(advisory note: contains some swearing)
The Goat and the Sloth
A girl
goat wandered down to the river to find some fish. It would take her mind
off another unsuccessful flirt with a Billy that morning – she’d got nowhere
as usual because of her slight beard, and the ruthless truth was that no red-blooded
Billy was going to go for a bearded she-goat.
By the river she would just stare
at the water for a while, and then when she was ready, trap a salmon with
a quick dunk of her beard, slop it around her face a bit, set it free, have
a little break, and do it all over again.
I suppose I lied to be kind to her
– I can’t pretend that any beard that could catch a salmon is only a bit of
fluff, can I ? It was a full-on beard – and
a shame because she had such nice eyes. Try and imagine the human
equivalent as Winona Ryder with W.G. Grace’s beard.
That morning she began doing her usual
stuff with various salmon and the odd carp when she noticed there was a sloth
in the tree on the other side of the river (it was a small river, reduced
here and there to little more than a stream). The sloth stared at her with
a snotty expression for ages while she fished, and began to get on her nerves.
It was a sneering, lazily scrutinising down-your-nose stare. He didn’t even
move his head or blink an eye as he hung from his hawthorn. Eventually the
goat got very annoyed,
« What are you looking at ? »
she said.
« Fuck you ! » snorted
the sloth, not moving a muscle or an eyelid or even, it seemed, his lips.
« Cunt off, apeface ! »
replied the goat, infuriated by the sloth’s ability to insult her while remaining
so damned idle.
« Bollock off, beardy ! »
taunted the sloth.
« Lazy crapping testicle breath ! »
woofed the goat.
A swimming stoat approached and whipped
away a salmon just as the goat was about to trap it. Then he ate it and swam
on.
« Ha ha ha ha ha ha ! »
chortled the sloth, and if you’ve never heard a sloth chortle it sounds like
he can’t really be bothered chortling, a deep series of throaty half-hearted
rumbles which sound like he couldn’t care whether he’s amused or not. This
really got the goat’s goat. So she splashed him with some
water by a swat of her hoof. The sloth went to sleep. The goat went home.
That night the goat had her usual
three dreams - the one with the giant pike who jumped from the river
and bit her nose off, the one where she was licking a giant sugar cube which
never got any smaller, and the one where she didn’t have a beard and a particularly
hunky Billy took her in his fine strong horns and bonked her. For the first
time ever she didn’t particularly enjoy the third dream and didn’t feel overly
sad when she woke up.
She went down to the riverside and
fished playfully, which was bad news for the salmon who were tossed around
with more zest than usual and probably puked their guts up while half-choking
before going home. (Unknown to the goat, the first salmon she caught ended
up having a particularly bad day. Two hours later having swum downstream a
little he was caught by a poaching angler who hooked him, drowned him and
ate him. The goat wouldn’t have had much sympathy as she would have thought
this was just the ecosystem doing its thing, whereas she had to put up with
the misfortune of having a beard).
« You married ? » said
the sloth, breaking the goat’s reverie.
« Course » replied the goat
haughtily, « to a fine Billy with big masculine horns and a proper beard
that reaches his toes. »
« Why you always down here then ?»
continued the sloth.
« What’s it to you, lumpen furball. »
« Oh fuck off ! » moaned
the sloth. Then he went to sleep..
He woke up about an hour later to
see the goat leaving. He started singing a song off the top of his head.
« It
strikes me mighty weird
A lady with a beard.
Why doesn’t she have a shave
Her husband must be brave.
She comes to play with salmon
A pork is not a gammon.
But for a poor old sloth
The butterfly and the moth.
Is usually all he’ll see
‘Cos he never leaves his tree.
And often he’s asleep
So it’s grand to have a peep.
At a silly old stinking goat
Or a rickety old rowing boat !
One passed by last week
I had a little peek.
Then chewed a bit of bark
And fell asleep ‘til dark.
Back to the silly girl goat
Away from the rowing boat.
She needs to wash her face
Her cussing’s a disgrace.
