Sometimes you wake up feeling exhausted. Your limbs ache, you’re feverish with indistinct memories of a nightmare.

If you examine your skin carefully enough, what you thought were mosquito bites turn out to be light puncture wounds. The truth dawns on you.

The thing that flitted past your kitchen veranda last night was not a shadow. When you thought you heard your dog growl and then whine in fear, you heard right. The single tree outside your window, whose leaves were rustling in the wind, well that was not the wind. Something was in the room with you last night.

Nakhumicha rounds the bend and sprints towards the hut, her Christmas present in hot pursuit. I am surprised by my sister’s agility.

It serves her right. After all, hadn’t I expressly instructed her to slaughter that goat and divide the meat among her sons and their wives? God only knows their young children could do with some meat on their bones.

Nakhumicha would have none of it.

“No, he is too valuable to eat. I’ll sell him when the prices improve. I have to pay Anna’s school fees, and Maria needs a new pair of sandals…”

Can one he-goat fulfill everyone’s wishes? Can he change their fortunes overnight?

Selfish, that’s what Nakhumicha is. That black shiny he-goat was destined for the market alright, but not for Anna or Maria; Nakhumicha has had her eye on this Black Mamba bicycle for months. That’s where the money was going.

There she goes, racing around the hut one more time. The children are gathering in alarm. Thomas, my brother-in-law, runs in front of the agitated creature. I turn away before the resounding ‘thwack’ and corresponding yelp. Thomas goes down; the rest of the family runs after the escaping he-goat.

That beast will never make it to the market.