Cornered in the Wild

The Zebra’s flight took him all the way down the south slope of the mountain, a once favourite grazing ground of the deer. They had been all hunted down eventually, one by one, first by the beasts and then by the men.

Tormented by fright, muscles ripping inside that black and white sheath of his; the zebra ran with all his might. He passed the water buffaloes by the side of the lake; staring unflappably into that chase between life and death, between a hopeless desire to live and an insatiable crave of hunger. 

The lion, he had already given his prey a good headstart. Almost as if the zebra’s life meant nothing to him at all. Perhaps that’s how the jungle rules dictate that kings behave. But in that far-away wilderness, rules are made and broken with every cry of the cricket’s rain drenched throat. The thirst for blood had sprung after a good long time. And the Zebra had to pay that price.

A bunch of wily monkeys, busy hanging themselves from the old banyan tree, were perhaps the only inhabitants of the jungle who didn’t miss the flight of the zebra as he flew beneath them. They watched him disappear into the grassland, towards the cliff of the waterfall. They watched his slowly slackening pace, not out of the impending hopeless realization that the road ahead was a dead end, but of exhaustion. Deadly fatigue had set in finally, slowing the zebra’s swiftness into a mere trot.

By the time he finally reached the cliff, with the river gushing fifty feet below into a mound of rocks welcoming its fall; hope had almost deserted him. The lion reached no later than a few anxious moments, he too tired by the long chase. 

The monkeys in the banyan watched them stare into each other’s eyes. Fear in one’s, hunger and ferocity in the others’. Those eyes talked for a moment which held the air in a roaring, deafening silence.

The Lion pounced. The Zebra freezed. Eyes closed, he reflected his first walk on the mountain’s southern slope with his mother. His first sight of the full moon up from the cliff the day he had dared stay awake. His first painful witnessing of a deer’s murder by a steel bullet.

Then,

He let go.

-Palash