Animals in the Aftermath

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. She laid her head on the last lion. He wasn’t as majestic as she had imagined. The last hellish month had turned his silken mane into matted wreath, and his golden fur now sunk into a rift valley rib cage.

For just a few, silent minutes, she ran her fingers through his coat. She felt the last degrees of warmth radiate off his emaciated body, long since still and lost of breath. Maybe there was a savanna in the sky for him to rule. She bit back sorrow, knowing that there was plenty with which to worry herself during the daylight.

The large windows painted a panorama before her. And through autumnal tree canopies: the fallen city. She stared, raising a hand to the glass. Her own reflection phased in front of the landscape, a harrowed, gaunt version of herself.

“Natalia,” she whispered, seeming to touch her own hand. Vienna slept beyond towering brick walls, its fantastical concrete forms tumbled to dust and disarray. All she would ever know of the city was the airport, the hotel, and the tierpark. And now, it seemed that the tierpark was all she would ever know again.

Passing the lion, Natalia wandered through the structure adorned with thatched grass, yellow bamboo, and vibrant tribal patternings. A lounge area tucked into a row of desks, still littered with dusty crayons and the half-finished drawings of children. She looked away and quickly moved on.

The entrance was remarkably unscathed. And she would have entered weeks ago if not for the shattered glass panel along the enclosure wall. Through this new opening, the lion had learned the comfort of indoor living.

Natalia had checked each day, watching up the hill to see the unexplored outlook. The lion’s massive body would pace back and forth before the windows, anxiously overseeing his domain from the apex of the tierpark. Until he fell against the pane and lied weak in sleep and wake. She waited three hours past the last slow movement of his back before she dared enter the structure.

And now she cast the lifeless king another saddened glance before slipping into the restricted back of the building. There was an office, which offered little else than a few fire-starting resources. A small kitchenette was what truly caught her eye.

A final haul warranted some extra water supplies, a few non-perishables, and two potted succulents that had yet to shrivel. Natalia slid the bottles and cans into her backpack. Out the back window, she could again see out into Vienna.

The sky, as usual, was painted with smoke. But there was movement past the wall. She knelt, easing a pair of binoculars from the front pouch of her bag. Her fingers trailed along the engraved wooden strip down their side, ‘G.R.,’ her father’s initials. He had just handed them to her on that day, reminding her gently to be careful and to wear the strap so as not to drop them. She had run ahead to look up at the macaques in their tree. And then…

Now, Natalia peered through her father’s eyes out the window to see marching armies of red. A plane passed low overhead, shaking the glass panes around her. She hunkered down, watching as the forces beyond the wall set fire to the sky. There was a thudding in her chest, crashing in time to the chaos in the city. It moved through her body like a flame running a string.

The girl forced herself away, but the image remained scarred in her mind until a hissing caught her attention from the back of the room. Following the sound, she closed in on a tank stacked high with sticks and tropical plants.

There didn’t seem to be anything inside. The small sign adjacent read ‘Königspython,’ which she didn’t fully understand. But whatever snake was once trapped there was surely dead by now.

She returned to the desks, letting that calm air of reverence fall over her as she acknowledged the museum of scribbles. One depicted a tiger, which she had seen fall that first day. Another, a pair of monkeys with red faces in a lopsided tree. Then there was a drawing of a family under a sign that read Zoo in big, purple bubble letters. She swept it off the table to the floor with blurry eyes.

In the lounge, the king still adorned the wooden planks. She eyed the shattered window, toeing the rogue bullets that had scattered through the room. And she passed the lion to leave his final home through the large front doors that had been locked to her for so long.

.

.

.

Natalia knelt on the ground, feeding the last of the greens to Morgen. The giant galapagos turtle regarded her with slow eyes, seeming to smile. Knowing little German, Natalia had figured the simple name, meaning ‘morning,’ was fitting for one of the last remaining animals.

She ran her hand down Morgen’s smooth shell before heading outside from the greenhouse. The winds immediately chilled her body as she stepped into the snow. In the adjacent yard were the few hoofstock that she had managed to save. Among the donkey and the antelope, her favorite was the towering bactrian camel. It had grown into its fluffy winter coat.

The cheetah that had roamed the central plaza of the tierpark had finally been quelled by hunger just over a week ago, allowing Natalia to access the grazing barnyard field there. A donkey had been the only remaining survivor in the snowy, bare-eaten pasture. Had the cheetah been able to leap the fence, the story would surely have been different.

The antelope, which Natalia decided was a kudu based on the posted signs, had escaped that first day. And in terror, it had taken refuge in the same manner as the girl. And now it leaned against the wall of the greenhouse, looking worse as each day passed.

“You’re not a fan of the cold, are you?” Natalia asked the kudu. The signs said the deer came from Africa. She didn’t know how much longer the poor animal would survive the winter.

The donkey and camel were thin, anyone could see that. But so was the girl. She had long since run out of grass and grain storage from around the park to feed the deer. And they had now picked this pasture raw - their fourth home in the last month.

The greenhouse was relatively abundant. Natalia understood plants enough to grow a few greens and vegetables. There were already a few established fruit trees and crops. But she needed those for herself, her own survival. And Morgen.

Natalia had found the tortoise wandering the outskirts of the tierpark a few days after the initial explosions. The last men that ran through the grounds were violent, killing off animals and people without discrimination. Perhaps they were the same in their eyes. Natalia had remained hidden with the kudu, until the tragic sight of the slow turtle certain to be brutally ended drew her to action. With every ounce of bravery in her frail bones, she slipped out into the open and dragged the tortoise home.

Natalia knew that by the end of the winter, there wouldn’t be enough food for the animals as well as herself. The terror beyond the wall doesn’t seem to want to end. Likely, she will die alongside her animals in a matter of months.