Feb 27, 2011

Monologue of a Distressed Animal

By Lynette Rodrigues 

They say animals have no souls, do they?!?! HA! Well then, they should really meet the
people of this country!

Just look at them! These little BRATTSS; puny, sly looking things with clothes not having
even half the shine my lovely mane used to have. And yet they think that they are better than
me and can throw stones at ME! They really need to be introduced to our lately discovered
companion, the slender and cutting ...Mrs. Whip, don’t they my son?

Alas it is not their fault completely. Look how their long-legged parents clad in those
hideous clothes they call shalwar qameez nod at their actions approvingly. Some, even helping
their children find stones to plummet us poor creatures with.

Oh my poor son, just look at you! Your ribs are jutting out of your body like claws
painfully waiting to greedily snatch any prey that travels across your unlikely path. Your body
trembles like the sands of the Sahara desert when a light breeze grazes it. And oh my poor boy,
THE WOUND ON YOUR FACE, my poor, poor, son! Does it hurt you when these black buzzing
devils hover and crawl around it? Has no one seen to it?! This useless pot bellied zookeeper
who does nothing but either snore on his muddy blood-red chair of cheap plastic, or torment
us as if we were slaves, with words that sting just as harshly as the pebbles he hurls at our weak
bodies.

Ah, but it was never like this before I tell you. Do you know my son that before you
were born we used to live in the zoo at Singapore. Those were the days! When we lived
there, we were not packed like some brutal criminals in a crammed, slimy cage that reeked
of perspiration and ten days old rotten garbage. No! We were kept in separate enclosures of
around fifteen by twenty feet land, that symbolized our natural habitat- Our own little world
they called it, the worlds comforts at your claws.

Oh I can almost hear it now, the rustling of the azure water as it used to race down the
elongated lake, overlapping itself in its race to infinity. The sweet perfume of a variety of exotic
trees lingered on one wherever they went, and oh that soft, luscious, velvet grass clothed the
area we were kept in like a beautiful cloak of jewels. It was beautiful unlike this land here, an
over baked spinach pie, burnt on the inside and cracked from above.

Even the zookeeper in Singapore was a polite young lad who unlike this snoring puddle

of a pudding, used to treat us kindly, never ever raising even one fingure at us. And the food!
Oh the food! Abundant chunks of enormous blood-red meat, moist and tough, a feast for no
less than royalty. It was a life of luxury- over flowing amounts of food, water to bathe our rich
coats of brown and a place to stretch our paws and exercise. That was the life.

Yes my son, yes I know how you feel, my loins ache too for the comfort of that rich
carpet and the flavor of the juicy meat as it trickles down ones throat. The burst of magical
flavours that sprint across ones pallet. The taste of wealth and love…

Huh, Oh yes, yes my son, faith seems to have dealt us a harsh hand. I know you do not
want to hear this but my days are numbered. My only wish now is that you are able to leave
this treacherous den and travel to a place of happiness.

Some countries from what I hear are like this where animals are mistreated; killing
them for sport, injuring them with sharp edged objects, mocking them and using them like
slaves to do jobs that the people themselves would never consider doing even if they were paid
fortunes for it. In other countries however animals are treated justly and with respect. A stray
dog running along the road from what I have been told, looks like a well pampered indoor dog-
well groomed, well fed and always being shown affection from even the pedestrians on the
streets. Even cows like the one you can see there in the gritty, sooty fenced petting zone have
such a high status in the eyes of some nations that men driving their fearful coloured beasts on
the road stop their growling beast to allow these cows to pass by. You cannot imagine it, can
you? Well there is such a place known as heaven my dear cub, you just need to find it.

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