Hollow Kingdom

by Kira Jane Buxton

  “Pass the moonstone river.” He repeated himself and I shot out of there, the fury inside me billowing like hot gas. I didn’t have a second longer to spend in the company of a bewildered frog and his stupid, waxy rictus. It seemed beneath me to eat a tropical frog out of spite, so I bottled my rage and took off.

  I scoured the Tropical Rainforest building, huffing in tight-chested breaths, a reedy whistle emanating from deep inside me. I searched tropical bird aviaries—bananaquits, red-crested finches, blue-gray tanagers, spangled cotingas—they were all gone. An ocelot and a bushmaster—which, according to the unflattering sign by its empty enclosure, is a venomous serpent with delightful heat-detector pits on both sides of its head that hides in the soil, waiting to assassinate passing mammals—were nowhere to be seen. Even the home of my acquaintances, the golden lion tamarin enclosure, lay empty. And the glass, everywhere, sprinkled like fallen icicles, every shard breaking my heart.

  And then I found the toucan exhibit.

  There was no visible toucan, no lollipop-beaked bird who lorded over your childhood cereal bowl. The exhibit was pitlike, with an open, grated roof and intact wire-mesh fencing on its periphery. Stuffed like Spam were all the MoFos who had fallen in through the grating, filling every inch of the enclosure. The mass pulsated like a breathing tumor. The MoFos were rotting and moaning, eyeballs pressed through the mesh fence, greenish skin torn and ripped. They looked and smelled like Dennis’s canned dinner. Animals free, MoFos caged. My heart trailing along by my feet, I searched in the mass of meat for red hair, one eye open for the am-bushmaster that The One had, at some point, freed. It was impossible to identify every MoFo in that palpitating tumor, but I felt a glimmer of hope spark. I couldn’t see red hair. Feathereds, furs, MoFos, the scaled, we all share the gift of a special sense, intuition—our otherworldly knowing. Mine told me that he wasn’t in the pit. But that I would find him.

  Thwack. Something struck me in the back of the head. I squawked, shooting off the toucan habitat’s viewing ledge. Five crows with dusty feathers and mischief alight in their eyes peered at me from branches inside the golden lion tamarin’s busted enclosure. These were not college crows. These were a different murder, a spiteful, careless bunch of clowns who belonged behind the bars of an aviary. One had pelted something at me, a seed, a piece of fruit, I didn’t know and didn’t care what it was. I hated these inky fools, these lentil-brained ass noodles.

  “Get away from me!” I screeched, flapping alongside the mass of disfigured MoFos. Had they no compassion? No understanding of what was happening to the wonderful world around them? The devastating mass of sick MoFos caged beside them really meant nothing at all to them? One of them cackled and launched another rapid-fire round of seeds at me. I ducked. I’d fucking had it. I charged, screaming my anguish, flapping my ferocity. I dove into the golden lion tamarin habitat, flushing out their black bodies and chasing them through the enclosed tunnel of exhibits. They squawked excitable panic and nervous laughter—gas on the flames of my fury. We burst from the tunnel and the crows shot skyward, scattering into the evening, cackling and chattering.

  It was a game to them. I’d lost my whole life, everything that made sense to me, and they thought it was funny. I hated crows. Hated everything about their horrible, shadowy chicanery and ignorance. They were a limited species, birdbrained and primitive. I fluttered my gular, hating the part of me that they recognized, desperately wanting to pluck off my wings and walk on two legs and have a limitless imagination. I was sick of being a patchwork of puzzle pieces, parts of this and bits of that. I was one color but not one thing. I wanted to be perceived, to look and sound and act, like I felt inside. Like a MoFo.

  In a state, I puffed and huffed as I flew southward over the zoo, ravaged by adrenaline and fear and the pain of hope. Hair-raising omens popped up in the forms of a limp raccoon that hung over a branch like a Christmas ornament, and dazzling white bones that littered the Family Farm petting zoo, informing my decision to steer clear of the nearby Temperate Forest area. The African Savanna seemed a wiser choice, so I settled onto a black locust tree, squawked as I impaled a foot on one of its hideous thorns, and quickly abandoned ship for a Russian olive instead. I worked on trying to calm my nerves, using Lamaze techniques I’d learned from MTV. The pressure was strangling me, pressure of time, of leaving Dennis, of losing light, of finding The One Who Opens Doors, of rescuing a desperate little Pomeranian, of hating what I was born as. Of wanting change in every single iota of my life. I Lamaze-d methodically, listening for guidance from inside, from trees, from anywhere. Nothing came. My pulse started to stabilize.

