The secret of the zoo in sector three

The secret of the zoo in sector three, acre four at Walmart number three million two hundred and nine thousand nine hundred and fifty three; located in Harrisburg, PA USA; (or: why Tigers are not to be trusted)

by Samuel Pardee

Our story starts in the cheery city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. More specifically, it starts in the zoo of Walmart number three million, two hundred and nine thousand nine hundred and fifty three, at 5:34 PM on July 9th, 2013. Walmart number three million, two hundred and nine thousand nine hundred and fifty three is a nice enough place; one of the newer Walmarts, it had managed to avoid total destruction during the Walmart revolution of 2009 (although the store's manager had fought in the war and eventually defected from the U.S. Army to join Walmart in their domination of the East Coast and Canada). It was one of the more modest sized Walmarts, only two square miles total with merely 190 employees, and only equipped with a small amusement park and a zoo as non-shopping attractions.

* * * *

Vernor and Margaret leaned back and sighed contentedly, surveying their four new cubs. This was Margaret's second litter in three years, which was above average for a tiger.

"Well, let's get to naming them." Giving birth was hard work and Margaret was ready to get down to the important business. "This one will be Larry, this one will be Craig, this one will be Thomas and that runty little one over there will be... Tony."

"Tony? Are you serious woman?" Vernor was skeptical. "We get enough of that crap with being asked to be in 'Frosted Flakes' commercials as it is without one of our kids being named Tony. How does Steve sound?"

"I guess Steve would be alright." Margaret wasn't really convinced, but she was worn out from the day’s adventures.

Walmart #3209953 decided to let the parents keep the children this time, which opened the two young tigers up to the joys of parenthood. The children grew up fast, and soon enough Larry, Craig and Thomas were able to talk and perform simple dance routines. Steve, however, still hadn't learned to talk. He could roar at a third grade level, while his brothers were still in pre-school, but he still couldn't speak a word.

Margaret, worried about her son eventually took it upon herself to ask her zookeeper, Brenda. "I'm worried about Steve, he still isn't talking. We've bought him the hooked on roaring and the baby Shiba developmental set but it doesn't seem to have any effect. He hasn't even learned to call me 'mama' yet."

The 'keeper shoveled the steaks into the feeding trough, pausing to himself to think out loud. "Does he arrange things into patterns or play with his food a lot? I've heard that autism can make it take longer for people to learn to talk."

"Can us tigers get autism? I don't recall ever hearing of that. I'd think that if they did that someone would write an incredibly heart warming story of a tiger who overcame his autism to find true love."

"I guess Steve would be alright." Margaret wasn't really convinced, but she was worn out from the day’s adventures.

Walmart #3,209,953 decided to let the parents keep the children this time, which opened the two young tigers up to the joys of parenthood. The children grew up fast, and soon enough Larry, Craig and Thomas were able to talk and perform simple dance routines. Steve, however, still hadn't learned to talk. He could roar at a third grade level while his brothers were still in pre-school, but he still couldn't speak a word.

The 'keeper shoveled the steaks into the feeding trough, pausing to herself to think out loud. "Does he arrange things into patterns or play with his food a lot? I've heard that autism can make it take longer for people to learn to talk."

“Well, we should try to find that out then. I would say that you should check the book section, but the only books we sell are trashy romance novels and James Patterson thrillers. We should try asking the king.”

“They don’t have a BK here do they?”

“No, not that king, the king of Walmart, Lord Archduke von Montague the third. Most of the employees just call him Pete though. He got the job because he’s the wisest man in Harrisburg. He also had his own Santa Claus suit so he becomes Santa during the winter months. He does a pretty good job giving advice but he’s somewhat… eccentric.” Brenda paused uncomfortably.

“What does that mean?” Margaret sounded a little bit scared. For Walmart employees, eccentric could mean anything from being obsessed with ladies shoes to lurking out in the parking lot to bite people in the jugular as they return their shopping cart.

“Well, he usually demands some sort of outlandish payment for his advice. If I remember correctly, the last person that asked him for help ended up being asked to climb a glass mountain. Of course, glass mountains don’t actually exist, so he had to actually go out and build a three hundred foot tall glass incline. Poor guy ended up falling off and impaling himself on a shard. Kind of ironic because what he was going to ask the king was if he should get a piercing.”

