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***For anyone that is surprised, yes people did do things like this long aago. Lions were given puppies and other live animals to feast upon. Hence, this was normal for a tstory taking place at that time.
Once, a long, long time ago, when hippies lived in every household and there were no cell-phones, there was a zoo in Chicago, Illinois, that has long since then been ripped down and turned into a large mall.
In it lived many, many animals, but there main attraction was a lion, Pailo, and his wife, Marley.
They had been brought together by complete and total accident that people called fate.
They were traveling in two different trailers heading toward two different destinations when one swerved and hit the other, causing several animals to spill out of both trailers.
Pailo and Marley saw each other, and immediately you couldn’t separate them.
The drivers debated for a while what to do for a while.
Finally the driver of the trailer to Illinois agreed to take the extra lion aboard.
He wasn't sure if his boss would approve, but it was worth a try.
He sure did.
The two lions immediately became the main attraction.
Everybody wanted to see the lion couple that had been brought together by fate.
Ever since that, they’ve been stuck together like Krazy Glue.
Any Zoo Keeper that tried to separate them would immediately be clawed and bitten.
So now they were inseparable.
That was three months before the visit to the vet.
Unexpectedly, Marley stopped eating the puppies and stopped roaring.
The zookeepers took her to a vet, Pailo at her side, roaring loyally .
The vet soon gave the scared zoo keepers results: Marley was stricken with leukemia.
Their main attraction was falling apart.
It was discovered too late to be taken care of, so the vet said she had a couple of days to live.
Pailo sensed that something was wrong, and he knew he couldn’t fix it.
So he just stayed by her side until she took her last breath.
When she finally did, he roared.
A great mighty roar, that shook the zoo floor, made the elephants sound their trumpets, the flamingos flap their wings, the tigers give a mighty growl, the monkeys to screech and throw their bananas in the air, the hippos to make a loud splash, the snakes to hiss threateningly, the fish to swim in a different direction, the seals to jump underwater, the baby whale to splash his tale, the tourists to back away from the animals, and several zoo keepers to rush to the scene of the crime, while others attempted to quiet the animals down and stop the pandemonium, especially the rush toward the exit doors.
Another roar sounded, this one mightier than the previous.
The tourists broke the barrier of zoo keepers, fleeing before the lion uttered another roar.
The zoo keepers finally reached the lion’s cage.
They pulled down the blind to shield the remaining brave tourists of the scene.
A firing debate took place, because no zoo keeper was willing or brave enough to dare enter the lion’s cage.
But, willing or not, Marly’s body had to be taken out before the zoo’s reputation was severely damaged.
Finally, Eric a man who had devoted his life to the zoo, a man who had worked there for thirty years, who was putting his life on the line for the worst scenario to take place in the tiny zoo for the thirty-two years it had been in existence, raised his hand and said in his raspy voice “ I will go.”
A cheer broke out from the circle of zoo-keepers, who clapped him on the back and whispered words of encouragement and thanks.
Eric took a deep breath and entered the lion’s den.
There stood the lion on all fours, guarding his beloved's body, ready to pounce, eyes glowing fiercely, daring Eric to dare come closer.
Before Eric could move, the lion pounced.
By the time the paramedics and the vet came, they had two bodies to remove.
The paramedics waited outside the cage door for the vet to give the lion a sleeping shot.
She walked in, and, just as before, the lion pounced.
She shielded herself with the tube, as if it was a sword.
When the lion’s paws were nearly centimeters away from her neck, she reared the tube back, and then brought it down with as much force as she could muster straight in the lion’s neck.
He fell back, and she motioned the paramedics to come in.
They did so, carrying two stretchers.
They loaded Eric in, his blood quickly seeping through the white material.
The zoo keepers showed the two paramedics a path that they could take to avoid any people and so that their reputation wouldn’t be damaged any more.
The loaded Marley into a separate stretcher and discussed plans to bury her
in the zoo’s private graveyard (it was not for the public).
The vet told the zoo keepers that the lion would wake up from three to five hours later.
But, of course, the lion did different from everybody’s plans. When the cleaning lady came by to clean up the remains of this morning’s food and other unnecessary items, she didn’t expect it.
Poor cleaning lady.
She didn’t even see it coming.
The lion was waiting for her, eyes glowing.
This time, his temper was unleashed, and when a lion’s temper is unleashed, it’s a monster that won’t be satisfied until everything in it’s pathway is destroyed and forever abashed. Why was it unleashed? Because his beloved’s body had been taken away.
