The Goat Rider of the Wild Wild West

Author: Hayat Copyright © 2008
Blog: http://sherifa-kw.blogspot.com/
Location: Kuwait

When Bill was sixteen, God knows who told him once that he would see a thousand stars in the sky with naked eyes in a blind dark Texas night if he found the right hill to stand on. This person must have seen him several times struggling with his telescope to catch some cool views.

His father had bought the telescope for him on his fourteenth birthday, before he stopped using his Kuwaiti name and became Bill, which was quite surprising as he always used to get him thick, colorful books about different countries he never heard of. Probably, he had given up after Bill’s justification; giving such books to him and stimulating his imagination. But then accusing him of being a dreamer. He had missed something about the new gift; stars would not be less vicious than delicious stories of other countries in catalyzing the chemical reactions in his brain. They caused countless dreams and crazy hopes. It was so strange to other parents around that one day his father started to complain about his son’s intolerable hunger for books and hide the most “dangerous” ones. Back then Bill had already read the book “The Name of the Rose” by Umberto Eco. He knew that his father would not harm him, but still something in his mind whispered not to lick his fingers while reading and turning pages. His mother never could figure out why he always kept a wet sponge in his room.

The telescope never replaced his books, yet he did everything to make it look so to others, especially to his father. Though it gave him a similar pleasure, books brought out the same in him. While watching different star groups with different shapes in the sky, he could always see a woman lying on a soft black bed, her body framed by white flames.

He never liked chocolate even when he was a small kid, and he was never attracted to chocolate-skinned women either. After God knows whose words were uttered about the sky in Texas, he started to fantasize about cheating on his telescope. He would not need it much there since with a binocular he could enjoy a generous view of some white flames looking like one of the Dixie Chicks.

His childhood hero Cervantes would forgive him anyways, he would not end up in Spain as he planned, but Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza could be easily fit in cowboy pants. Also, the horse, skinny Rocinante, could be taken from one of the farms located on the right hill beneath the black bed.

Now, his father is not around, and the books have stopped inspiring new dreams in him. He reads about outer space sometimes and thinks about the top of the right hill where the black passage starts and ends. Every time he hears the song “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” he can’t help but change the lyrics in his mind: “All I could get was a goat*, a wet sponge and an almost forgotten name deep in the heart of the East.”

*the only animal that the Middle East reminded him of