Taro
by Aharon levy
The children mourn, the experts chide, Taro oversees.
There’s so much to oversee in the morning. Afternoons are different. They stretch dully if jobs have been done well, are fraught with worry if not.
Now, cascades of fish threaten to spill, armies of scrubbers rub away whatever’s most offensive. Grumbling jumpsuits realign fences, unsmudge windows, propel endless meat to its destinations.
The children mourn that they’re not allowed to see this first, proper meal, when the animals are ravenous from being animals all night. Children grasp at what they’re denied when they are left out; they understand the noon feedings are watered down, minor.
This is not Taro’s concern. He simply wants things to proceed properly.
The experts chide that the beasts are conditioned to expect food twice daily, making them slightly less beastly. But schedules are necessary for such an unlikely collection to function.
Unlikelihood is what the zoo offers, in the guise of education. Taro’s iceberg is a chipped concrete tub the width of his pacing. He was born in another zoo, one worse than this, pulled from his drugged mother too young to have absorbed anything of true snow, night chases, seals and wind. This absence drives his pacing.
The zookeepers have earned their jobs, and almost all the time understand what’s important. But perhaps because they are distracted by the clipboards, perhaps to impress someone, a latch is left open. This is minor, but sufficient. Taro notices everything.
In two years, there will be a great flood here—a dam crumbled, another checklist unfollowed—and those few animals who don’t perish will discover woods, rivers, will elude capture for weeks or forever. But now, there is just one animal, no flood.
If Taro were a zebu, a giant salamander, some other camouflaged creature with an instinct to hide, he might get farther. But he is defiant white against the green world of sunbathing and barbecues beyond the zoo, and nobody has taught him to choose his battles.
A bullet at rest is just a lump, a bullet at flight is a study in speed, a bullet when it reaches the skin is simply a bully, not sharp or cunning, but inevitable.
The children mourn, the experts chide, the cage remains empty.
Aharon Levy
Aharon Levy lives in Brooklyn, New York.