Lion

There’s a structure with bars, sleek and black and vertical. There’s a man in a suit, slim-fitting and black with vertical lines. There’s a small son beside him, with hair that’s slicked back and black and fine.

There’s an animal behind the bars of the structure, wild and captive and pacing. There’s the man and the son close by on the other side, above it all and still and watching.

There’s a thick mane of hair and sharp claws. There’s an expensive gold watch and a corporate expense card. There’s sticky candy-coated fingers and a tiny red toy car.

There’s a thing the man says to the son: “I can’t help but feel sad. This, this is making me sad.”

There’s the thing the son says to the man: “Why?”

“That’s an apex predator, the lion. A keystone, too. Two predators in one. An apex and a keystone. It’s at the top of the food chain. It has a significant and disruptive affect on its environment relative to its population size.

There’s a lesson here. This thing that I can’t help but feel a little sad about, it can teach you a few things.”

“What are those? The things it can teach?”

“Maybe it’s just one thing. One lesson”

“And?”

“Don’t get caught.”

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There’s a structure with a bullet-proof partition, a steel and sterile and guarded structure. There’s a man in a jumpsuit, one-piece and monotone and state-issued. There’s a son, older now, in hand-me-downs that are a style not at all his own.

There’s the thing the son says to the man: “I can’t help but feel a little sad. This, this is making me sad.”

There’s the thing the man says to the son: “Why?”

“I thought you were two predators in one. This was a thing I thought to be true.

But there’s a lesson here. In this place and this man and this thing that’s making me sad. There’s something I needed to learn.”

“And?”

“Don’t get caught.”