the goat

by Jonas David

As I entered the Museo Del Prado in Madrid with the intention of viewing the Goya paintings which were housed on the bottommost floor (not the Goya paintings which resided on the third floor, those being from his more bright and positive era) as I entered the museum then I was struck by an ominous foreboding, and I recalled a story my colleague Lisa Kay (the linguist and anthropologist) had told me about her own visit to this very museum several years prior, during a short vacation she took here in Madrid (Madrid being where I currently reside [she, of course, was living in London at the time]) and I felt momentarily, as I recalled her words, that the world was expanding, or rather, that is, the not-world was expanding, the black border around the world was expanding at an incredible rate, and I and the museum were becoming like tiny replicas, like props on a darkened stage lit by a lone spotlight, and as I entered the museum I felt the cold oppressiveness of the dark universe weighing ever down on me and I remembered Lisa telling me: I was just there for one day and I had come specifically and only to see the goat, she told me (and by this she meant Witches' Sabbath or as it is sometimes called The Great He-Goat, due to the prominence of the satanic goat figure,) and this painting, she said, is housed on the bottom floor in a hall with many of his other so-called black paintings, and the line was quite long but I had been and was determined to see the goat so I waited for nearly forty minutes to enter the museum and to go down the stairs and into the darkened hall where, as I said, she told me, the so-called black paintings are housed, and where I must say, Lisa told me, I recalled as I entered the museum, the air was much cooler. There were, however, Lisa continued, far too many people in the hall, so I waited near the entrance of the hall and sat on a bench there near the entrance, and I watched the people flow in and I waited for a lull in the flow whence I might enjoy the paintings with some modicum of solitude, but that moment never came, the flow of people never ceased, I sat for perhaps thirty minutes and the crowd never ceased its shuffling advance through the hall, and I tried, Lisa told me, I recalled as I entered the museum, I tried to imagine viewing the goat in such a circumstance, that is, with the pressure of the line behind me, the pressure of the flow of the human river pressing and pushing me along, how then, I thought, Lisa said, could I possibly enjoy the picture, how could I even look at it in such circumstances? And as I sat there on the bench considering my next move a greyheaded woman approached, and I turned to look at her as she approached because I expected her to ask permission to sit, but she did not ask, Lisa told me, she sat with an air of authority that I noticed quite before I noticed her uniform of slacks and button-up shirt and the staff nametag which said Pearl, guide. I hope you don’t mind, she said, Lisa told me, I recalled as I entered the museum, I’m just on my break, she said, and she began scrolling through her phone. I’m just waiting for a moment, I said, Lisa told me, and the woman replied that yes it was a crowded day, much more crowded than average, and she asked what I was there to see, and I replied the goat, and she nodded, Ah, yes, she said, the goat and the witches in their shrinking circle, and I said shrinking? and she then told me of the one hundred forty centimeters, nearly five feet, that had been cut from the right side of the painting, cut away and destroyed during its transfer from Goya’s wall onto canvas, a black and empty landscape to the right of the witch-circle that was removed and which, with its removal, presented the painting in an entirely other light and focus, there’s nothing left for them, the entire world is outside the frame now, the woman said, Lisa told me, I recalled as I entered the museum, and the woman’s words, Lisa told me, like a pin in my rear made me stand immediately and step into the river of people to wait my turn to see the goat, because the crowd won’t make a difference, I thought, Lisa told me, because we’re all outside the frame, everyone everywhere is all equally outside the frame and looking in on those witches in their circle, looking in on the goat, she said, I recalled as I entered the museum and proceeded down the empty stairs into the cool darkness of the hall where the so-called black paintings are housed, and I approached the goat, and I did so easily and alone because I had come in the late fall instead of the early summer as Lisa had done, and there was no one and nothing but silence around me, and I stood before the painting which was lit from the bottom and the sides with a subtle and warm light there in the dark hall, and I looked at the witches in their circle and I looked at the dark specter of the goat, and I tried to imagine the missing landscape, the missing five feet of black which would have stretched out behind the young woman at the right side of the picture, the supposed initiate who sat patiently before the old women and the goat. Behind her, then, would have been cold darkness, hostile emptiness, a void, the presence of which would have shrunk the witches’ circle into a fragile pool of light, a lone campfire in a great dark wood, and as I tried to envision the painting as such, as I mentally pushed the frame outward and upward I began to experience once more the foreboding I had felt upon entering the museum, the sense of an expanding darkness, and it was not at all as Lisa had said, I was not outside the frame but rather I soon saw that the frame was above me and behind me and moving ever further away, and at my back was a hostile and vast darkness, and to my left and right and above and everywhere was a thick and expanding darkness which shrank my life and existence down to a fragile point, and only before me in that pool of light with the witches and the goat, only there could I see a kind of peace, and I heard the crackling of the flame, and the light of the fire flickered on the faces of the witches, and steam gushed from the goat’s nostrils and his ears twitched as I drew closer, and the witches laughed and murmured among themselves as I entered their circle of light.

Photo of Jonas David

BIO: Jonas David is a writer and editor at Lucent Dreaming press, and lives in the Seattle area with his wife and their two cats.