By J Brown (copyrighted 1999)

There are times at night, away from our homes, and into the thick dark trees where men don’t belong. They moved further and deeper into someone else’s home without once saying thanks or asking. The animals and trees were once frightened in their own ways, and timid, but they know what men are about now. More and more, waste and waste, faster and faster, with a little excess on top. Many have been killed and left to rot before the teeth of carrion, and this enraged the frightened animals. They understand the food chain, they don’t act it, and they play their parts as men do but their time is coming. Killing for food is a way of life but to an animal intent of surviving. Sport hunting has become small patches of death nightmares along the green heavenly hills they live upon. A very special meeting took place one purple, tree-covered evening and no men were invited.

"But what can we do?" the elk asked. He was a simple creature and wanted only her family and food. It had not been that much to ask for until the damn humans found our green hills, she was thinking. Two small elk cubs nursed from her underside, unaware of the meeting.

"Not much," the zebra said. He was sitting on his hindlegs and was secretly glad that zebra skins weren’t as popular with these men with the weapons. "It’s hard enough running from lions and cheetahs, that is about all I can handle right now."

"I know what you mean," she replied.

A lion sat quietly, breathing intensely and listening. He had been asked to the meeting, quite an odd request considering he was a predator. But they respected him. He was doing only what he needed. And he couldn’t eat them all. Not like those loud booms could. They were quick and exact.

There was silence as all the animals looked at each other. They were different but wanted the same things, ultimately. They lived their lives not as humans live, but they existed as their offspring would and how generations of their species had lived.

"Well," the gazelle said. He felt skiddish around the lion and how could he not? A lion had killed one of his mates and he had seen her go down under the lion’s large yellow paws and had heard her last screams of life. They had echoed across the valley he and the other animals had been grazing upon.

"What do you think you can do?" The lion had spoken, and his deep voice frightened a few of the animals that sat in the odd-shaped circle of the bright darkness. "They have weapons and we have only our bodies and minds. It is no competition because weapons do not even require a mind, just a body."

"We could move," the zebra suggested. He had yet to mate and his roots were not fully ground into his homeland. She wanted a life where lions and cheetahs and jackals were his biggest worry. That he could handle.

"Where?" the lion snorted. He thought it ridiculous but just in case was curious where the food would move. He had eaten heavily earlier in the day so he was able to look at these concerned creatures more subjectively and not just as food.

"There’s nowhere," the gazelle said. He was a lost creature in the sun, up for the taking because of what he had seen. They had all seen it, many times even and some were unsure why it affected the gazelle so much. He would not last long like this, one of them thought.

"We have to live somewhere," the lion said. He was not hunted too often but wanted to follow the food.

It was at this time the cheetah, a heated rival of the lion finally spoke. He was an old cheetah, the spots and skin having turned gray and black. Normally the animals would have already run at the sight of him. They had all seen or heard the lion eating earlier in the day and were not afraid of him. But for an animal without a memory device, the gazelle heard the crunching of bones and growling into raw flesh and he felt it. The cheetah looked at al of them, as best as his poor eye sight would allow and said, "It doesn’t matter, any of you." His voice was raspy and slurred from age. "We all die, it is only a matter of time. Look at me." They did. He looked old. He couldn’t catch a crippled elk, the elk thought. I am safe from him, the gazelle thought, relieved. I am glad he is not competition for me was the lion’s thought. They were all silent except for the bugs. The bugs were never quiet and perhaps it was their nightly meetings to ensure their survival. This was the first for the animals and maybe it was too late.

"We all die," the cheetah was saying, but by then the animals had begun dispersing. Night was dying and soon the light of Men and loud booms would be near an they were damned if they were going to make it easier for those killers.

The lion slinked away. It was too late for them. He just somehow knew it but it wasn’t going to get in his way, not while he was still young and healthy. He’d see them someday, and maybe he wouldn’t know what hit him. Maybe that’s no so bad, he thought and his tail dragged lazily behind him in the early morning light.