  From my high branch, I had an unobstructed vantage point of a series of Kikuyu huts, a quaint rendering of an East African village. I wondered whether the real East African MoFos still had their thatched homes, painting their faces in bold white and red pastes, fashioning their jewelry from bead and cowrie shell. Whether lions were still a threat to them. My bones were tired from my panicked tour of the world through a zoo.

  I realized I wasn’t alone. A grating honking trumpeted into the air. The horrible sound tightened into staccato shrieks, immediately recognizable as a call of distress. In the middle of the African village, a flamingo dragged itself along the ground, singing its anguish in sharp and flat notes. Her sugar-pink wing hung at an odd angle, dangling near fuchsia, chopstick legs that thrashed, kicking up sand. I had a bad feeling about this, thinking of the brawny King Of Reptiles and his casually chilling swagger. And the bushmaster, the largest of all pit vipers, lurking somewhere in the burgeoning shadows. The flamingo’s cries echoed among the Kikuyu huts, the smell of fear tight and sharp in the darkening air. I grappled with whether to drop down to help the flamingo. If she wasn’t a domestic but was still cared for by MoFos, did I get involved?

  A silvery shadow encroached, making the decision for me. The leopard was the color of a winter sky, sprinkled with a snowing of perfect black circles. She was at once soft and formidable, rounded with gentle curves and pillowy paws—sheathes for her retractable weapons. A study in contrasts. A voluptuous tail trawled behind her. Her movements were methodical, each paw placement deliberate, the pellucid green eyes that lit her round face trained on the injured pink bird.

  “RUN!” I screeched at the flamingo. “Get out of there!”

  I didn’t want to watch but I couldn’t help myself. Ten pawprints in the sand were all the flamingo had left, and then its neck was in the jaws of the snow leopard. A sharp shake. A snap. She fell silent. The leopard suddenly dropped the flamingo’s limp salmon neck, her rapt attention on one of the Kikuyu huts. Her body changed, the ripple that shuddered under that plush winter coat almost invisible. She had known he was coming before she saw him, before either of us saw the brooding body that strode from the hut. We hadn’t seen him waiting, watching, his camouflage blending into shadows. He is seen only when he wants to be. Now the flamingo had been dispatched and he was here to claim it. A guttural growl rumbled the roots of the Russian olive tree. From ground and branch, the snow leopard and I shared terror of brilliant orange and black stripes that stood in the center of the African village.

  The tiger let the growl rev and crescendo into a roar, exposing long, yellowed fangs, eyes and nose wrinkling. The snow leopard tensed, placed two plush paws in front of her pink prize. Here was another war. The tiger rushed her, stopping short of her face, thrashing enormous claws. Snow leopard swiped back, her silvery paw colliding with the side of his head. Roars erupted from the throat of the tiger. The cats—one of jungle, one of snow—lifted onto their hind legs in a horrific embrace, clawing and thrashing for dominance. A lightning round of powerful, reflexive attacks. Jab. Claw. Swipe. Lunge. Charge. Agile jerks and pivots, fur was airborne, so fast, fast as flames. The leopard let four paws hit the sand first. The tiger paced, huffed. He inched forward, met by a flurry of swipes and strained, high-pitched yowls from the leopard. Teeth and claw and fury flew. My feet strangled the branch. Tiger’s face twisted with
a snarl. He bit at her head with three-inch scythes. Leopard snatched the scruff of tiger’s throat. She slammed him onto his side.

  And then it stopped.

  The leopard shot back, eyes on the tiger as she retreated, exposing the flamingo. The tiger shook his massive head and postured over the bird that lay like a broken lawn ornament. Snow leopard backed up slowly, farther, relinquishing her coveted kill. I didn’t understand. Hadn’t she been winning? And then her reason became clear. A sinister veil of orange and black skulked from the huts. The stripes of two more tigers, shoulder blades undulating in a liquid rise and fall, entered the African village. There were three brothers who met one another. Two tigers sniffed the victor, and with a minor squabble over the blushing bird, they tore apart her corpse.