That’s why he did something that was the lead in every magazine and newspaper , and made the top news story everywhere in the United States.
The zoo closed down for three days after the incident so that the reporters wouldn’t bombard the people working there with questions.
The lion was given drugs much more powerful than that shot.
Nobody was allowed to enter and he was fed no food.
When the zoo finally opened again, the only people that came were reporters and photographers.
The zoo keepers made no comments and kept everybody away from the lion cage.
Nobody said anything to the reporters.
So you can imagine the surprise and shock the zoo keepers felt when Ruben (the keeper of the zoo) came into the lounge with the local town’s newspaper in his hand, looking mad.
He threw the newspaper on the table and banged his cup of coffee on top of it, causing the liquid inside to pour over the rim.
He didn’t seem to notice.
“How the hell did the press get this information?” he boomed.
He was a big-boned man, in his fifties.
He had thick brown hair gathered roughly in the back with a rubber-band.
He always wore the same shirt inside the zoo, in fact the whole staff wore it.
He always tied it around his waist when it was hot, and had the zoo logo imprinted on his pants.
“I didn’t do it!” Galina raised her hands up quickly.
“Goddamit, Galina, I didn’t ask if you did it, I asked how the press got this
information!”
Though the coffee smudged the article, they managed to gather around and read it.
LION ATTACKS!
On Monday, June 14, the main attraction at the local zoo apparently fell apart. The famous lion couple, Pailo and Marley were a couple no more.
Marley died of cancer on that fateful day, and the remaining lion went mad.
He roared so loudly that the whole zoo shook, and all the visitors were quick to run away, promising never to come again.
It sacred the animals so bad one of the elephants stampeded over her own baby!
One hippo smacked a visitor in the stomach, where he was taken to the hospital.
The lion reached out through the bars with a claw and swiped angrily, giving at least five innocent visitors scratches all over.
The hospital was nearly overflowing with poor wounded souls.
“ It was so scary! He looked at me with his green eyes and reached through the bars with his claws!” – Malina Doovodey
“ The lion was scratching at the lock, and he managed to open it, but I ran away before he could get me!” – Robert Lockful
When faithful zoo keeper Eric Larkin entered the lion’s cage, trying to calm the lion down, he ripped him apart and threw the flesh at the door.
He was immediately loaded into a stretcher and carried into the intensive care unit, where the doctors tried desperately to mend the torn tissue and stop all the blood.
Vet Lark Peterson walked in to give him a shot, and the lion had dug into her neck before the shot took it’s toll.
She was rushed to the emergency room where doctors tried to stop the internal bleeding.
She survived the operation and is still in the hospital.
______________________________________________________
“ Bull shit!” Ruben cried.
“This is all complete bull shit, none of this stuff is true!”
Peter the zoo keeper eyed him.
“Most of it isn’t.” He admitted wearily.
______________________________________________________
But the shot didn’t work as supposed.
It worked long enough for the zoo keepers to load Marley’s body onto a stretcher, but not as long as it was supposed to.
It was intended to keep the lion asleep for three to five hours.
In the end they found the tube that was used to but the lion to sleep, and saw that it was
still filled up with a couple of drops of liquid.
It was not determined how long it kept him down, but when zoo cleaning lady for fifteen years, Elizabeth Grotesque walked in about one and a half hours later, the lion pretended to be asleep.
When Elizabeth was inches from him, the lion attacked her fiercely, obviously still grieving the loss of his wife, and mad that she had been taken away, he attacked much fiercer than before.
To add, Elizabeth had a weak heart condition, and was planning on retiring very soon.
He jumped on top of her, pounding her into the cement floor.
Before the lion attacked Elizabeth, though, she screamed, because she saw the lion’s eyes open.
She immediately had a heart attack, and was unconscious before she hit the floor.
She hit it head-first, and cracked her skull open.
It as not enough, though.
He lie on top of her, his over five-hundred pound body on top of her weak one-hundred fifteen frame.
Then, after suffocating her, he took his claw and dragged it through her body, in six different directions.
Then he ripped out several parts of her body, and cut them out into different shapes.
Then he cut a circle around her heart, and poked his finger through the middle.
As if that wasn’t enough, he took his finger and made a jagged shape on her forehead.
By the time the zoo-keepers got there, they found the lion sprawled out over the floor, licking the blood off her forehead.
The smell that filled the room was putrid, and a zookeeper choked on the fumes and vomited all over the floor.
A zookeeper felt that the floor was damp.
When she looked down, the saw that the whole entire concrete floor was covered in blood.