Fuckety-fuckety-fuck
Gibber O’Reilly’s a duck ! »
Sloths are the worst singers in the
entire animal kingdom. It’s a noise truly unbearable to behold, an intolerable
monotone tedious baritone toneless pitchless grumble which makes you want
to throw rocks at them so they’ll shut up.
« SHUT THE FUCK UP ! »
shouted the goat, throwing an oak stick which bounced off the sloth’s head.
« Ow ! » said the sloth
and fell off his perch.
« Bloody hell, goat ! »
he complained. « that’s the first time in twelve weeks I’ve had to move
from that branch ! There’s no respecting a man’s peace these days !
Shitting bloody goat ! »
The sloth clambered back up to his
sacred bough under a tirade of insults from below, most of which were saying
how ungentlemanly he was and how Billy goats were more chivalrous and manly
and superior to filthy sloths.
It fell mostly on deaf ears.
Within seconds the sloth was snoring………..
The goat and the sloth carried on
like this for another week or so, trading insults and using language that
would have shocked the Devil.
« Disgusting » said a weasel.
« Horrible » said the snotty
otters.(there were a pair of pretentious otters, a married couple, who would
often glide upstream in between the goat and the sloth with their noses in
the air, sniffing as if their arguing poisoned the air itself. This isn’t
typical of otters who are usually a likeable, nervy bunch.)
« Fuck off » said the Mynah
bird.
« It’s great » said the
rhino, « keeps me entertained ! »
The goat realised she was getting
to quite like the sloth. It seemed to her that there was something of a smile
now behind his insults, though it was hard to be sure. This is because sloths
are generally too lazy to express themselves in any way whatsoever, so when
they smile or even yawn it is hardly at all. You have to know a sloth extremely
well to know when he’s smiling.
At least he was honest, she thought,
and funny sometimes too, whereas the Billies were a serious bunch and they
said things to her like,
« You’re a lovely goat but I’m
already seeing someone. » or
« I can’t marry you because it
would ruin our beautiful friendship » or
« I’m just not ready to go out
with anyone at the moment - I’m still unsure about my sexuality. »
What they really meant was,
« I can’t make love to you on
account of your beard. »
What the sloth often said was,
« Eh ! Beardy ! Glad
I’m not the unlucky fucker who has to shag you every night and imagine clean-shaven
faces ! »
One afternoon the goat and the sloth
were enjoying each other’s insults so much that the goat was rolling around
laughing and the sloth was moving a leg slightly.
Suddenly, amazingly, astonishingly,
incredibly, the sloth voluntarily climbed down from the hawthorn
tree and began swimming across the lake !
When he got to the other side he put
his hairy arms round the goat’s shoulders and kissed her.
« Don’t think I enjoyed that,
fuckface ! » said the sloth a few seconds later, « clean your
teeth next time and stop eating bum juice ! »
« Oh, vagina off, knob »
said the goat.
« Wanker » said the sloth.
« You’re the one who tosses your
dick every day, hairy arse. » retorted the goat.
Then they kissed again and decided
to get married.
The problem was deciding who was going
to perform the rites of marriage. The sloth wanted his best friend the elephant
to do the honours. He was loyal, wise and serious in all the right places.
The goat wanted her good friend the owl, who was loyal, wise and serious in
all the right places and all the other places as well. Neither of the pair
could abide bad language and the goat and the sloth spent hours arguing about
who could stand bad language the least while of course using
the most appalling language.
« Why don’t we not swear ? »
suggested the sloth.
« The dynamic of our relationship
just won’t allow it to be any other way! » said
the goat haughtily.
« Oh, fuck off »
said the sloth.
« See what I mean ! »
the goat retorted.
So they got the rhino to perform the
ceremony and swore only seventeen times !
Nowadays the goat and the sloth live
contentedly around the hawthorn tree. They’ve got five children, or should
I say sloats, or gloths, who can’t decide
whether to laze around the tree or go and do things, and they’re hairy everywhere
and have little beards. I’m pretty sure our fabulous loveable heroes are going
to live, as they say, happily ever after !
Fucking cunting happily !
