This happened last spring, up in the high meadows where our family grazes sheep. My aunt had just arrived for the season, bringing her youngest, Malik. He’s only four, born and raised in the city, and didn’t know the first thing about farm animals.
So when he calmly walked up to a nervous black goat—the one even seasoned shepherds tend to avoid—and gently slipped a rope around her neck, we all just froze.
Then he turned to us and said, clear as anything, “It’s okay. Her name’s Narin. She remembers me.”
That’s when Grandpa nearly dropped his tea.
See, nobody names the animals anymore. They come and go too quickly. But a long time ago, there was a goat called Narin. She was pitch black, with a white arrow-shaped mark on her forehead—exactly like this one.
Grandpa used to say she was his favorite as a kid. Said she’d follow him up into the hills, and even once helped pull him out of a snowbank. But she died in a rockfall when he was thirteen.
And yet… here she was.
We all stood there, speechless, watching Malik and the goat. She leaned into his side like they were old friends. No skittishness, no hesitation. And Malik? He just smiled, patted her gently, and sat beside her cross-legged, like nothing unusual had happened.
My uncle mumbled something about genetics and coincidences. “Maybe those markings skip generations,” he said. But no one answered. Even the dogs stayed still, as if they too sensed something uncanny.
That evening, we ate dinner on the porch. Malik sat in Grandpa’s lap, quietly chewing on cornbread, and Narin—the goat—curled up beside his chair like she belonged there.
Grandpa stared into the fire for a long while before finally speaking.
“When I lost Narin, I cried for days,” he said. “Not just because she died—but because I led her there. It wasn’t a rockslide exactly. It was me.”
He looked over at the goat resting peacefully. “I called her to follow me. I didn’t know the ridge had cracked after the rains. She slipped. Her leg broke. I couldn’t get help in time.”
None of us spoke. Even Malik just watched him quietly, like he was listening to more than just the words.
“She wasn’t just a goat,” Grandpa added, his voice thick with emotion. “She was my best friend. Back then, we were dirt poor. I was angry most days. But she stayed with me. Like she knew I needed her.”
The next morning, Malik was gone.
We panicked. Searched the fields, shouting his name until we were hoarse. Eventually, we spotted small barefoot prints heading into the woods, with a set of goat tracks right beside them.
It took almost two hours to track them down.