The medley of noises coming from the bustling crowd floats by the butcher’s. The sausages are hanging down, yet uninterrupted by buyers: It is still the early morning.  The buyers come at noon on Sundays.  The fresh smell of bacon, pork and steak, fills the air, and a gust of wind carries it along the market path to an increasingly frantic puppy, a brown-copper sheepdog.  He barks and barrels toward the butcher’s stand, leaving his owner, who is at the fishmonger’s, in surprise.  The runaway dog crashes into several people in his enthusiasm, and disrupts several customers at other stalls in his gusto.  When he reaches the butcher’s he steals a sausage; now the ranks, which had once been intact, are broken.  The puppy runs, back to the fishmonger’s amidst many an angry shout, as he dirties his dragging chorizo on the muddy ground.

The Zoo

         The giraffe cranes its neck to peer over the miniature mound upon which sits a glum, drooping ostrich with a greyed plumage. The puma scuttles along the rocky beach, which the humans call “Puma Mountain”.  They all turned to look towards the metal doors guarding the entrance. They had been assaulted and were now open; the zookeeper stood defiant in the rising sun.

            The animals were torn with grief as he marched silently up the street and the panda moaned with despair. They knew this mood very well—the doctor was coming.  The doctor, or “Vet”, was known to give animals pungent sludge, ill-tasting pellets and worst of all, the needle.  They knew the sound of panicked pups or squealing kits, receiving the needle. Most of them have been forced under its painful power.

            Soon comes “Vet” with his blue, buttoned shirt and facial hair comparable to that of a monkey. He is an animal in his own right. His neck is slightly hunched and he too can be wild. His case emits a sloshing as the slush or other poisonous liquid is shaken as he stomps down the alleyway in front of the desperate tigers.  The parrots are squawking and the screeching of monkeys fills the air.  However, their racket is to serve no purpose, as the doctor is only here to see the polar bear that is sizzling in the summer sun.

            The animals all droop their shoulders as if sighing from relief, except the poor polar bear, confined to a deep azure tainted ice cave, as a last resort to escape the heat. His groans are too faint to be heard and the doctor must get to work soon or face a dead polar bear.