more,” Chester mumbled. As he sat there in contemplation, the goat urinated on the carpet. “Well,” Chester started, “I’ve never tried this myself, but what if you wrote down each thing you remember? That way, you can’t forget it because you’ll have it there right in front of you.” Chester might just be a genius, Witbury thought. “Well Chester, you just might be a genius after all!” Witbury exclaimed and patted Chester on the back. Chester shrugged his shoulders and smiled at Witbury. Suddenly he was sprawled on his back, the goat having kicked him in the chest. Chester lay there, quite out of breath while the goat chewed on his hair. Witbury dug through his desk to find some paper, but did not see any. He did not often write things down, but he could have sworn he had seen paper in there in the past. Not seeing any, he shrugged his shoulders and turned around to see what the goat was doing. At the moment, he was eating the corners off a ream of paper that had been on Chester’s desk. Witbury rescued the ream from the goat and places the somewhat wet pages on his own desk. He very much wanted to figure out how this goat got tied to him in the first place, and Chester had had this wonderful idea. Looking at the paper, Whitbury felt slightly lost. There was no outline, no guidelines on the paper. It was just a blank sheet. Hmmmm, where to begin, Whitbury thought. This wasn’t like the forms he usually filled out. His usual forms had spaces for this and boxes for that; it was very easy to put each thing in its place. “Chester, do we have form already made for remembering things?” Whitbury asked. Chester was unconscious after being stomped upon by the goat. He was breathing heavily and drooling slightly from the corner of his mouth. “Must be nice to find time to nap at work old boy!” Whitbury jokingly yelled at Chester. Chester moaned. Well, I’m not about to interrupt Chester’s nap, Whitbury thought, I’m going to have to do this one on my own. Then it came to him. Numbers! I’ll make a numbered list! This being an exceptional idea, Witbury leapt up and patted himself on the back. Witbury, you might just be a genius after all, he thought to himself. He made a mental note to tell Chester about his stupendous idea once Chester awoke from his nap. Witbury closed his eyes hard and concentrated on what had happened today and on the days before. He began his list: 1. Woke up on Saturday with Goat on Leg 2. Drove to Work 3. Took Elevator 4. Saw Ramona 5. Talked to Chester But the list stopped there. He was impressed with the accuracy of his recollections, but he was stumped as to why he could not remember anything further. So much happens in a day; how is one expected to remember it all? Whitbury thought. Witbury decided that such a thing was impossible and then packed his things. It had been a long day already and he decided to go home and rest his head which was beginning to ache. Witbury went to the elevator to go back to the ground floor, but it never came up. He thought it might be easier to bring a goat down to the ground floor in an elevator, but the stairs would have to suffice this time. When he reached the stairs, the goat attempted to go down first. His hooves slipped on the first step, and both Witbury and the goat tumbled down all the way to the first floor. When they finally stopped, Witbury sighed and began to brush himself off when he noticed the small piece of paper still clutched in his hand. He read it and had an idea. Since he couldn’t seem to remember everything that happened in the previous days, he would instead write what was happening right now, that way, he wouldn’t have to try to remember it all again later. He made a mental note to pat himself on the back for such an ingenious idea later that evening. He found a pen in his pocket and wrote on the paper: 6. Goat pulled me down the stairs, may have cracked a rib, quite painful. Putting the pen away in his pocket but still holding the paper, Witbury started out towards his car and noticed a group of people gathered around an open elevator bay. It would be rather tragic if someone fell in there, he thought. When he reached the crowd, he saw an elevator repairman receiving medical attention. He was screaming quite loudly, so someone apparently had thought something may be wrong. While Witbury watched on, the goat bit a very short woman in the arm. A doctor was kneeling next to the repairman, “His pelvis seems to be broken; it would have taken quite a bump for this to happen. Did anyone see anything happen?” Everyone smiled and shrugged their shoulders. No one said anything; they simply watched the repairman writhe on the floor. After the doctor treated him for several minutes, the repairman stopped yelling. With nothing else to see, the crowd began to disperse. Whitbury, after staring for a few minutes at the scene in front of the elevator, remembered something. “Goodness! I think I remember the goat kicking this poor man as we