Wild.
I am among the humans at the zoo, the simplest-minded animals here because we believe we get to leave when we want.
We are greeted by a peacock. He doesn’t spread his feathers and makes a sound that startles us because he is an animal we are accustomed to seeing and not hearing. He goes about his way, tottering near the edge of the open world with no acknowledgement that there is more beyond this, no intention of leaving.
“The lions are that way, the giraffes are around that end, and the monkey house isn’t far from the river otters,” we plot. “Hyenas coming soon!”
But I don’t leave the zoo. Every day, I’m captive like the wallabies, the alligator, the red panda curled and high up in a tree planted there for that very purpose. Like them, I stay in my assigned enclosure (my office) which affords me the same patch of sun for as long as it is out, bleaching out reality. Just enough to space to keep from going mad. Out of sight from natural enemies, in focus of those who I entertain. “Watch the gibbon swing! Watch! He’ll do it again soon.”
As I walk through the zoo, the artificiality of a stoop or a net is awakening. These animals are safe here, fed, socialized, they get effective medical attention when they need it. My work gives me these things too. They can’t be poached, hunted, there is no chance of death by starvation or freezing. Same for me. But they can’t be happy held here, relinquishing those fears at the cost of freedom and hope for better, can they? Can I?
The African Lions are on exhibit. In the center, Lex the male lays on a boulder with his giant paws casually drooping over the edge and a mane that may be freshly fluffed. His sister, Bella, rubs herself against the fence. A zookeeper reaches through the fence and pets her, scratching too roughly to be considered friendly play with any other animal. Bella follows his gait along the fence forward and back. He is her friend; he uses her for applause. “She could eat him.” But she doesn’t.
Some animals are agitated. The bobcat snarls. The bald eagles splay. The wolves pace. If they could leave, these animals would. But they cannot. I am not like these animals. I know where the door is, where the key to the lock is and how to use it, where the stability and predictability ends. But I stay. I stay like the flopping penguins, the giant tortoise either slow or still, the big, big bison, and of course the peacock. I have shelter, I have food, I have comfort, we think. Outside this place, there is danger, there is the hazard of fortune, good or bad.
I never leave the zoo, where the wild is chased away by complacency but never entirely gone. But I could leave. I think.