  I was losing my mind. This is what Seattle had become, a battleground, a gladiator’s pit of savages? And then, a delicious acorn of a thought dropped: If I was a lone healthy redheaded MoFo, surrounded by a brotherhood of tigers and a bushmaster and a snow leopard and an acid-mouthed Komodo dragon, I wouldn’t make myself easy to find either. I’d be hiding somewhere sneaky and difficult to locate. Just like how after the big thing went down with Tiffany S., Big Jim battened down the hatches, taking up residency in the basement with World of Warcraft, Jägermeister, and Papa John’s on speed dial. He’d gone to ground. I’d been searching out in the open, but that’s not where a MoFo in his predicament would be. Alone, he would find himself prey in these surroundings. Suddenly, I was deafened by a hideous chorus of raucous screeching. It was that murder again; the trees around me were alive with their opened beaks, their insistent screams. They were taunting me.

  “Get away! Get away!” they squawked and I hated them so very, very much, even more than the smell of Abercrombie & Fitch, those crumble-cheese turd burgers. Crows shot out of the trees. A storm of them charged forth, beaks careening toward me.

  “HEY!” I squawked as one of the crows body checked me square in the chest. Instantly winded, I tumbled from the tree. Plummeting toward the earth, I quickly righted myself at the last inch, turning just in time to see an orange paw swiping down at me. I shot sideways, evading the tiger’s hair-trigger killer instinct, escaping into the air. The brother jumped, hurling his striped bulk at me from below, excited by the thrill of a chase. I flapped hard, consumed by hatred for the pistachio-brained birds who’d almost gotten me killed.

  “What’s the matter with you assholes!” I squawked rhetorically. But none of them were looking at me. They continued to scream, “Get away, get away!” but I realized it was directed at a monster who was inching its way along the Russian olive, its trowel head tasting me where I had sat seconds before. The crows had pushed me away from the strike of a twenty-foot snake whose glossy body shone with the diamond pattern of a Persian carpet, even in the growing darkness.

  I was stunned. In shock from the savagery and the unexpected source of help, I bolted. I had to get away from the craziness. I couldn’t process anything that was happening and I couldn’t leave Dennis a second longer. If I stayed here, it was only a matter of time before I became as delusional as that waxy monkey tree frog.

  I was having a lot of trouble with my breathing, which I chalked up to nearly getting quesadilla-ed between tiger paws and becoming a Hot Pocket for a snake the size of a sewer pipe. But I didn’t have time to rest. My search from the sky continued as I passed over the rest of the zoo’s African Savanna, once crisp and dry, now gaining green and looking like it had been ravaged by a storm. I flew north to an area thick with firs, cedars, hemlocks, and plants native to my Washington home. None of this helped diminish the sharp pain in my chest, which ceased only when I spotted a cluster of moving bodies below. I made out the top of a ball cap, dark hair, a bald spot, long brown hair and, in the middle of this group of MoFos—a redhead. I crowed my triumph to the clouds.

  “He’s here! He’s here!”

  I dipped down, carefully checking the branches of a black spruce before perching. The bird’s-eye view and lack of light wouldn’t let me see the MoFo’s face, just his bright ginger hair as he and the small group of straight-backed MoFos he was with made their way along a path on the Northern Trail toward a cave. They were seeking shelter! I shook my head, incredulous. There was hope! There was life, a living MoFo! A chance at saving the world.

  I ducked down to follow them into the cave. It turned out to be a ground-level viewing station for zoo visitors to watch the brown bears and the otters. Unbelievably, the glass to both enclosures was still intact. They’d come here to seek refuge, to use their heads. They were here to devise a plan for survival and to contain the escaped animals. The MoFos gathered together in front of the glass of the brown bear exhibit, ripples from the wading water catching the last traces of light and making them dance around the cave. From the ground, I watched my redheaded MoFo as he approached the glass, pressing an intact hand against its surface. He drew his head backward, as if in mesmeric reverence, expressing gratitude to a power high above. There was a moment of silence. Then he bashed his head against the glass with a hollow crack. No. He shot his head back and launched it at the glass again with a thwack. No. The romp of otters in the neighboring enclosure swarmed in a cloud of panic. The MoFos around the redhead joined him in bashing their skulls with superlative power. No. In front of them, separated by a small wading pool and some glass, two famished brown bears paced on the water’s edge. No. The smacking became more frantic. CLACK. CLACK. CLACK. No. The first crack in the glass was born, shooting like a tiny lightning streak and allowing for the breath of chaos. CLACK. CLACK. CLACK. The MoFos kept using their heads. No. The crack grew branches, which ripped through the glass. No. The bears’ impatient dance intensified, one of them excitedly lifting on his hind legs. He was standing, a mirror of the MoFos. They waited, stomachs and throats releasing low growls of anticipation for what was coming to them.