walked by,” Whitbury said, but no one was listening any more. The doctor was organizing his medical bag and alphabetizing his bandages. Then, for some reason, Witbury felt compelled to look at his list. He read over it again and realized that he needed to insert this incident between two other incidents that were already numbered. He became distraught when he became aware that this moment should occur between numbers two and three. How can I add this? he thought. I’ve already used those numbers. This simply cannot be put down. It is just impossible. He tried to walk toward the door as the goat wrapped the rope around his knees. He fell to the floor with a thud, hitting his elbow so hard on the floor that he could not move his arm. But the pain was not his concern; he was simply confounded and frustrated by the fact that he had not inserted the repairman’s accident in the correct spot. His list was already ruined, and he didn’t have the patience or paper to make a new one. I’ll deal with this goat regardless of how it got here, he decided. My list is simply in ruins and I’ll never be able to do another one. He picked himself up, terribly irked, and started toward the car again. He continued to hold on to the paper, however, and also kept the pen in his hand. He pulled both pen and paper away as the goat attempted to eat them. When he reached his car, Witbury noticed that all the glass was broken throughout the car and that there was a great deal of dark, round material in the back that was causing a very noticeable smell. Whitbury slapped his forehead with the flat of his hand. “Another missing item on the list!” he cried out to no one. The goat looked at him. “This is simply the last straw. I cannot handle being so frustrated. I’ll just throw this paper away so I never have to think about it again,” and with that, he crumpled the list and tossed it towards the car. Whitbury had never been an athlete, so it only landed a few feet in front of him. The goat smelled it, but decided not to eat it. Slamming the car door shut, the goat hanging out what used to be the rear window, Whitbury was about to drive off when he found himself thinking about the list again. He truly would like to remember how the goat came to be tied to his leg, and Chester had proven to him unquestionably that this method would eventually work. He sat there for many minutes looking from his steering wheel and back to the crumpled paper in the parking lot. Finally, he decided to give the list one more chance. He got back out of the car and picked up the paper. Flattening it out, he made a quick decision about the two things he had forgotten, and had forgotten to write. He was not completely happy with it, but it was the best he could do now. 1a. Goat destroyed car 2a. Goat kicked repairman in the pelvis. Hurt him quite badly. Then he suddenly had another thought. 3a. Repairman might be able to see the future. He was in building to fix elevator before it was broken. Must have broken right after I took it. After writing those things down, Whitbury felt much better and again reveled in the accuracy of his memory. He smiled to himself, got back in the car and drove off towards home. On the way home, with the goat pulling the stuffing out of the backseat, Witbury made a promise to himself. He was going to continue this list of things the goat was doing and maybe then, after a time, he could figure out how the goat had come to be tied to his leg. At a red light, Witbury even put that question at the top of his wrinkled piece of paper. He drove quicker than usual so he could get started on this project, and because he wanted to write down that the goat ate the car’s dome light before he forgot. Witbury was diligent in copying down exactly what the goat was doing over the next few days. He wrote down how the goat smashed the TV screen and caused one of the coffee table legs to disappear. He wrote it down when the goat bit off a cat’s tail, and when it kicked Witbury’s mother in the knees. He found himself writing about the goat quite often, almost all the time. After a while, he started writing more than just what the goat did. Whitbury, slowly but surely, also started to feel comfortable that he could abandon the numbered list. His writing started to take on all sorts of forms. Whitbury decided that he would write things down as he thought of them on whatever part of the page he felt like. The writing itself began to change as well. He would write what the goat looked like at it defecated on the carpet, or how the goat smelled when it slept on the floor next to Witbury’s bed. He even started to imagine how the goat felt – when it was angry, or sad, or hungry. Witbury found that a lot of his time was spent thinking about the goat. In fact, he began to think that he knew the goat. He was able to predict when the goat wanted something, or when the goat was going to grow agitated and pull Whitbury about the apartment. But, the most