The Goat................<>

The goat arrived during the bull run, materializing in venture capital lobbies like morning mist.

His eyes—those horizontal pupils—saw through the blockchain to the fear beneath. When he bleated, founders heard the question they'd been avoiding: *Why?*

He ate pitch decks. He stood silent in conferences while twenty-somethings confessed they didn't understand their own whitepapers. His presence was a koan with hooves.

People who met his gaze found their conviction dissolving. The graphs still climbed, but now they could see what graphs really were: stories we told about the future to avoid the present.

By winter, the goat was gone.

The market followed him into silence—not because he willed it, but because he'd reminded everyone that zero was also a number, and emptiness was also an answer.

In the Himalayas, a goat sleeps in the sun. Sometimes he dreams of Silicon Valley, of all those brilliant people who'd mistaken acceleration for enlightenment.

He dreams without attachment.

The dreams, like the portfolios, eventually return to nothing. $GOAT $GOATED $G