Goats of Gaza

Gomez drove the truck on rocky paths through the plains. He didn't like driving so far outside civilization, but there was a job to do. Gomez was lucky Mike and Billy were with him. Mike was their commander, and his instincts and experience prevented terrible things. A guy you can rely on. A true friend. One who would go through machine gun fire to get you out of the hot zone. Billy, on the other hand, was just a kid. They called him back in the camp: Billy, the Kid. He was funny and friendly and didn't shoot as much as the original. Billy told Gomez he had signed up for the Army because he wanted to earn some good money to pay for his college at some point. Fool. Gomez was sure Billy would never make it to college. Army breaks you, somehow. It doesn't leave any intellectual bones in your brain. No matter what, Gomez was happy to have them as a team because Mike could get very serious, and Billy always had a joke in his pocket. Gomez was more of a doer, not a talker. So everybody had their place. It was a good team.

This tour was different, though. Everyone in the truck was dead tired. They were out of the camp for twenty-four hours and picked up travelers. It was a hell of a job that went on for years. The army changed because of this job. It changed many people. Now, mission control told them to wrap it up quickly. As soon as possible. Immediately. Nobody slept as long as they were on the truck, and the whole team's eyes were red and blood-soaked. They have collected a couple of travelers behind them. Only a few more, and they could drop them at the collection point, where they get deported to Egypt. No biggie, just business as usual. However, those last remaining travelers- they were adamant. Everyone in the Army knew it was better for them to leave this area and leave it to the US, to live a better life elsewhere. But they would not go and talk about their "home." Home. As if this would exist after all the bombs. It's just dirt and rubble. And dust.

Dust. Dust was everywhere: on the windows, on the steering wheel, in Gomez's shoes, even in his eyes. He never told anyone, but when he would get out of his clothes at night, he would even find dust in his underwear. It was unbearable. He hated this place. He could not even masturbate. The dust would hurt on his dick before he could finish. Gomez watched the dust sometimes, and he watched it right now from the car. This Gaza dust was a different beast. It would move where Gomez was. It would go where Gomez would not like it. This dust would hunt him down if he did not go home. The dust would not even care if he went home in a body bag or alive as long as he went home. This dust was from here, but Gomez was the intruder.

No girls in Gaza, just freaking goats. He thought you could indeed have a goat, but they are scary as Hell. Gomez once thought about trying it with a goat since there were no whores around here. But they stared at him like they would stare into the depths of his soul, so he just gave up on goats.

Dust and goats. And the noise. Bombs, screams, commandos. There was no quiet place in this corner of the earth. If he wrote a traveler's guide to Gaza, he would exactly write that: no girls, but goats. No peace but noise. No beach but dust.

"Get back on the road!" Mike yelled.

Gomez got the truck back under control. He must have closed his eyes just for a second. Damn, man, that was close. He felt awake now, but... he was tired. Was there something on the road? Did he lose it? He was not sure; it might have been a goat.

"Sorry, man."

"We are at the target point. Get your shit together. This not a beach trip, for fucking Christ's sake."

Billy said nothing, but he was no longer sleeping. He was awake and pale as shit. Billy was not much of a fighter; you could see his exhaustion now.

Before them, there was a house. It didn't have genuine windows but holes that the residents could close with wood planks. It was a poor people's house, and it looked tragically devastated. Whoever dwells here would never think about going to college. They would only care about their... goats. Their freaking goats, Gomez thought. They are everywhere. How can they have so many goats? Usually, you would see just a couple, but here, he counted like twenty or more.

He watched the goats for a minute. They were like no others. At a time, they were here, and then they were... somewhere else. It must be the sleep deprivation. Gomez wanted to get out of the truck, but he saw something. One of the goats didn't just stare at him as usual. It was smiling at him like no human could do, a brutal, devilish smile. Like the one the preacher told him of in these countless sermons. Gomez watched the goat smile, and his blood froze, even in this heat.

"What the fuck is with the goats?" Mike asked and spoke out about what everyone thought.

"Get it done," answered Gomez, shaking off the freeze, "I need sleep. Let's be quick and go to camp."

The men left their truck, and Mike knocked a couple of times on the back door.

"We're back in 5 minutes. New traveler, new pick up," he said, but he didn't care if the ones on the back would understand what he said. Then, the three mounted their guns and approached the house.

"Get out!" yelled Mike. "US Army. You go new home."

Nothing moved.

"Fuck them," Mike muttered. "Go out, no shoot!"

Nothing moved.

"Gomez, get them. Gomez... Gomez, what the fuck are you doing!"

Gomez stared back at the goats. They didn't do anything, but he felt how they were complaining. They were screaming. Gomez knew they would not make a sound in reality, but in his mind, they screamed just by watching. Everywhere in this region, there is noise. The bombs are loud, and now the goats. Fuck the goats.

Mike grabbed him, and Gomez came back to his senses. He nodded and moved to the house, exhausted. The others secured the area. Behind him, the goats screamed their silent songs. Gomez just wanted to sleep, and this felt like almost the last job. Then, suddenly, he became clear again, and the noise was gone. He kicked in the door and entered the room; then, a man attacked him from the side. A woman screamed. Gomez was a good fighter, and it was easy for him to redirect the knife with his gun, then he kicked the attacker in his balls. The man shouted in pain, and then Gomez kicked him again. To his surprise, the man fell to earth and no longer attacked. It was over. This was not a warrior. This was a goat farmer, and Gomez kicked him hard. Fucking goat farmers, Gomez thought. In the background, the goats would complain with their weird voices again. Fucking goats.

