Four goats in a rickety cart

TThe morning arrived just like every other morning. The road to the office was crowded — buses exhaling smoke into the air, and tea shops breathing out the smell of cardamom, boiling milk and fried snacks. People moved quickly, checking their watches as if time itself was chasing them. I moved among them too, another quiet passenger carried forward by routine, heading toward another day that promised nothing unusual.

Then I saw a cart. It moved slowly along the side of the road, its wooden wheels trembling over uneven tar. Inside it stood four goats, tied close together. One of them tried licking the ear of another. One looked lazily at the sky. Another chewed calmly lost in the simple rhythm of being alive. There was something unbearably innocent about them — as though they believed the road ahead held nothing worse than distance. And that was what unsettled me, because I knew where they were being taken. The cart moved ahead gently, almost tenderly, making the horror inside it feel even more unbearable. The goats’ eyes carried no fear. Their entire world existed inside that single passing morning.

For a brief moment, traffic vanished around me. The noise faded. I felt something collapse quietly inside my chest. I wanted to cry, not just for them, but for us too. We are also travellers asleep inside moving carts, dreaming as though we know where the journey ends. We laugh, make plans for next month, fall in love, and carefully prepare for festivals. We waste hours on petty arguments, collect smiling photographs like proof against mortality, and close our eyes each night with the soft illusion that tomorrow belongs to us. None of us really knows where the road bends. We live like those goats, breathing peacefully inside a fate we cannot read. And maybe that blindness is a form of mercy. Perhaps if every creature understood its fate completely, the world would become too heavy to carry.

As my car moved forward, my mind wandered into unseen corners of lives. Somewhere, a little girl might be braiding her doll’s hair that same morning, laughing as if life were made only of birthdays, spinning skirts, and television songs. Elsewhere, another might be sitting under a dim bulb, studying with steady hope of becoming a doctor. Some might be already being shaped for a future they never chose. How strange life is. The world slowly limits us and calls it destiny. I reached the office eventually. People were discussing deadlines. Someone laughed loudly near the elevator. Someone spoke of traffic like it was a minor inconvenience the world owed them an apology for. Computer screens glowed. Phones rang. Everything continued with its usual precision. But somewhere inside me, four goats were still standing quietly in that cart beneath the morning sky. Still innocent. Still trusting. Still alive for a few more moments..

3028@mgu.ac.in