No time for blabbing! Straight to the story!
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Ben had work in the morning—or more accurately, it would be having him. His day would devour his soul with meeting after meeting filled with the scrutiny of all the senior vice-muckety-mucks. He really shouldn’t have been texting this girl. He should be sleeping, getting his Executive Power Rest for all of his Executive Power Meetings. But things with the girl were going well lately, and Ben was in cautious optimism mode. Plus tonight she was having this problem with her mom that he was helping her through, and it was just nuts how their senses of humor felt like a fitted pair together, and something about her hair made him do these big stupid sighs all the time. But he shouldn’t have let the conversation gone on this long or this late.
He also shouldn’t have been at the zoo, long after closing, using a stolen zookeeper’s key to unlock the marsupials enclosure. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Bzzz. He peeked at his phone again.
“So anyway Im not sure what I shld tell her,” the girl had texted in glowing letters. “Its like, if she wants to be part of my life I just want her to say that. Did I tell you she flaked on the dinner I planned?”
Ben let the door latch behind him and crept into the zoo enclosure. He was coming in from the back way, an access that the zookeepers used that wasn’t visible from the viewing area.
But it was visible to the animals. He saw about ten pairs of eyes looking at him. Which marsupials were nocturnal? He froze. He glanced down at his phone and let his thumbs whiz across the tiny keyboard, flashing his eyes up occasionally to watch the animals. The phone’s backlight dazzled his eyes.
“Holy crapcakes,” he texted. “You need to stop putting your emotions on the line for her.” Send.
All he needed was a photo. He couldn’t shoot it from here—it had to be one of those photos where you hold the phone at arm’s length and shoot back at yourself, with your other arm around your buddy. Except that the buddy had to be a kangaroo.
He waved the phone around, trying to shine its bluish backlight on the Australian creatures before him. He only got vague, moving shadows out of the deal. The animals didn’t budge. Judging by the height of some of the reflective, liquid eyes, some of them belonged to climbers like koalas or cuscuses. Or maybe that’s how tall kangaroos were. He wasn’t sure.
Bzzz.
“Heh, yeah, I know,” she texted. “Its just hard. Weve always been like this. Hey listen.”
That was all of her message for now. She must be composing more.
He knew he should either be in bed or be more attentive to the conversation. He just needed to get that photo. It was “probably the last” piece of humiliating evidence before Ben would be allowed into the Explorer’s Society, a secret league of overeducated idiots that he was less and less sure he wanted to join.
He could hardly see anything here in the back of the enclosure, after midnight, on the day before his massive meetings. And that’s when he heard a low, throaty, aggressive rumble come from one of the animals.
Bzzz.
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I, too, should be sleeping. At least I’m not stepping my way through piles of kangaroo dung while I should be sleeping.
See you tomorrow.
This story really intrigued me…
Apparently Ben was in the zoo for some sort of hazing for the Explorer’s Club, but what will happen there.
What kind of a middle manager is he?
Why did his girlfriend’s text message get cut off so abruptly?
Will he ever sleep again?
More, more more!!
Oh yeah. I always love it when a dork gets f-ed up by some giant creature.
This one is a good start, reminds me of a Stephen King beginning, so you are in great company there! I want to see his girlfriend’s face when she gets the snapshot of her dude. Oh yeah. Imminent shredding.