important thing was still unaccomplished. The question at the top of the page was not yet answered. He still did not know how this interesting goat became tied to his leg. One day, in his kitchen, while the goat was eating garbage that was at least three days old, or at least “smelled like it was,” as Witbury had written, Witbury found himself staring out the window of his house. He was pondering things in his mind. He decided he might want to write down his pondering, and, without really thinking too much about what he was writing on the paper, commenced to write a brief sentence. When Witbury looked down to see what he had written, he froze. He had written a question, but it was a question that had never crossed his mind before this very moment. It was a question that he didn’t think he had ever asked about anything else ever before. -WHY is the goat tied to my leg? In the two weeks since Witbury had first noticed the goat, he had only wondered how the goat had arrived there, never why. His mind raced. His eyes shot around the room, from the floor, to the ceiling, to the broken glass, to the piles of matted hair. Why? Why indeed? Witbury thought. He soon realized he had no answer for this question. He had no idea at all why this goat was tied to his leg. He looked at his list of things the goat had done, which was now several pages long, but nothing on there seemed to help him at all. There seemed to be no reason at all. No one had come looking for it, and, despite Chester’s help in this area, Whitbury had not found one other person who had a goat, or sheep, or any kind of animal tied to his or her leg. He was alone in his problem, and alone in trying to solve it. The list had grown but it had not become any more helpful than it was the first day he began writing it. Whitbury wrote, There is no answer to “why.” He was not happy with this sentence he had just written, but it was true all the same. Whitbury sat there, looking at the sentence he had just written, tapping the pen against the kitchen table. He was beginning to feel hopeless in all this. The hopelessness felt like a new emotion to Whitbury, but it also felt too familiar. Then it happened. A new question came into his mind that chilled his soul and made his hair stand up on edge. He stared at his hand, the pen in his fingers. He dare not even write the question down. He was not afraid of punishment, nothing like that. It was just that it was a type of question that he had never remembered asking about anything in his life. He decided that the question must be written down. I will forget it, he worried. He wanted also to actually see the question, to look at the way the letters sat on the page, the way the words looked next to each other. He wanted to feel his hand spell it out. He wondered if he would ever write the same way after he wrote this question. The pen moved to the paper and Witbury wrote in large block letters. The goat vomited the garbage it had recently eaten. -COULD I UNTIE THE ROPE? The words stared back at Witbury and the pen dropped from his hand. He starred at the words for five minutes, or what seemed to him like five minutes. Then, with great care and little speed, Witbury turned his neck and then his head to his ankle. The rope rested against the top of his shoe, partially covered by a tattered, reeking pant cuff. The rope was black and greasy, but the knot was small. For the next ten minutes, he stared at the rope. Then, with breath held, Witbury Scribner untied the rope. The goat, used to pulling or being pulled, sensed a new slack in the rope. It looked toward the smashed side door. In its first uncontested jog in weeks, the goat quickly left Witbury’s kitchen. Witbury did not stand to watch the goat leave or to look where the goat went. He stared into nothing and rubbed the chaffed area above his sock. Slowly, Witbury rose and walked toward the kitchen. It was the first unimpeded walk he was able to have in weeks. He noted how smooth his steps were as he walked across the linoleum. Entering the bathroom, he grabbed the sides of the sink and glared into the mirror. He saw something new, something that he had never truly considered. He returned to the kitchen and grabbed a clean, white sheet of paper from the kitchen table. He had bought new lined paper after he became aware of the fact that it might take several more pages to complete his list about the goat. That’s not what this new sheet was for. He walked back into the bathroom, now with a pen, and, with great care, flattened the new sheet of paper onto the bathroom wall. He began to write something very new. Whitbury Scribner is a young man who has very sad, old eyes. Today, he opened them.
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written by Jennifer on October 23, 2006
Not sure if these comments are for us common folk, but i loved it...made me smile
written by Jackie on October 25, 2006
Wow, I loved it.. Very clever. When is the next one??