Logger
Norm Smith Medallist
- Joined
- May 8, 2011
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- Mt Buller Demons
Melbourne Zoo isn’t exactly my idea of the ideal winter outing, but an enthusiastic brace of three-year-old nephews wanted to see a real life bear after “Winnie the Pooh” had become their bedtime favourite and their favourite bedtime narrator uncle Logger had the day off to help their mum out.
Having taken an hour to complete the monkey loop to the left of the entrance and given each species an appropriate voice, next came the elephants, the tigers, giraffes, zebras, Australian fauna, penguins and seals, and then lunchtime. Though the kidlets had been wrapped up tight, it wasn’t actually as cold as we’d feared and soon two small piles of jackets, hats and mittens were dumped in my backpack and it was time to visit Pooh-bear and friends.
It was just as we were leaving our picnic behind that I realised perhaps we had made a bit of a mistake. Brown bears (much like certain red- and blue-clad footballers) are not exactly known for their exciting winter-time exertions. And so it proved as we found the bear exhibit: only one was visible, and he was clearly less interested in hunting heffalumps than counting sheep. All the same, the two little munchkins were absorbed by every occasional twitch and itch the big brown male (who resembled Winnie as closely as Cale Morton does Eddy Ellwood) mustered for his adoring little fans. After 20 minutes of wide eyed wonder from my small “friends-and-relations” I’d had enough of watching a bear sleep and went for a wander of my own.
Just across from the bears were the lions. These guys were clearly enjoying the relatively sub-Saharan temperature which must have almost been in the mid-teens. A lioness lounged on a rock, the young dominant male and his brother were gnawing on lunch in the grass. I wandered around a little further and found the old male. With a receding mane and greying, scarred fur, it was clear he’d seen better days. Stretched out on a block of concrete, with his head leaning against the thick mesh fence, he was little over a metre away from the empty walkway. His eyes were closed and the lines of his ribs showed clearly in the sunlight. Then they disappeared as his mouth opened and he yawned widely, his mighty jaws displaying a set of teeth more one-sided than a premiership contender playing an expansion side.
“I used to be the greatest…” rumbled the sort of deep voice that would give Craig Willis nightmares of inadequacy, “… the greatest there had ever been.”
I looked around but couldn’t see anyone near. It was only when I turned back to the lion that I saw his hooded brown eye watching me with gentle amusement.
“They said I would never be overtaken. But the end comes swiftly, to me and my kind.” The old eye twinkled in the sunlight as the king of carnivores spoke softly.
I untangled my jaw from my shoelaces and put it back where it was supposed to be. “Well give me a brother voiced by a Red Hot Chilli Pepper and call me Eliza Thornberry,” I muttered, “a talking lion!”
“That’s Panthera Leo to you! I could once look down upon all the other animals in the land with contempt. Now they offer me sympathy and dental care!” the old lion spat.
“Were you the dominant male, before the other two got here?”
“Got here? They are my sons. We were a real pride, back then, and we will be again. This pride has killed your kind before, and it will again.” With both “again”s there was a fierceness and hunger that scared me. “…but not in my time.” His weary head lifted and he looked me dead in the eye.
“I am glad for the sun now, but by the time it gets hot I will fear it. I cannot survive another summer, and I doubt my legacy will survive many more winters. Memories fade away like heat off a rock.” At this I noticed for the first time a greyness to the eyes as they drifted off to the middle-distance. “My fathers were taken from the wild: their legacy is to have been caught on the verge of starvation and nursed just long enough to produce me. I was taken from birth, hand-reared to be the greatest, the most dominant male in the pack. And I was, for a time. They say some victories are forever, but they are wrong. Maybe in books, but not in the heart.”
I’ll be honest that at this point I had no idea what the old thing was talking about, but I was listening to a philosophical lion and that is not an everyday occasion. I motioned for it to go on.
“2001, 2002, 2003… It should have been 2004 too. It should have kept going on forever. But nothing ever does. They said at the time nothing like us had been seen, our power was unmatched, our might unparalleled. But they quickly moved on, and now another team is finding out just how swiftly the fall comes. No, nothing is permanent…” the cloudy brown eyes refocussed on me. “Not even ineptitude. Soon summer will come, and my young successors will vie under the heat of the coming sun. Maybe you will join them? Maybe not.” A ragged old paw scratched at something on the ground and pressed it under the mesh and on to my side of the fence. It was one of his teeth.
“Take it, as a reminder that everything is fleeting. As a reminder than out of great might comes great weakness, but from weakness can come a new might. It has been long since your kind was mighty, mighty in a way that creates memories you think will last forever. You will be once again.”
I scrambled under the handrail and reached out for the tooth. As I did so, the lion leapt to his feet and roared. The grass around us flattened, the air seemed to shimmer, my ears stopped working and my mind thought of the nappies in my backpack. I snatched the tooth and fell backwards.
