Wednesday, February 29, 2012
lions
the lions were released for an afternoon swim. the water was smooth, sunlit and pale -- it could have been early morning or late afternoon. they stood on a dock, anxiously waiting for a turn to dive in. i saw the male lion first, from the passenger seat of a bright yellow ultralight helicopter piloted by my aunt.
"let's see the lions!" she said.
the lion stared at me -- his expression a startling blend of cruelty and calm. his mane dried rapidly, and as it did, he was the size of train car. we flew closer, and saw a chain link fence cutting through a decaying concrete jetty.
six lionesses waited on the dock. a man in dark aviators and a suave 'stache sat in a glass booth with a shotgun and an intercom, allowing no more than one lion in the water at a time.
among the lions was a natural power corralled by a sort of ignorant weakness...the lions were captives, their raw power diminished in their stance but not in their eyes. were these lions tame? were they aware of their captivity? did they hold a grudge?
in the eyes of the first lion, i saw a dare and a warning. an enticement, and a promise of pain if boundaries were overstepped. don't forget, they seemed to say, that without these fences, and without these bullets trained on my heart, i could destroy you. i would like to destroy you. so come closer. let me taste your fear. let me remind you where you stand in all of this.
we hovered over the lion in the water, watched him roll over and over on the surface in a kind of obligatory pleasure. this was the closest thing to freedom that he had. at first, we were unnoticed. his astonishing size and oblivious bathing suggested an unspoken tolerance, or permission. but we were wrong.
writhing, rolling, twisting, eyes closed -- he suddenly reared up and opened his jaws as if to swallow us completely. he roared, his eyes a reptilian yellow-green, with pupils that recalled a recent warning. we lifted high in the sky, and he became small again. we left him gaping at thin air, arching against the symptoms of incarceration to reclaim his murderous instinct.
his bloodlust was easily forgiven. death, in this manner, was not the gory theme-park zoo-gone-wrong ending that it might be in the waking world. it was a gateway to a sinister heaven. it was a cosmic step-through-the-looking-glass chase after something less mundane --
it was glitter in the veins.
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