Animals Are Not Clowns (And Other Short Stories)

Animals Are Not Clowns (Short Story #1)

The steel bars of the cage pressed coldly against his hands. He appeared to be painstakingly thin, his ribs poking out for all the world to see. Thin black fur, that in his old glory days used charcoal black and as dark as the night, glossy and well-oiled.

He used to be a handsome beast, the King of the jungle, if you will. He had been proud, mighty and magnificent, a sight for all the world to behold.

And now he was trapped inside a tiny cage. That once gleaming, stark black fur was now ragged and patchy, moulting in places. Tufts of it came out in rest big clumps, littering the floor of his prison. Perhaps he had pulled some of it out himself, lonely and sad and alone. He craved companionship, someone to hold his hand and explore the great steaming rainforests of the Congo with. A troop to call his own. Or maybe at least, someone else to share his sorrows with. Someone else's fur to groom. Someone else to be there and help him through the great mess of his life. Maybe he was just a lonely soul, wishing for someone to talk too.

His hand dabbed the bars again, and his eyes dictated on the harsh, cold metal. Unwelcoming and unkind, void of all the light and kindness that he now only dreamed about. The metal was a barrier for everything. The bright blue skies he dreamed of and the rain that poured down heavily, punctuated my thunderclaps and strikes of lightning charring the earth. The great leaves enveloping over head, deep greens and vivid shades all splattered across the African canvas, the leaves expanding as make-do umbrellas, rippling and swaying in the wind. Then there were the dark rowan and brown shades of the tree trunks, barely visible under layers and layers of leeching green moss, bright purple and pink flowers and a scattering of light green leaves. He remembered all the flowers, great massive ones that stunk and reeked of foul odours and the small, petite fragile but beautiful ones of fresh fragrances and bright colours. He remembered the ground too, soft brown and wet underfoot, he remembered strolling along it on his knuckles, listening to twigs and sticks crackle underfoot and the soft wheeze of moss and leaves as the life was pressed out of them.

He tempered laughing and playing with his troop, racing around to reach the highest trees and pluck the most delicious fruit, he den weed all the vibrant flavours that blended into such a wonderful meal. He remembered screaming and baring his fangs at the more lowly ranked males, as they fought over the carcasses of the red colobus monkeys, as he chased some down and bashed them into the ground, splitting their skulls for an excellent meal. He remembered taking long, thin twigs and poking them into the humongous mounds of ant-hills, chewing up all the tiny black confectionaries.

But most of all, he remembered the hunters. He remembered that they came like shadows, moving in the trees. They had no place in the forest, the pale-skinned aliens of war and blood and metal. They brought death to the jungle, death and thin sinewy rope that caught, entrapped and strangled. They brought death in the forms of their giant thunder-sticks, metal machines with stone pellets that killed whatever they touched. With a crack of thunder, a giant noise that resonated through the jungle. All was silent as the hairless apes slaughtered and massacred his family. They caught him, too, a sinew net that snapped up and ate him whole. He remembered it so vividly, the harsh shrieking noise that was coughed out of his throat, him thrashing against the ropes that bound him. His hands reaching out in a desperate attempt to go back, his class digging in to the soil and taking it up. His elongated canines opening as he tried to break free from the ropes that held him tightly in place. He remembered the voices, the screams of his dying troop mates and the ugly shouts of the humans. He remembers when one had taken a smaller gun, and shot him. He remembered thinking that this was it, that it was the end, and he remembered saying his thanks that he had been spared and he had been overjoyed to leave the stinking human cesspit.

But he had survived, he had blacked out and returned to Earth without a scar to show his troubles. He had been shoved into a box of wooden planks, and the world was dark, empty and cold. There was one hole, one hole for him to peek out of and glimpse the dismal fate that awaited him, one hole to scream and beg for mercy, to plea for anyone and anything to help him.