by Tim Lamb

Created on: August 22, 2010

~THE ZANY ZOO~

The man pointed the gun at my head, and smiled coldly. The thought of my own death being so near made me shiver.

“You know, this is your own fault. You could have left when you had the chance.”

I guess I had asked for it. But I never expected something so bizarre to occur, especially not with such a horrible ending to it all. I began to think back to how it had all occurred...

It had all started like every other day. I had put on my uniform, packed some lunch and left my small apartment. As usual, I was running late. Not that my job was really important in the eyes of my fellow workers. After all, I was just a cleaner at the zoo. Luckily, I was only a few minutes’ walk from the zoo, so I arrived in no time. As I barged the doors open and ran to the storage room to get my cleaning equipment, I heard a too familiar voice from behind me. I turned in regret to see the zoo manager, Jeff.

“Paul, late again are we?”

I tried not to show any disappointment. Other people’s misfortune delighted him.

“Well, looks like you’re going to have to do an extra hour’s work to make up for the time you’ve spent mucking around at home. Your job is just as important as the other jobs, and if you can’t remember to get here on time, then you may as well find a new job. Wait no; next time your late I’m firing you.”

I gulped in concern at what he had just said. I was already struggling to live on the money I was currently earning, I needed this job.

Too be honest, I quite liked my job. Although as a full time job, at forty years old, my job was seen as the lowest of the low, I always had time to reflect on my life, and be one with nature at the zoo.

Though there were definite disadvantages too. Customers at the zoo did not look at me the same way they looked at the zookeepers. All I did was clean rubbish and walls. Zoo keepers took care of the animals, and fed them.

Well on this particular day, it was more crowded than usual. Some snorted as they walked past me, some chucked rubbish, expecting me to clean it up, and the rest just ignored me completely. But there was one particularly strange man, wearing fully black clothes, and a black face mask. He was looking in my direction, but I couldn’t tell if he was looking at me directly. I shrugged him off, and continued my job. He was probably just looking at the monkeys. An hour or two later, I stopped cleaning the bar of the monkey cage when

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