Stones leaned back his head, trying for the thousandth time to find a comfortable spot on the fake rock wall. Real rocks gave rest, he thought. He never talked nowadays, only thought. The men came and spoke their wordy, rambling tongue, dripping with sweetness, as if talking to an infant. If they knew who I was…

Only Stones knew who he was. Stones was king. He ruled his land with his stony gaze and his powerful body, and his thunder voice. He had had a court full of wives and sons, and loyal subjects. He protected his people from evil creatures, and when food ran short, he lead them to fruitful lands.

But no more. The men had come with their crafty ways and their high, mocking laughs, and they had taken him away from it all. From his kingdom, his home, his family. They had come with their thin, boyish arms and their sickly faces, pale and sweaty. They had used their devilry to make him weak. Stones had fought them, he had kept fighting until their poisons had crumpled him to the ground like a sapling. But he had hit one of them with his strong hands, and the man’s thin neck snapped like a twig. Stones showed him what happens to those who fight a king, but the others captured him nonetheless.

They put him in the dark, and fed him sad, soft fruits and drooping leaves. They starved him of his pride, too, jeering at him and jabbing him with needles. They treated him like a dumb animal, like one of the fat cows the white men depended on for food. They treated him like he was a kin-killer, or a child-eater, or some other disgraceful thing. But Stones was king. He had bellowed this at them when they brought him the weak food, but they frowned at his strong voice and his eloquent speech. They understood his tongue no more than they understood his status. Stones was not king of them. Stones was prisoner.

When the moon had left twice, the men took his cage and placed it on a loud, moving machine. There were other people in there, of different clans, and of many different tongues. Stones could not understand them, but he saw from their grace that many of them were kings and queens, just as he was. But evidently the men had given them the same reverence that he had received. They were thin and weary, and stunk of their own waste.

A long time passed, and finally, some good revealed itself. Stones recognized one of the people in the cages to be of close relation to he and his people, and, thank Eden’s Artist, he was able to understand much of his tongue. It was more chattering and fast than Stones’, but it was close enough that they were able to tell each other of their troubles. The caged one, whose name was Teeth, was a chieftain of his tribe, and had been captured and poisoned in much the same way as Stones. Stones learned that Teeth hailed from a land not far from his, not thirty sun’s travel towards a dawn. Teeth spoke of many of the same troubles that plagued his people, of big cats and bad fruit, of parasites and stingers, and of many of the things Stones enjoyed, like sleep, and warm rain, and good wives and strong sons.

Stones opened his eyes. Some of the children of the men stood staring at him. Someone was always staring at him, he on his fake rock wall. He closed his eyes and tried to remember more.

At some point the machine had stopped rumbling, and the doors opened. Men started to take the queens and kings out of their cages, poisoning them in fear of their own harm. That was the thing with those men. Without their poisons and weapons, they were weak and afraid of the royalty they had captured.

Stones must have been poisoned too, for the next thing he remembered was waking up beside the fake rock wall. There were strange shapes around him, vines without leaves and flat pictures of a forest like his kingdom. Before him, men walked around, some stopping to look in awe at him.

So very many moons had been in the sky since then. Men and their young had looked at him for all that time, and he had long since stopped enjoying banging on the hard, dusty barrier that separated him from their ogling eyes. He used to enjoy watching them scream as the big savage yelled and intimidated them. Now it was just too much work for so little satisfaction.

Stones opened his eyes. He was old. His hair was grey and falling out, his face and hands weathered. He was fat, a result of years of sitting in the same box for years. Stones closed his eyes again, and thought of his wives, of his kingdom. Stones grunted a curse at man, and with one last shifting on that horrible wall, he went to sleep.

Stones was king. Stones had been a god. But now, he was a creature, a show. He was words on a plaque in a zoo.

“Harry”

gorilla gorilla

c. 1938 – 1980

Harry, a silverback western gorilla, was found in the wild forests of Uganda, wandering strangely alone. Harry was very aggressive when rescued, but years of care and safety restored him to a calm, happy state. Our “king of the jungle” had been at home at the zoo since 1978, and enjoyed resting in his cloud-forest sanctuary for hours on end. He is remembered by the people of Johntown as a public figure, and our zookeepers here thought of him as a person and a friend.