Once upon a time at the local zoo in a city, animals were talking to each other. A lion started the conversation by saying: “Man. This place is messing with my head. The people are like ‘Wow! It’s the lion, he’s the king of all animals!!’ and all that stuff, but under these conditions, I feel like I’m not the king. Instead I’m more like a slave. Do you guys feel the same way here?” A zebra that lived beside him replied with: “Yeah. Those humans barely give me food, they only give you the good food because you’re the most popular animal here, and they ignore the rest of us.” A giraffe heard what the zebra was saying and responded with: “I absolutely agree with you. They don’t care about us. I only have one fellow giraffe in my cage. That’s how little they care about me.” In deep frustration, the lion said: “I just wanna smash everything and make those humans remember who I am.” The zebra replied with: “Yeah. Let’s show them our real power.” But the giraffe said: “We can’t. Look at yourselves: You’re skinny and weak. I’m looking pretty weak too. We have to be strong in order to survive and leave this prison… What was this place called again?” “A Zoo” Said the lion. “Well. I guess I’ll call it a ‘priZOOn’” said the giraffe.
It was time to eat. The workers came and gave the animals food. While eating, an idea struck the lion’s head. “Guys! What if we talk to the other animals here and team up, and since there are some animals with large groups, we could stand a chance against the humans?” “That’s a great idea! I’m with that” said the giraffe. After eating, the lion roared stronger than ever, sharing his idea to every animal in the zoo.
A few days later… “The Daily Bugle here with the news. Today, the local zoo has suffered some sort of an ‘animal revolution’. The animals have broken free, and now, the streets are full of animals.” “There’s too many of them, I don’t think we can tranquilize all of them.” said one of the workers at the zoo. “We don’t know how the animals went crazy all of a sudden. The food we gave them didn’t contain any sort of psychoactive substances.” said another worker of the zoo. The Animal Preservation Organization has seen this event, and decided to bring helicopters to the city and take the animals to their respective habitats instead of taking them back to the zoo.
Now, the animals are free. They reunited with their relatives, and came together to celebrate their freedom. The lion decided to do a speech: “Everyone, it’s good to see each other again. I’d like to give you a valuable lesson: Don’t let any human take control over you. We as animals can fight back. Who said that those humans are more powerful than us? They may be more in quantity, but we have something that they don’t have, and that thing is love towards mother Nature and towards each other. We animals love every other animal in the world, no matter if it’s an ant, a mosquito, a fish, a reptile, anything; but those humans only love themselves. So, where am I going with this speech? I want you to know that we can still stand a chance against them. We must not give up. We can do this! Long Live the Animal Kingdom!” Everyone else was chanting “Long Live the Animal Kingdom!”
The lion told the zebra: “Guess I’ve come back to my throne, huh?” “So it seems.” replied the zebra, and they both started laughing.
The End
By Angelo Martínez and
Gabriel Guerra, Step 10
