The Ache

They say it is for my own protection. Protection against what, I do not know. Perhaps them, the humans. But this place will be the death of me. Bars on three sides and a window on the other, so their little ones can gawk at me.

They are horrible creations of man. Bars. Cold steel that breathe no life, not even death. But they create feelings within me. Feelings I have not felt so intensely before. Fear. Fear that they will leave me here and as I rot away they will stare at me from the other side of these bars, documenting the process with their flashing cameras. The window is just as atrocious. They tap at it. Tap. Tap. Tap. Leaving their finger prints on the glass. They press their hands and faces against it, trying to attain my attention. I see them. I do not see how I cannot. The workers wash the glass every night, wiping away the evidence of the gawkers from the day; creating a new canvas for the next days visitors. Their eyes stare at me through the glass, always in amazement, but there is mockery also. They mock me, the blues, browns, hazels, grays and all the others colors they can make their eyes become, for they are free and I am not. They have their family and I do not. They can die in peace and I will perish while I am imprisoned for my own protection. I cannot rest during the day, when they are here. I fear my anger will overcome me; I may do something I wish not to. So I lay at the top of the grassy hill theyve created in the middle of my jail. Between a leafless partial tree, with only one branch and dark wood and the stump of its brother is where the human young find me. Some days, they can find me on the one lonely branch, when my spirits are high, but those days are few and only when there are

hardly any eyes to stare into me. But of course, the tree stump and its partial brother cannot hide me from their stares and cameras all day long. My muscles ache with a need. The need to run, and jump and chase. A need to hunt. Pacing the boundaries of this imprisonment does not ease my aches. A haze of dust rises from the ground when I cross the line of green and brown. The change from soft grass to hard dirt is hardly noted by myself. But the humans at the glass light up with joy, for I am going to be walking right in front of them. I do not look at them, they will only intensify the ache and the growing agitation which will soon become out right anger, I am sure of it. I cross back onto the green. When the workers have decided that I have paced enough and become agitated enough, they allow me to cross through their barred, narrow hall to a bigger area. I prefer this area; there is room to roam that does not force me to go in a circle; there are full pine trees, not like those of their cousins in my small cell; and there is a pool for me to swim in. It does not compare to Sumatra, but it is better than the little jail they confine me in for most of the day. The humans can still watch me, even though there are no lifeless bars to separate us. They watch from high up, a concrete balcony. The young yell with excitement as I jump into the cool water, they get their cameras ready. There are no rocks or other animals in the blue. There is nothing for me to do but swim back and forth, attempting to ease my aches. They make me leave the blue too soon. All of the humans are also leaving. It is closing time. Time to be crammed in a place smaller than that of the green and brown. Into a place of only beige and a fake tree. How can they think this place can compare to my real home?

It is for my own protection they tell me, but my heart aches for the air of Sumatra. My muscles for the hunt. My soul for the freedom. My being aches for my family. For my young. My young they took from me. So young, to be ripped from their mother and thrown in crates. They will not give me my children back. They will not let me leave this confinement. Solitary confinement. I can handle it within freedom, but these small cells will make me insane.

The workers are whispering as I lay on the hill between the partial tree and its brother. I am not acting how they wish. They call me lethargic, with moments of intensity. Such intensity they fear I will try to attack one of the gawkers, but they cannot keep me in the tiny place of beige. It would be in-humane. So they let me in the place of blue and green more often. I swim. The aches are still there. The whole trees dance to the rhythm of the wind. It caresses my fur. It feels calming, but it does not compare to Sumatra. Nothing can compare to Sumatra. A child yells from the concrete balcony. It wishes for me to do something. It waits with its camera at the ready. I wish to do nothing. I flick my tail at it and make my way up the grassy incline. To hide myself within the trees. The trees whisper soothingly, telling me of my young. They are safe, but before they can say more, the workers are calling me. Time to go back to the green and brown. I walk slowly through the barred hall. I want them to know I do not want to go.

I pace. The brown haze follows me as I walk along the brown dirt. They tap at the glass, even though the sign says not to, it does not matter to them, just as my actual protection does not matter. They wish only to keep me so their children can stare with their colorful eyes. Their fingers tap until a worker shoos them away, it is time for me to eat. Being fed by humans is degrading. No male would mate with a female who cannot hunt for herself. But the hunger gnaws at my stomach, I have not eaten much since coming here, I cannot eat or hunt as much as I want here. The workers are whispering again as I eat. My daughter is ill. They have made her sick. I do not want to eat any more. As I walk away they call after me. Calling me by the name they have given me, I refuse to answer by it. I position my thinning, aching body between the stump and its brother. Eternity, is how long I will stay in this lifeless prison. Never, is when I will see my home again. In death, is when I will see my children. For my own protection is a lie. They wish me here only to gawk at my stripes. To rip my young from me. To tear the wild from my soul, my very being. They place me in a prison with only three colors and expect me to remain sane. They make my young ill with their poisoned air and half-starved trees, with their hand-picked food, with these breathless bars and fingerprinted windows. I would rather be in danger, as long as I was free and my children well and with the wild in their heart. But these humans will easily squish what little wild my children have between their soft fleshy fingers and be proud, because they have tamed them and will claim to have protected them from hunters.

They say they are sorry.

What lies they spit. My daughter is gone. My son sent away. I am next. But I will not be going with my son. I will see my daughter once more. The ache of my muscles has long since become numb. The ache in my heart for the air of Sumatra grows stronger with every weakening beat. My soul gave up long ago, the ache for freedom; it was simply but a wish. Sumatra. I try to picture it, but all I see is the partial tree and its brother. Not even the pine trees of the blue and green prison. Just the two dying brother trees.