  From the air I heard the horrific sounds of gushing water and a bear breaking fast, a sound I will forever hear on clammy nights when sleep is elusive. I’d been given false information. A scheme. I had blindly trusted the information from Aura and it had been wrong, a lie, no better than an e-mail scam. It was exactly like the real Internet, filled with festering weirdos and keyboard clowns. I should have known, should have remembered how Big Jim felt when he’d fallen hard for Oksana, a duck-billed Russian beauty with whom he’d been messaging for months. After swapping intimate details, addresses, deep secrets, and a series of Anthony Weiner–inspired photos, Big Jim sent Oksana $4,000 (to cover her airline ticket to Seattle, her rent, and liquid courage in a bottle of Stolichnaya Elit so she could leave her abusive husband). Oksana turned out to be a cyber-fabrication. Big Jim had been spilling the contents of his heart and scrotum to an online troll. Now I’d fallen for it too, fallen for the lies of three asshats who’d concocted a story about a redhead. They had sold me the same thing that Oksana had sold to Big Jim—false hope. Because what I realized watching the redheaded MoFo in the bear and otter viewing area was that all of the glass in the city had been smashed by the sick MoFos. I remembered the cell-phone bait, dangling from the lamppost, where MoFos teemed below, hurling themselves to reach it. I thought about the message at the oyster house: Tell Peter John Stein I love him. Tell him but DO NOT USE YOUR PHONE, and I thought about Big Jim when I pulled out his cell phone, how he’d gone from swiping the basement walls mindlessly with his finger to being a savage hunter. A desperate monster. There had been no vigilante redhead setting the zoo animals free out of the goodness of his heart. The sick MoFos no longer had hearts. I’d known they were looking for phones, but I hadn’t put it all together in my blindness. They were attracted to all the glass because they’d mistaken it for what they were really looking for: screens.

  I flew above the zoo’s twisted green mass, the stabbing pain in my chest back again. It was hard to stay airborne, maybe because of the weight in my heart, because you can’t fly when it’s heavy; the adage is so true. Maybe, I thought, something
is deeply wrong, and suddenly I found I could no longer flap my wings and I plummeted, crashing into rolling tumbles. Head, wing, side, foot, repeat, hitting the ground. I came to a stop, wings akimbo. The landing of a challenged fledgling. I righted myself, shaking off the dirt, and staring at the sign in front of me. It depicted a scene. In its center was a picture of a green stroller. Next to the stroller was a picture of a sandwich bag full of Goldfish crackers. A sinister silhouette had taken the sandwich bag hostage, holding it above the stroller, taunting, malicious. “Stow Your Snacks!” said the sign. The silhouette was a crow.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I launched into the air using every ounce of what I had left, heart on fire, and flapped as fast as I could, away from the crows and the savagery and the lies, streaming above a world that had too many thorns for me. I had to get back to Dennis, to the last remnant of sanity I had. Darkness had spread its onyx blanket and that might have been why I committed the most classic and fatal of avian bloopers, particularly ironic given the lack of intact glass to be found. I smashed full speed into a glass window. Stunned on impact, my legs stiffened as I plunged to the earth, vision turning to black.

  Chapter 17

  Atlanta, Georgia, USA

  (as told by an armadillo whose name roughly translates as Elwood)

  Air is hot. Full of things to come. Have to get home, scurry there, be safe again. Air is getting dark and angry. I hurry my way through the jungle that has grown. Green vines cover everywhere I go now. Bush and flower and shrub. Fields that were once of grass and the bones of cow and sheep now belong to the vines. Kudzu vines are from another place far away, but now they have made my home theirs. They are hungry to cover and smother everything they can and now we live in green.