(Read by Suzanne, Woman's voice)
The Ark
Despite humanity's near-extinction, the fauna around Tacoma, Washington doesn't seem to have suffered much. Point Defiance park still provides shelter to racoons, deer, fox, plenty of avian species and an occasional coyote. Scientists discovered the zooplankton that causes this catastrophic disease are restricted to human hosts. Lucky us.
Most of the zoo animals made it through the days of rioting and pillaging following the outbreak, and now my days are spent caring for them. Fortunately, as an employee of the Point Defiance Zoo, I know where the keys to the enclosures are, where the supplies are kept and a good deal about animal husbandry. So absurdly, here in this distopia where only five humans survived, we have two elephants, four polar bears, four tigers, two camels, a herd of reindeer, a troop of lemurs, a pack of wolves, a flock of penguins, and the list goes on...
Sometimes I sit on the sand in the meerkat exhibit, watching the little rascals scurrying in and out of tunnels. I tell them they are lucky to have their family alive, healthy and close enough to curl up next to in the dark. None of their friends, neighbors or acquaintances began to lose control of their muscles, erupted in glistening pustules or hung themselves to avoid a worse fate. The meerkats carry on, oblivious.
The animals know there have been changes, though. They at least know that all familiar keepers are gone, replaced by this one small and frazzled woman. I spend my free hours studying the volumes from the zoo library, learning all I can about caring for the animals who weren't my charges before this disaster.
I used to be a trainer for the animals who performed in the shows, so I like to bring a friend when I study. A parrot, an iguana, a porcupine or a hawk might pour over the books with me, each commiserating in his own way. When the zoo was operational, of course I would never have taken a lynx into the library while I read about the diets of exotic hoof-stock, or allowed a tortoise to march authoritatively beneath the conference room table during a meeting.
But I threw those rules out when it seemed all of humanity needed to begin again. I find comfort in the animals' undisturbed rhythms, the puffins preening and nesting, the harbor seals diving and drifting. Now most mornings I rest my head on the stubbly side of a dozing tapir and stare up at a tree where two little apes sit together, their lanky arms entwined, and hope that my mate, wherever he is, is safe.
