Galaxy Zoo

The attraction

The funny ape told me that this was my new home. Ok, it was not a cage. It was surrounded by glass walls that I would never be able to climb. The enclosure was very big and it would take me days to explore it. It looked like a summer camp. There was a cabin and lots of trees and a small river that went through the enclosure. It would just be like camping. The difference is that strange aliens would look at my every move and I would never go home.

I sat on a tree stump and started crying. I could not understand how I was now in this position? I was on exhibition for all species in the universe to see. I was a zoo animal that was locked in a glass cage. I was a pet of the universe! This must have been against so many human rights! I did not consider that humans were not important here. We were just an attraction. I must have cried for a long time on the tree stump, I did not realize that a crowd of aliens were watching me through the glass. I turned around so they could not see me.

I could not use the rest of my life crying and being mad at myself. I had to accept the position that I was in. I had to make the best of it. Once that they did not starve me or hurt me, I could survive. I just had to get used to being a tourist attraction. I had to get used to being in a confined place. I should have been used to this, as I always confined myself to the library or my bedroom. I could make this a good experience. If I ever returned to earth, I would be famous and I would know more than the species of the universe than anyone else.

Until then, I just had to be brave.

I heard a voice welcome me and when I looked around, I saw a lady in a nice dress behind a tree. I suddenly became very shy and at the same time, it was nice to know that I was not alone. The woman could see that I was shy and smiled. She came and sat next to me. She stated that it looks like we would be living together. She hoped that I would like her and she would do all she could to help me here. The woman's name was Sandra and she was here for many years.

"I was 17 when I came here," she said, " and despite that, we are a tourist attraction in a zoo, this saved my life. I came from a bad family and I was in the wrong crowd. I drank a lot and even used drugs. Then I was abducted by the Aliens and came here. It is so good that now I have company. Things are not that bad here. We have a lot of space and you just have to get used to strange creatures watching us. The human exhibition is the most popular one, so we are sort of celebrities. We can escape being looked at as we do have privacy."

Sandra showed me around the enclosure. It was like being in paradise. We had everything that we could ever wish for. There were lots of clothes and the food we wanted. The cabin was like a hut except that people could look in. We did have privacy in the toilets, or when we needed to change clothes. We could take a bath without anyone watching. I think that this was hard to get used to. I was always invisible to others and now I was the centre of attention. Sandra told me that I would get used to it.

It turned out that the Ape creature was our zookeeper. His name was Zenko. He could also speak our language but at times, this made me laugh as he sounded like a chipmunk. His job was to make sure we were well taken care of and he tried to give us everything that we wanted. He even came with books and paper when I told him that I missed them. He was nice for being a zookeeper, but that was also because we did not cause him any trouble. He told me the worse thing was a zoo animal that wanted to escape.

This did not mean we always got along. He told me that for a child, I was stubborn and had a lot of spirit. Other keepers at the zoo would not like this. They would get rid of my spirit. He knew that I planned to escape somehow and warned me that this would be the worse thing that could happen. If I did escape, where would I go? How would I even get back to Earth?

I on the other hand could get mad at him. I would tell him all humans had a spirit and we did not like being owned. We would always try to escape. I would get mad at him saying that no one owned me. I was here against my will. I would pound his chest and tell him to stop calling me an animal. I was a human and we had intelligence. Looking back, I do not know why he did not punish me or hate me. Zenko had a lot of patience!