“Poor guy. Well, what do you think he would want from us? I can’t really go out of the zoo without getting an absentee permit from management.” Margaret was surprisingly not upset sounding about her predicament, just resigned to her fate as a permanent Walmart employee.

“Well, I guess I can take you to him and we’ll see what it is that he wants.” Brenda let Margaret out of her enclosure and they went over to the big map on the wall to find the king’s lair.

“Looks like he’s in quadrant seven hundred forty three, probably about a two days walk from here. We can stay at the Motel Six in the food district. On second thought, let’s see if we can just call him.”

“Call him! Why didn’t you just suggest that in the first place?”

“I don’t know, but it sure was a nifty plot device to get us talking wasn’t it?”

“A nifty what?”

“… Never mind”

“Darn! Alright I guess, I was kind of looking forward to stopping at the Walmart war labs. I hear that they’ve almost perfected an even stronger version of the smiley bomb and I wanted to see it, they say that it can roll prices down to just a 300 percent profit level. We’ll really stick it to those smug Kmarters when we get that finished.” Brenda took out her cell phone, still in a bit of a frenzy at the thought of being able to bankrupt Kmart, and aggressively started to dial the Walmart brand information desk. “Marge, write down the number for me.”

“Write? Are you serious?”

“Oh, sorry! I forget sometimes that you’re a tiger not a person.”

“That’s alright, it’s par for the course as an anthropomorph. People always think that I can do stupid humanly things like writing, using computers and eating with chopsticks.”

“Ok, I have the number, but there’s one thing that I forgot to mention. Pete doesn’t accept phone calls, only text messages. Like I said, he’s a bit of an oddball kinda guy.”

“Well, that’s fine. We don’t really need to talk to him. Just text him and ask if tigers can have autism.” Margaret, despite having nearly humanlike patience, was getting restless with all this talking and had started pacing up and down her cage nervous for her cub’s well being.

“Alright, just give me like five minutes to type out the text. Let’s see… 111…1…5… man texting takes a long time.”

“Hurry up. It may well have been faster to walk there.” A Winnie the Pooh ring tone rang out in the air, “What did he say?” Margaret was growing increasingly impatient, and the zookeeper increasingly nervous.

“Well… it’s a little hard to decipher, here take a look.” Brenda showed the message on the screen to Margaret. It read: hai 2 u 2 bren, IMO tg3rs cnnt haf oo tism, try c0v3r1ng cub n bbqsause nd bath1in n r1v3r of babee tearz..

“Umm… I think that it says we should try covering him in barbeque sauce and bathing him in a river of baby tears?”

“Alright, that should be easy enough. Baby tears are in quadrant four, isle seven and the sauce should be in Q three, isle three. I’ll go get them and we can try it tomorrow.”

* * * * *

The next day, Brenda returned with the promised items and began slathering the barbeque sauce on Steve. All of a sudden the previously cooperative cub leapt up, teeth gnashing and began to growl furiously.

“What’s the matter Steve? I’m trying to help you learn how to talk.” Brenda was perplexed but not particularly worried, she had a master’s degree in tiger psychology with a minor in anthropomorphism from the university of Walmart after all. She continued to squeeze the sauce all over the young tiger.

Steve leapt into the air and in one swift motion, took a massive bite out of Brenda’s arm. She recoiled in pain and horror, her training hadn’t taught her how to deal with an angry tiger by force, only by talking to them and trying to talk them out of their rage. As a CAS graduate, she was big on understanding feeling and using I statements, so her first thought was to try to reason with Steve. “Steve, I felt very threatened by what you did. You have hurt me and I would like for you to stop.”

Of course, I statements do not work on either tigers or real people. Steve leapt again and struck his killing blow, slicing open her jugular vein and spraying a huge jet of blood across the cage. He then calmly proceeded to take an enormous bite out of her stomach and begin chewing.

* * * * *

Three weeks later, the anthropomorphic tribunal finally reached its verdict. Steve the tiger would be sentenced to death by stagnation (that is, a stag repeatedly stomping on his face). It would have been terribly sad news, but Steve was not anthropomorphic. He was incapable of feeling emotions like sorrow, to him, it was just the end.