The lion then looked at the zoo keepers and dared them to run.
When he saw they didn’t move, he edged closer.
Then he pounced, but the lead zookeeper quickly pushed all of them out the door, closing the bars, causing the lion to slam into the bars and yowl in pain.
The zookeepers refused to comment.
______________________________________________________
Daily news, with help from zoo keeper Harry Nopers.
“Harry.” Ruben said.
“HARRY.” Ruben repeated, louder this time .
“HARRY DID THIS?” Ruben thundered.
He banged his coffee cup down so loudly that the bottom of the cup popped off, drenching the whole table.
Ruben didn’t notice.
He opened the door to the small room, and it banged into the wall, causing a permanent dent.
Then he marched out calmly.
“So….. ” said Lita, propping her feet up on the coffee table, directing her questions toward the zookeepers. “Do you want to make plans for the memorial services, or should I?”
*******************************************
Weeks went by and, gradually, everything went back to normal again. The lion calmed down but still whined pitifully and there were no visitors to the zoo's main attraction. Nobody expected what would happen to happen. But it happened, and you cannot change the happenings of past events, unless you have a time machine and were to return to the - but I'm getting carried away. Anyway, it happened. What happened? I was just about to say...
The zookeeper threw in the little moaning puppy by the scruff of the neck. It skidded over the linoleum
floor and came to a landing at the foot of the lion. Normally, many people showed up to see the lion feeding. But since Marley's death and Pailo's vicious reaction, could you blame tourists for not showing up?
If people had known what a change this feeding was to bring, they most probably would have shown up.
The zookeepers stayed. They had to. For a week or so after Marley's death, Pailo had starved himself.
It came to a point where a vet had had to come in and attach an IV pole to Pailo's paw. Then they had had to tranquilize Pailo so that he would not jerk and cause the needle to pop out. After a while, Pailo re-learned to eat foods by mouth. So, the zookeepers stayed. The lion did not move from where it was resting. He peeked at the puppy lazily, but made no further move to rip it apart. The puppy whined a bit and, seeing that the lion was not about to pounce and devoure, hobbled to the other side of the lion's den, praying that the lion was not about to change his mind.
The zookeepers watched, puzzled, but did not say a thing. They retreated after a while, expecting that when they came back to give the lion supper, the puppy would be a pulp of bloody flesh.
You can, ofcourse, imagine their surprise when they came back and the lion was in the same position as he was earlier and the pup was sleeping calmly in a corner of the den.
It rained that night. A lot of rain. Enough rain to delay the zoo's opening by 2 hours. That night, a bunch of zookeepers gathered around the location of the lion's den and discussed the lion's peciular behavior. They were there to witness the miracle.
The pup shivered from the cold. It was a young puppy, probably raised to be fed to lions. The puppy had no mommy to give it food or warmth. So, naturally, the puppy thought the object from which warmth was radiating was 'mama'. The shivering pup hobbled slowly towards the direction of the warmth. When it reached the lion it fell over clumsily on top of the lion. The zookeepers winced. Surely the lion would choose this moment to dig into the puppy's flesh.
But instead the lion heaved up it's body and let the puppy crawl underneath. Then the lion slowly lowered it's frame so that the puppy was covered. There the puppy rested until morning, snug and safe.
It took a while for word to spread that a lion had kept it's dinner as a pet. But when it did, the crowd of tourists snapping pictures and pushing to be first tripled the size of what it was when Marley was alive.
It made the front page of all Illinois newspapers and tourists came from different countries to see the miracle family.
"We're rich!" yelled Ruben, running into the staff lounge, holding a wad of $100 bills.
"Tell us something we don't know," muttered Lita.
Ruben was too happy to give her a warning.
"I've hired people to make souveniers bearing a picture of Pailo and Fred!"(they had named the puppy)
"Wait a second!" said Mark, who was a little bit slow.
"Now that the zoo is making more money, does that mean I can get a raise?"
"No." said Ruben flatly.
"It was worth a try," mumbled Mark, falling back into his chair.
to be continued
This story is based on a story by Lev Tolstoy.
So far I have not yet copied anything apart from the lion's death.
Everything else is written by me!
Hope you like it so far.
People have asked me about the puppies.
The thing about the puppies will be mentioned at the very beginning of the story, after I'm done with it.
Also, how did the reporters know about such details?
This is supposed to be a neighborhood with an over-exaggerated newspaper, and is written ny gossip columnists, in case you haven't caught on...
Hope that answers all your questions...
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