The gnarled lion looked down on me. “I am on my deathbed, but I could kill you in an instant.” He said sadly, without arrogance, and I knew he was right.
Brisbane by 46.
Having taken an hour to complete the monkey loop to the left of the entrance and given each species an appropriate voice, next came the elephants, the tigers, giraffes, zebras, Australian fauna, penguins and seals, and then lunchtime. Though the kidlets had been wrapped up tight, it wasn’t actually as cold as we’d feared and soon two small piles of jackets, hats and mittens were dumped in my backpack and it was time to visit Pooh-bear and friends.
It was just as we were leaving our picnic behind that I realised perhaps we had made a bit of a mistake. Brown bears (much like certain red- and blue-clad footballers) are not exactly known for their exciting winter-time exertions. And so it proved as we found the bear exhibit: only one was visible, and he was clearly less interested in hunting heffalumps than counting sheep. All the same, the two little munchkins were absorbed by every occasional twitch and itch the big brown male (who resembled Winnie as closely as Cale Morton does Eddy Ellwood) mustered for his adoring little fans. After 20 minutes of wide eyed wonder from my small “friends-and-relations” I’d had enough of watching a bear sleep and went for a wander of my own.
Just across from the bears were the lions. These guys were clearly enjoying the relatively sub-Saharan temperature which must have almost been in the mid-teens. A lioness lounged on a rock, the young dominant male and his brother were gnawing on lunch in the grass. I wandered around a little further and found the old male. With a receding mane and greying, scarred fur, it was clear he’d seen better days. Stretched out on a block of concrete, with his head leaning against the thick mesh fence, he was little over a metre away from the empty walkway. His eyes were closed and the lines of his ribs showed clearly in the sunlight. Then they disappeared as his mouth opened and he yawned widely, his mighty jaws displaying a set of teeth more one-sided than a premiership contender playing an expansion side.
“I used to be the greatest…” rumbled the sort of deep voice that would give Craig Willis nightmares of inadequacy, “… the greatest there had ever been.”
I looked around but couldn’t see anyone near. It was only when I turned back to the lion that I saw his hooded brown eye watching me with gentle amusement.
“They said I would never be overtaken. But the end comes swiftly, to me and my kind.” The old eye twinkled in the sunlight as the king of carnivores spoke softly.
I untangled my jaw from my shoelaces and put it back where it was supposed to be. “Well give me a brother voiced by a Red Hot Chilli Pepper and call me Eliza Thornberry,” I muttered, “a talking lion!”
“That’s Panthera Leo to you! I could once look down upon all the other animals in the land with contempt. Now they offer me sympathy and dental care!” the old lion spat.
“Were you the dominant male, before the other two got here?”
“Got here? They are my sons. We were a real pride, back then, and we will be again. This pride has killed your kind before, and it will again.” With both “again”s there was a fierceness and hunger that scared me. “…but not in my time.” His weary head lifted and he looked me dead in the eye.
“I am glad for the sun now, but by the time it gets hot I will fear it. I cannot survive another summer, and I doubt my legacy will survive many more winters. Memories fade away like heat off a rock.” At this I noticed for the first time a greyness to the eyes as they drifted off to the middle-distance. “My fathers were taken from the wild: their legacy is to have been caught on the verge of starvation and nursed just long enough to produce me. I was taken from birth, hand-reared to be the greatest, the most dominant male in the pack. And I was, for a time. They say some victories are forever, but they are wrong. Maybe in books, but not in the heart.”
I’ll be honest that at this point I had no idea what the old thing was talking about, but I was listening to a philosophical lion and that is not an everyday occasion. I motioned for it to go on.
“2001, 2002, 2003… It should have been 2004 too. It should have kept going on forever. But nothing ever does. They said at the time nothing like us had been seen, our power was unmatched, our might unparalleled. But they quickly moved on, and now another team is finding out just how swiftly the fall comes. No, nothing is permanent…” the cloudy brown eyes refocussed on me. “Not even ineptitude. Soon summer will come, and my young successors will vie under the heat of the coming sun. Maybe you will join them? Maybe not.” A ragged old paw scratched at something on the ground and pressed it under the mesh and on to my side of the fence. It was one of his teeth.
“Take it, as a reminder that everything is fleeting. As a reminder than out of great might comes great weakness, but from weakness can come a new might. It has been long since your kind was mighty, mighty in a way that creates memories you think will last forever. You will be once again.”
I scrambled under the handrail and reached out for the tooth. As I did so, the lion leapt to his feet and roared. The grass around us flattened, the air seemed to shimmer, my ears stopped working and my mind thought of the nappies in my backpack. I snatched the tooth and fell backwards.
The gnarled lion looked down on me. “I am on my deathbed, but I could kill you in an instant.” He said sadly, without arrogance, and I knew he was right.
Brisbane by 46.
