one hoof washes the other

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This is Dean. He always wanted to lead, but found himself alone so often. He had to learn the hard way that also he had a herder, the same way a car goes forward not only because of the driver but also because of the gas in it.

Hey, Pota, can we eh.. steer this the other way and make this a little more light-hoofed story?

Okay then.
This is Dean. On the right.
And Jomo on the left. Your left.
And Jomo had a plan.

‘What’s that?’ Dean asked. ‘A plan, I mean, what does a plan mean?’

A plan is an intention or decision about what one is going to do, Jomo said.

But if you ask me what the word intention means, Jomo pondered.. or what the definition of a decision is..

Pota, would you please take over? Because otherwise we both will disappear in the dictionary, each on their own page, Dean and me, because just like sheep in a herd, each letter of the alfabet has its own place on paper.

And so we took over. And we envisioned how the story would unfold.
We saw Jomo’s heart and how he wanted to give something to Dean. And in order for him to be able to do that, Dean had to give him his hoof first.

Yes, Jomo said, a little bit more like this. More hoof, more leaning.

Ahhh yes, that is more like it. Or said correctly with the grammar of my heart: I like that more.

What Jomo saw, what he smelled, what he felt was only to be described by the word ‘home’.
He had always been a sucker for hoofs, but this one just took the cake.

Dean had never experienced something like this.
He sure didn’t have a word for it.
But if anything, it wasn’t cake.

Now do me, Jomo bleated expectantly, and he wanted to give his hoof to Dean.
But Dean didn’t know what to do! If he didn’t have words for his own experience, how would he know what to do to give another sheep that same feeling??
‘I am so different than you’, Dean said, ‘I feel I am falling – and sitting – short!’

Hey you, we said. It was our story, remember? Just because you like to touch, feel and smell hoofs that doesn’t mean that somesheep else needs to follow that lead. There is a hierarchy in a herd. One sheep washes (or smells) the hoofs of another sheep. You do that without asking something in return.