It was easy to bring them out into the sunlight. Gomez grabbed the guy on his collar and dragged him out. The woman would follow, carrying a kid with her, maybe three or four years old. They both looked afraid and panicked. She tried to tell Gomez things in her language, but he only spoke Spanish and English, so why was she even trying? She made a lot of noise, and it was hard to think.

"Fuck the shut up!" he yelled at her. "Shut the fuck up, you fucking bitch!"

Mike and Billy came close to help him with the travelers. Gomez was hard on the guy, and the man got on his knees often.

"Gomez, calm down, man," Mike shouted, "calm down."

"Shut up!" Gomez screamed again, looking at the women.

At that moment, the man got lost. Everyone was close, so he pushed forward to Billy and tried to grab the gun. Billy was surprised, but he didn't get lost. Both screamed, and it was unbearable for Gomez. The goats screamed. The man screamed. Billy screamed. The woman screamed, and now even the kid screamed. Nobody needs to bear that pain. He turned away, and his head ached. Then he saw that goat. It was a black goat, and it was staring right into his soul.

You don't find any god here anymore, on these lost plains. That's what the goat staring would say. There is no god anymore. And the fucking goat, that's the devil, who stared directly into Gomez.

"I. Need. Silence."

There was no other way, and Gomez cleared his gun and pointed it at the man's head. There was this one moment when he thought about goats. But goats were not everything in life. One has to make a decision. One has to make silence when silence is necessary. It's not his fault when everybody screams. On the other hand... he lowered his gun. This was not right. Almost. Then, the goats were louder than ever. They crawled into his head. And then the woman was screaming. And the goats were louder and louder...

Gomez shot. The thunder was roaring, and the goats were immediately silent. Everything was quiet, ended by the gunshot. The man's head was gone. The dead body dropped. The goats stared at Gomez in disbelief.

"Fuck, man! Fuck!" Mike yelled.

Billy looked sick, almost ghostly. About to drop.

"What did you do? Are you crazy? We can't shoot the travelers!"

Mike took Gomez's gun. Everything was silent for a minute, then the woman and the kid both screamed in shock and pain. Gomez just realized what he had done.

"I didn't... I didn't want to do that, Mike!"

"But you just did it, you asshole!"

On the back of the truck, the travelers were unsettled. They were afraid. Mike yelled a few things at them and even threatened them with their gun. Then he started thinking. What should they do now? They had no orders to kill, only to collect. This was shit. Then, Mike was back in his mind.

"Billy, you help me bury the corpse. Only shallow, we don't want drones to see this shit. No corpse, no questions. Got it?"

Billy nodded, clearly disturbed. It seems he wanted to say something, but he couldn't.

"Gomez, you bring these guys around the corner. I don't want to see how we bury that asshole. Give them a fucking goat and tell them to go away; the other cleaners should collect them. Got it?"

Gomez nodded, but Mike was not satisfied.

"Got it, you asshole?"

Gomez looked at him, afraid. He just killed a guy.

"Yes, Sir."

Gomez got the woman up on her feet, and she still held her kid and screamed—all that noise. The goats stared at him to see if he would do his job right. He would, he promised himself, at least this time. He needed a break. He needed sleep.

When Gomez moved them around the house, the begging started. Then, suddenly, the women began to speak English.

"No sir, no shoot, sir, no shoot, sir."

Gomez was angry; she would understand him, but hide in the house. They have warned him. They have gone out, but they refused. It's their fault. Not his.

In the shadows of their house, she would get on her knees, grabbing her kid even tighter. The kid cried quietly, but the mother screamed horribly. Gomez was going crazy. Suddenly these fucking goats started to make their crazy sounds again. He hated this place. These people could go to a home, but they had to stay forever! Go the fuck home. Home!

"No shoot, Sir!"

Gomez thought about this. How should he shoot them? It would be inhuman, right? He stood behind them, two screaming people. How could he humanly shoot them? There was no way. If he had taken out the women first, the kid would have had its last moments in terror. If he were to kill the kid first, the woman's heart would break before she would drop dead. It's good he didn't have to kill them, but let them go. His headache was unbearable.

Then the goats started, all of them. They would complain again in their voices. Gomez once heard the Devil would often take the form of a goat. He didn't believe it when the preacher said it, but it was all different now. Satan spoke in a thousand tongues. Satan used the fucking goats.

His head was about to explode. The noise was everywhere.

Fucking goats. He took his gun, aimed at the goat's head, and shot.

Then the kid screamed something that sounded like "dada" or whatever. It was unbearable. Nobody should feel this. He took his gun and pulled the trigger. The shot rang, then silence. He wanted to thank God for the silence, but the women screamed. He shot again. Silence

Thanks, heaven, for the silence.

"Gomez!"

Gomez turned around. The other goats watched. Mike and Billy stood there, watching him in terror. Billy was about to throw up, and Gomez could feel it.

"Gomez, what did you do!"

Then, the goats laughed at Gomez, and the noise flooded him. He lifted the gun with a sardonic smile. He pulled the trigger. First, once and then again.

There was again silence around Gomez. He felt at peace—a little bit. He breathed in the air. How beautiful silence can be. How lovely a peaceful life can be. Why don't we all live in a way that doesn't kill our neighbors?

Then he felt the dust return to his nose, crawling inside, making him cough. Oh, this fucking dust. He almost choked, and the goats started to laugh again. They laughed about his pain. He choked, and they laughed. These fucking goats.

He lifted the gun one last time. One last time. The dust filled his nose and his lungs. He could not breathe anymore. The goats were still laughing.