Death by Goat. Or Death by Truck.

The Great Debate.

One wet afternoon in the cool mountains of Malaysia’s Cameron Valley, two tourists were returning from a visit to the famous BOH tea plantations. They were negotiation the rubbish strewn, potholed, winding roads of the vegetable growing region onboard a busted up old scooter.

Confused by the intervening markets and unsuspecting, narrow, dirt road turn offs, they paused briefly to check maps.me. That’s when they noticed a curious goat eating from an overgrown planter box on the side of an overloaded main road. He was a beautiful black colour with white patches, almost like a Friesian cow, and stood on his hind legs, contorting his neck to reach the grasses growing from the high box garden.

The travellers did as any modern day tourist would do, and crept closer to take a photo of the peculiar sight. Just as they reached the hungry goat, a huge smoke spewing truck, violently honked his horn and sent the goat into a panicked frenzy.

Hysterical, it stampeded towards the travellers at a great pace and in that split second they had to make a choice.

Risk rabid goat attack and a high possibility of death by goat; or swerve out into traffic and risk collision with a very dirty old truck that almost certainly had iffy breaks.

Death by goat.

Or death by dirty truck.

The decision was obvious. Death by goat was just too humiliating, so they accelerated into the path of the oncoming truck and almost certain death with a swerve and a splutter.

But at that moment an unexpected variable came into play. The accelerator of the truck was about as effective as the theorised break condition so the giddy travellers were able to merge smoothly into the flow of traffic.

Goat death avoided.

Truck death avoided.

The great internal debate of truck-goat death, rendered irrelevant.

Originally published at islay-kate.com.