A mountain goat, feeling quite blue, decided to roam about a lush valley and feast upon a rainbow assortment of flora. After trying every color of flower, the goat still felt blue and determined that he did not starve for food but rather accomplishment. As such, the goat set out to climb to the top of the nearest knoll.
The mountain goat bounded to the top of the knoll in a matter of minutes and was no less blue. He reasoned that he set his sights much too low—he was not a knoll goat, he was a mountain goat!
So the goat began researching the highest mountains to climb. He almost booked a flight to Mount Everest but realized that he had lost his passport. The goat refused to file a DS-11 and wait eight weeks for a replacement, so Everest was a no-go. Thankfully, he still had his passport card, which was effectively useless for air travel, though at least permitted land border crossings to Canada.
The goat adjusted his plans, packed his bags, and began hitchhiking across Canada, intent on scaling Denali, the tallest mountain in North America.
He worked odd jobs in odd places. His longest stay was at a barley farm in Manitoba, scaring away sparrows and goldfinches in exchange for tools for his journey. The farmer let him dorm in a cozy stable with an affable and charming ibex named Ingrid, who would tell the mountain goat stories by the candlelight after a hard day’s work.
One night, the mountain goat asked Ingrid how she ended up in Manitoba. After a bit of prodding, Ingrid explained that years ago, she felt blue and decided to embark to Denali herself. At that point, it was called Mount McKinley, as this was before Interior Secretary Sally Jewell signed a secretarial order to rename the mountain under the Obama administration, but she digressed. During her journey, Ingrid stumbled across the farm and was assigned to bird-scaring duty. She loved her humble job, and the constancy imbued her with a sense of worth and peace of mind. No longer blue, Ingrid gave up Denali and declared the farm her new home.
The mountain goat laughed. Of course an ibex would make excuses and avoid climbing such a tall mountain. Any attraction he had towards Ingrid had quickly vanished (and he didn’t think he could fall in love with an Ingrid anyway) so the next morning, he left the farm and resumed his travels.
A month later, he reached Denali. Huffing and puffing, the mountain goat hugged the steep incline. Halfway up the mountain, the goat missed a step, careened down the slope, and nearly fell to his demise. He stood up, inspected his wounded leg, and considered trekking back down. But the goat was still blue, and nothing would solve that but summiting the mountain. So he persisted.
A week later, against all odds, the mountain goat reached the peak. He perched himself on the highest rock he could find and let the euphoria consume him. For a blissful moment, the goat was not blue. Though when the sun dropped behind the horizon, an awful dread set in. There were no more mountains to climb. And when this realization rendered him blue once more, he accepted that nothing again could ever make him happy.
So the goat lept, and was no longer blue.
He was red.
