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The Epilogue

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m not entirely sure.’ I touched my fingers to my lips. My tongue felt fat in my mouth. I knew I could talk, but it felt strange to speak. As if I’d lost my words and grown them again. ‘I thought epilogues are for the end of stories,’ I said, turning to face him.

‘Quite right,’ said the sleet-coloured, fuzzy creature.

So what the fuck am I doing here? My eyes skimmed the bushy greenlands around me before landing back on my interlocutor.

… And why is there a goat?

‘I’m… looking,’ I said. The revelation stumbling passed my lips like a drunk back to the bar.

‘For Walker?’ the goat asked and then bleated.

‘Whose walker?’

‘Yours.’

I frown. ‘I don’t need a walker, I can walk myself.’

He huffed and side-eyed me as if he didn’t quite believe that were true. ‘What are you looking for?’ he asked.

‘I’m not sure.’

The goat delivered a sigh of exhaustion, as if he were dealing with an infant intent on escaping bedtime. ‘Well, what are you?’

I felt a sort of crushing unrelenting weight on my chest, as though I owed everyone everything and there were too many different people I had to be just to function in this world.

‘I think I’m a woman.’ I frowned. ‘But what does that have to do with anything?’

‘No, not like that,’ he said, clomping a hoof. ‘I asked what are you. You know — joyful, prudent, vengeful…’ he listed, trailing.

‘That last one sounds quite fun,’ I contemplated.

‘So you’re looking for revenge!’ He lifted a celebratory hoof.

‘What? No.’ I frowned.

His eyebrows fell. ‘Do you fear?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘Are you happy?’

‘I hope not.’

‘Are you sad then?’

‘No.’ I shook my head, resolute.

The goat remained unconvinced. ‘You look sad.’

‘I’m not.’

‘How can you tell if you don’t know what you are?’ he asked.

‘Because I don’t want to tell people to fuck off when I’m sad. I don’t want to do anything at all. I want to wallow and close my eyes and lie down and cry.’