I don't have many friends.
Animals understand me more than people do.
My family are farmers.
We have fields, buffaloes, and many goats.
Every day, I help my parents take care of them.
Among all the goats, there was one I loved the most.
It followed me everywhere.
When I was sad, it stayed near me.
I felt safe with it.
One day, my mother scolded me.
Her words made my heart heavy.
I was angry, but I did not show it.
In the evening, I went to feed the goats.
When I put the food down, my favorite goat jumped in excitement.
The food fell and got spoiled.
Something broke inside me.
I shouted.
I hit the goat again and again.
It cried.
I didn't stop.
Then I left the food there
and walked away.
After some time, my anger went away.
My hands felt cold.
My heart felt wrong.
I went back to the shed with new food.
I wanted to say sorry.
But when I entered, my goat saw me.
Its eyes were full of fear.
It tried to run.
And somehow, it escaped.
It ran into the jungle.
I screamed.
I called my family.
Then I ran after it.
There was no road.
Only wet soil and sharp grass.
I didn't care.
I slipped.
I fell down the hill.
My head hit the ground.
Everything went dark.
When I opened my eyes,
I was in a rice field below the hill.
The sun was going down.
The sky was turning orange.
My goat was gone.
I cried and searched.
I walked alone in the dark jungle.
With every step, pain grew inside me.
That night, I understood something:
some mistakes cannot be fixed easily.
And when you lose something you love,
you lose a part of yourself too.
At midnight, deep inside the jungle,
I saw it.
My goat.
I ran toward it.
But when I reached it,
it was not my goat.
It was a tiger.
It jumped at me.
I woke up.
My eyes were blurry.
My body was weak.
My mother was sitting beside me.
I was in a hospital.
I had been unconscious for three days.
When I fell, I hit a tree and bled badly.
I rolled down into the rice field.
My goat had followed me.
It stood beside me and cried.
Because of it, people found me.
When I came home,
people smiled at me.
They said I was lucky to be alive.
There was food.
There was laughter.
There was celebration.
I sat quietly.
Then I saw the meat.
I knew before anyone told me.
No one asked me.
No one explained.
They said it was for happiness.
They said it was tradition.
The goat that saved my life
was lying on a plate.
I did not cry.
My mouth opened,
but no words came out.
I never touched the food.
That night, I could not sleep.
I kept seeing its eyes
not angry,
not scared,
just waiting.
Waiting for me to speak.
But I was too late.
I learned something that day:
Sometimes you are saved,
just to live with the weight of it.
And some apologies
are never meant to be heard.