Chapter 39-1

It has come to my attention

that a very small number of soldiers

are going to the hospitals on the pretext

that they are nervously incapable of combat.

Such men are cowards,

and they bring discredit to the Army

and disgrace to their comrades, whom

they heartlessly leave to endure the dangers of battle,

while they, themselves,

use the hospitals as a means of escape.

.

—General George S. Patton,

.

MIKHAIL

There's this machine old Behnam built after one of our conversations. He ties his goats around a wheel rigged to a flat-stone, and then his grandson entices the goats with treats to walk in a circle. The flour which comes out is not as smooth as that ground by hand, but he's been perfecting his machine so the goats do his work for him.

Sometimes I feel like those three goats, going……