I reach for your hand, but you pull away, sweat splattering across the ground. You shoot me a questioning look and I pretend to read about how ostriches don\u2019t actually stick their heads into the ground. It shouldn\u2019t be a big deal. But it’s hot and I hate the zoo. Maybe, I should just smile and let the birds do the talking.<\/p>\n
We watch the penguins waddle and swim. There is one of those fan-misters above us offering temporary relief from the scorch of another Texas Summer. The little one that you nicknamed \u201cpooka\u201d falls, and your brown eyes soften as you half cover your mouth. I want to freeze this moment so badly that I hope \u201cpooka\u201d falls back down.<\/p>\n
As we\u2019re wrapping up the Australian Outback, I spot refuge: a door on the side of a cave, leading into a herpetarium. You say no. Lizards are gross. But I\u2019m desperate for the shade. So I plead. And before you can even reply, I\u2019m already pressing harder. Trampled you say \u201cfine.” Your tone and thick eyebrows quickly change my mind. I apologize but it is too late. We should have stayed at the penguins.<\/p>\n
People crowd around the various window panes. This leaves the dim cool aisle to comfort me. You however are restless. You take out your phone ignoring me and the reptiles until there is one right in front of you. I can see your reflection in the window pane. You don\u2019t even make a face of disgust at the black mamba. Your lips are small and when your eyes meet mine, you walk away. The black mamba is hideous, but I can\u2019t follow you. So I read. That\u2019s when I realize what is actually bothering you.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re still quiet so I take the lead. I walk you to the African Savannah hoping to cheer you up. Their intimidating necks go on forever. There are only a few of them, but your face is already lighting up. As one laps up water, I ask about its weird tongue. \u201cThe darker color helps with the sun, and their jigsaw patterned coats help with thermoregulation.\u201d I wished I liked animals as much as you do. I wish you were as patient as me.<\/p>\n
The mighty western lowland gorillas cower behind trees thin enough to be cut up like scallions. They seem pathetic and lazy. I can empathize though, they are just waiting out the sun. Impatiently, a girl, almost old enough to be in my 6th grade English class, beats her chest at the bus of a gorilla. The gorilla roars and beats its chest back. You turn to me smiling with all your teeth showing.<\/p>\n
Somehow we make it to the Asian Falls. But the magnificent gray behemoths go unaddressed because I\u2019m scared to talk of wrinkling eyes and sagging skin. It hasn\u2019t even been a year yet. I can\u2019t even commit to a hobby: jumping from tennis to poker to failing at the Sunday crossword. There is a reason you have to choose what we eat for dinner most nights. Regardless, I do love you. And I know, with your past, you just want certainty. On our first date, you described me as mousy. You said it in an endearing way, but what if you realize you deserve more? What if in a year, I go back to marketing but you hate the city? What if my metabolism stops like my dad\u2019s but I don\u2019t show the same discipline?<\/p>\n
On our way back to Africa for the big event, we stopped by a pond and looked at the platypus. You tell me that when George Shaw encountered this hodgepodge, he did not believe it was a real animal. So much so, that he took a pair of scissors to the dried skin and checked for any signs of artifice. Itchy I pull you away.<\/p>\n
You grab my hand and I think of the first time I came here when my mom held my ice cream covered hands and lugged me to every single exhibit. She had to bribe me off so many tantrums. My younger siblings were much better behaved. I just never saw the appeal of staring at locked up animals while sweating in a large crowd of people. I never thought anyone would put up with as much as she did. But you play along with all my phases. Despite being scared, you\u2019re holding on tight. I squeeze. You squeeze back. The ceremony we saw on the commercial finally starts and I\u2019m nervous. Two employees cladded in khaki bring out the lion. A teenage decagon in front of us makes an edgy joke about how hungry the lion is. That he hopes it only eats the deer and not us. Even as he gets into gory details of it chomping the deer\u2019s guts, your attention is unwavering from the stage. I expected more to be honest. Where in the advertisement his mane breathed fire, this one suffocated in rust. That only began the discrepancies from the commercial and what was actually unfolding. \u201cIsn\u2019t she amazing,\u201d you ask. \u201cYou mean he; it has a mane,\u201d I corrected. \u201cYou really are so forgetful,\u201d you amuse. Then squeezing my hand you remind me that it is a rare breed of lioness. As men with tranquilizers give commands to the animals, the artificialness of everything shattered my curated romanticization. Their preparedness brought attention to how vulnerable the deer was. The kid was right, the lioness could devour the deer. I turned to criticize. Then, a quick peck from the deer, followed by licks from the lioness ignited \u201cawh\u201ds from the crowd. Your nose crinkled under your glasses and you leaned into me. Maybe, I didn\u2019t need to know. I pressed back into you as a question grew inside me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I reach for your hand, but you pull away, sweat splattering across the ground. You shoot me a questioning look and I pretend to read about how ostriches don\u2019t actually stick their heads into the ground. It shouldn\u2019t be a big deal. But it’s hot and I hate the zoo. Maybe, I should just smile […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2141,521,2143,140,105,2142,1962],"class_list":["post-15753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-commitment","tag-expectations","tag-insecurity","tag-love","tag-relationships","tag-trust","tag-zoos","writer-marcus-white"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15753"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15940,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15753\/revisions\/15940"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}