I stand here, pressing the reject button on my iPhone. This was the sign. I check my watch. It’s a minute till midnight at the San Francisco Zoo. My name badge glints in the soft moonlight. It reads ‘Richard Blakely, Zoological Director’.
My phone rang again. This time I answered.
“Hello?” I said to the caller.
“Richard? Are you there?” they replied.
It was my wife.
“Yes dear, it’s me. What’s up?”
I could hear grief in her voice.
I sighed. With my task in mind, any news was bad news.
“I’m coming down there.”
I sighed again. I needed no witnesses.
“No, don’t come.” I told her, “I’ll be home soon. Look, I need to go now; I’ll call again in a bit.”
And with that, I hung up. I put my phone away into the inside pocket of my Giorgio Armani suit. What a lovely suit I think to myself, momentarily letting my thoughts wander. I hear a bird caw from somewhere in the park. I jump at the sound, despite it being a common one. I laugh, thinking how absurd for my work to scare me...but tonight’s work does.
I walk towards the staff car park, lighting a cigarette as I go. I see my black Mercedes, exactly as I left it. I open the passenger’s seat and pick up a small black suitcase resting in the foot well. Shutting the door, I puff out a plume of smoke. I rest the suitcase on the bonnet of my car, fiddling in my pockets for a key. I find the key, unlock the suitcase and check the contents. $1,000,000. Just as it should be.
A small fleet of cars pull into a set of empty bays next to my Mercedes. The doors open and out jump about four men to each vehicle. There is about sixteen in total. A short one wearing a scruffy suit with the collar turned up walked towards me.
“Dinero?” he asks.
Money.
I show him the suitcase and reply:
“Cuando esta hecho.”
When it’s done.
The small man growls angrily.
“Where are they?” he says in English.
I point to an enclosure just inside the zoo walls.
“Over there.”
The men laugh and from their vehicles pull out a variety of guns-all of which are silenced, baseball bats and stretchers. They walk past me, patting me on the back and grasping my shoulders. I hang my head. One of the men hands me a rifle.
"Debemos todos hacer las cosas que no queremos en a un cierto punto o a otro."
I tell him that today must be my day.
I lead the men to the big cat house. The other animals had all been given sedatives in their food that afternoon, enough to keep them asleep until the next day. I showed them to the tiger enclosures. First we came to the dominant male.
Raja.
He is asleep. He is innocent. He is completely oblivious.
The short man holds his hand out. I hand him the keys. He smiles a crooked smile, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. He put the keys in the lock and turned, the door opening silently. I looked away, heard the click of a rifle and a short moan of the great cat. He is dead.
We move to the next...
Rosé.
She is asleep. She is innocent. She is completely oblivious.
Rosé is still young, an adolescent. Her cage is unlocked and the man I spoke to earlier walks in. In his hands he holds a baseball bat. He raises it high above his head and brings it thundering down. The crack of the sleeping tiger’s skull echoes around the silent halls.
But it is not silent. From the next cage came a soft growl. The final tiger had been awoken.
Badalā.
She is the last one left.
She is awake. She is innocent. But she is ready.
“Your turn.” One of the men said.
I appear cool, but inside I burn. To kill what has been my life...can I do it?
I raise the gun to my eye, take aim and...Her eyes. Piercing blue eyes, sweeping me off my feet. They see more than me just pointing a rifle at her head, they see inside me.
I stop.
My father does not need the bone of three tigers.
I tell the men: "Parada. Ése es bastante."
Stop. That is enough.
They protest, saying they are being paid for three tigers. I tell them they can have the money. They do not hesitate.
It is five minutes later. I call my wife.
“Hello dear.”
“Richard, you need to listen to me!”
“Okay, what’s the matter?”
“It’s your father, it’s got worse.”
“Darling, I have the solution!” I told her, pleased with myself. Tiger bones are known to cure cancer.
“No Richard, he’s gone.”
By Harry Tennison, 14
