Stripes, or Stories

The zebra leans over the edge of his pen. “I can tell you a story,” he says, his mane catching in the rough wood. He has already lost his left eye to a virus, eyelid stitched shut so as not to frighten the children.

I came to free him, but his appearance quells my righteous feelings and unnerves me. Of many responses, I settle for “why?”

He shakes his head. “If you need to ask, I cannot help you.”

I take a step closer. “Is it mine, or someone elses?” My bolt cutters slip from my hand, landing with a cloud of dusk. The sun takes on too bright of a quality, so that everything is outlined with a painful light.

The zebra laughs. “A better question. It is many peoples’ story.”

“And in return, you want me to free you?”

His nostrils widen and he stamps a foot, causing the patterns of light and shadow to shift painfully, dazzling my eyes. “Touch that gate and I’ll bite off your hand.”

I swallow. I want to leave, to rejoin my group, to save rabbits and dogs and cats. Sweet, safe animals that don’t talk or threaten to tell my fortune. I stoop to pick up my bolt cutters.

“This is the story,” the zebra announces, “of why she left you.”

Caught in midaction, I stumble toward the zebra, grabbing the slats of the fence and shaking them as I pull myself upright. “T-tell me! Now!”

The zebra smiles, and I realize that his toothy, wet-lipped grin is the most terrifying part of this afternoon, but I cannot even begin to imagine leaving before I hear the truth I have been wanting—needing—dreading for so long. “She left you because you could only ever find this story if it was given to you by someone else,” he says, and nothing more.

I freeze, every muscle in my body fusing to my bones, and my skin begins to itch, but I cannot move enough to scratch it. Then my body climbs the fence without my control and presses itself against the zebra’s flank. The sun is even more vivid, the heat so intense that I begin to melt.

Liquid now, I am soaked up by his pelt, my frame spreading out in a inky pool, and then—

The zebra licks his new stripe a few times, arranging the fur to lie in the same direction, and nods. Whispers buzz around his ears and he drifts to sleep, comforted. The zoo will die, but he will stay.

He will always be here.