you are the zoo

Freshly groomed and fed we sat in the midday sun watching them watch us. None could pass us without looking and we could never understand why. We thought it was because they found something curious about us, but as chimpanzees we rather found them to be curious. They barked their human nonsense at us, apparently expecting that we would somehow acknowledge this in a way that would be meaningful to them, but we could never figure out how to bark like that. No matter how many gestures and various combinations of screams and flips we did, they just barked back and it was frustrating to the point where anyone who had been with us here in this aggravatingly cramped jungle impostor for long just sat at the far end near the feeding door waiting for the next disappointing meal.

And anyhow, didn’t they understand that we preferred to graze as we please?

Yet, one day a small human came to see us, and a few of us have danced about it since, who had such wonder in his eyes you would think he had seen Oeneth herself. The young ones were pleased by this and flipped, screamed and executed their most impressive stunts to acknowledge their sway held over this young observer. He stayed longer than most, and Garmesh was right to feel bad for him. They never let the awestruck ones back in. The ones who really care for our grace and appreciate our uniqueness attempt to take us , or make a scene about the little mock jungle we play on.  This boy seemed to communicate with a couple of us with his eyes.  Surely, he would be banned.

As he walked away I remember screaming that it was wrong. Wrong for us to be here in this punishing miniature of our real home, and wrong that he would be punished for truly understanding that we are not the zoo, you are the zoo. All of you with your weird looking foods and portable water vessels (though by the smell of it that is tainted water). You bark and beep and make stupid looking faces when you see us. You come to gawk at us in our permanent abduction. Barking, beeping. Your sounds are weak and dispassionate when not hostile.

That poor boy. I do hope his wonder goes unseen.  He is one zoo animal we would not mind seeing again.

you are not at the zoo

He walked up to the ticket counter and bought one regular admission. His first visit. He thought the primates would be the most fun and had been dreaming about them for two months. He went to see the gorillas, orangutans, “wizard monkeys”, baboons and chimps, among other’s whose names always slip his young, mind. It was just as fun as he had hoped.

Nothing else at the zoo concerned him so he left. Overjoyed, the next day he went back, if for no other reason than to have proof that he had really seen them. He approached the same old man at the same ticket counter, holding up six dollars he said “I’d like to see the monkeys.”

We have monkeys, yes, but you cannot see them. This is not a zoo.

But yesterday it was…

I’m sorry but we do not run a zoo here. You must be mistaken.

Are you playing a trick on me? Only yesterday I was allowed in and I’m sure it was a zoo.

The old man shook his head, irritated, and suggested that he had only wanted to be at the zoo but had never really gone.

He knew the old man was wrong, but his young mind was easily confused and the old man had such disdain in his voice, that he cowered and walked away. Indeed, never to be let into the zoo again so that he finally accepted that he had never been. The monkeys he could swear looked right at him. He could swear he had smelled them, and remember his heart soaring as they played with each other leaping ably from limbs and ropes…

He wondered if the zoo ever did allow him back in if he’d even care to go anymore. What if the next day they insisted he’d never been. It would be a confusion he couldn’t survive twice.