Human Zoo [SHORT STORY]

“Wake up son. wake up you little lion.”

“Why mom?!”

“Have you forgotten? Your dad must be waiting in the jungle. Today is the opening of a zoo, the likes of which has never seen by anyone from our family. So let’s go son.”

Here, for the first time in history of jungles across the world, we had opened a ‘Zoo of Humans’ for our family members.

“I, the ‘The King of the Jungle’ warmly welcome all to this unique place, and promise the visitors that you will have the best time of your lives. Do look at all the humans in the cage and enjoy yourselves to the most. Where are my son and wife? Ah! there they are. Come on son and my dear lady, come and take a look at what father has created for you.

For the first time in history, the meaning of zoos has changed. The cages which were meant for animals, are now placed there for humans.”

The lion, lioness and our little cub were passing along each cage. After visiting every cage in the zoo, little lion cub was upset. The king lion looked at his son’s unhappy face and asked, “What has made you so upset, my son? Aren’t you happy?”

The cub replied, “Dad, I am unable to understand, what is there to be so amazed in this zoo? When I look around, everyone is enjoying. But I am not. Why so?”

“Oh! My son, I can solve this, let’s have a another look at each of the cages and this time you will be happy, I promise.”

They both went towards the very First cage in the zoo. It had a very old man, standing very quietly. He has no emotions on his face.

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Looking at his face the cub said, “What a nice man! Why is he in this cage as he looks so harmless?”

“Dear son, you won’t believe, but you have just seen the most furious person. In his anger, he had once tried to destroy our forest forever; the forest which is a whole world for us. We caught him just in time, and that’s how he is here now. A human’s face does not reflect their inner feelings my son.”

The Second cage had a man who looked ferocious. He was trying hard to break the cage and come out of it. The little cub was getting worried and he was scared too.

“Don’t worry son, he can’t get out of this cage, as it is strong enough to keep him in it. I feel sad to tell you that you lost your leopard uncle only because of him.”

The third cage had two different sections in that, one had the mother and another one had a child. Seeing the Third cage the cub asked, “Dad why have you kept the mother and child separately. They both need each other, they both are crying so helplessly.”

“Dear son, the mother and the child are the family of the person in the Second cage. When I lost my best friend, your Leopard uncle, his family lost a husband, a dad. His child and wife were attacked by some other humans. From that day, we animal family elders have decided to teach all humans a lesson. We have attacked our enemy and kept his family away from him, in exactly the same way that they keep our family members away from us. Now the man would be feeling exactly the same way we feel every time.”

They both went on to see other humans in cages. Some of them were entertaining and interesting too. At last, after seeing the whole zoo the little lion cub asked, “Dad why have you created this zoo?”

The king lion replied, “When all humans tried to destroy the forests for their luxury needs, they started hunting us and began to kill our family members. Some of us were captured for displaying in the zoo. Humans enjoy when we are in cages, when we scream for our dad, mom because we miss them. They all laugh at us. They do not realize what they are destroying for their luxury needs means a world for someone else. To protect our world, all the animals pledged to teach a lesson to all humans, so that no one would dare to harm our families and our world ever again. We have now given them a taste of their own medicine. From then, till now we have successfully saved our world from vanishing completely. Humans want natural resources, but it can’t sustain forever. If they can’t protect our remaining natural resources, they do not have any right to destroy it.”

Hearing all this, the cub felt something was wrong. He said, “Dad, I agree whatever you have done to save our whole world is admirable, but this was an extreme step. Look at that mother and child – frightened, scared. The child’s father in cage beside their’s was trying to get to them just to make them feel safe. He is not trying to get out of the cage, but instead to be near his family. The same thing you would be doing for us dad, if we were in these cages. This is love, a true love for family and there is nothing wrong in it. I know that whatever they did is wrong and I am sure they won’t be repeating it another time. They must have learned a good lesson from staying in this zoo that, ‘To save one’s world, one can go to any extent. The time has come to show what is the right thing to do. So Dad, show them, that though we are animals but feelings, emotions, love, pain, do exist in us – exactly like them. These humans may not be knowing humanity, but we can teach them.”

The king lion was amazed and shocked by the words of his little son and decided to free the humans from the cages. From then onwards, all humans agreed that they wouldn’t be harming any animals or their world. A new world was created where all humans and animals lived in peace and harmony and where forests, lands, and all treasures of nature were safe and protected.