short story
“Let’s go Grandpa!”
The voice of my eight-year old grandson woke me up. I took a moment to gather my thoughts. I had slept off on the couch again. Sunday mornings were always so lazy. However, today was different. Today, I was taking Auro, my grandson, to the zoo for the very first time.
Auro’s excitement knew no bounds. I rose up from the couch and ruffled his hair.
“Let me change my clothes, and we will be off.”
Auro grinned at me and nodded.
As I changed my clothes, I could hear Auro jumping around in the living room. I smiled to myself. In my younger days, the idea of seeing wildlife got me as excited as he was right now. It made me feel young again. I grabbed my wallet and my train-pass and headed out in the living room.
“Ready to go, Auro?”
“YES!” Auro clapped his hands in glee. I took his tiny hand in mine, and we began walking to the station. I had not been to the zoo in a long, long while. I had read in the news that they were opening a new exhibit today. Excited about it, I had decided to take Auro along. We reached the train station on time. The magnetic-loop trains were never late, making them highly efficient. We got into the train headed for the zoo. Looking out of the window, we could see the cityscape. Skyscrapers as far as the eye could see. The train passed through all the major buildings. Some of the buildings almost touched the surface of the atmosphere control domes that surrounded the city. Only the uber-rich living in the penthouses of such buildings would witness the real sky that lay outside the dome. The poor had to make do with the underbellies of these skyscrapers as their view and the stale purified air as their means of living. The gap between the rich and the poor had only widened.
The train soon halted at the Zoo station. I held Auro’s hand and led him towards the ticketing booth. The ticketing booth was large visual interface that asked me if I already had tickets or whether I wanted to purchase them now. Upon being told that I had already purchased my ticket, I was instructed to stand in front of a scanner, that scanned my retina and confirmed my ticket. It did the same for Auro. This was so much faster.
“Now, wasn’t that quick, Grandpa?”
I smiled at him. He would not get it. He was born in this era. He was right. It was much faster than my times. Not just this, but most activities were now automated. The train, cashiers, most services, were all of them, now handled automatically. This had increased the population of the unemployed. However, Auro was too young to get all this.
“You see Auro, in my time queues took way longer. We had to buy tickets and show them a physical copy, or we could show it on our phones. It was never as fast as this. Plus, there were real people there, who could help you if required.”
Auro nodded. I knew this was a disinterested nod. He was here for the animals and that is what his mind was set at. Nothing was going to distract him. I pointed at the holo-map in front of us.
“Look here Auro. It is a map of the entire zoo. Where do you want to go first?”
Auro studied the map intently. I knew he was bright and had probably read about a great deal of these animals already. He jumped up and down and shouted.
“Grandpa! Penguins. Let’s go see the penguins. They are cute.”
I laughed knowingly. I had a feeling my grandson would pick penguins.
“Penguins it is then.”
I led Auro in the direction of the Penguins exhibit.
It was early evening now. We had roamed around the entire zoo, and had covered all of the exhibits: Penguins, monkeys, elephants, reptiles, all of them. Auro had thoroughly enjoyed his day at the zoo, and that made me happy. Watching him squeal in amazement upon seeing an elephant, and gasp in shock watching a komodo dragon, made me feel young again. It was a joy to see Auro go through the same experience as I had been through many many years ago - The experience of witnessing a plethora of animals, all under one roof. As we sat on the bench, enjoying our vanilla snow cones, I placed an arm around Auro.
“So, did little Auro enjoy his day at the zoo?”
He looked at me with a vanilla-dripping mouth and shot me the widest of grins.
“Yes, grandpa. It was the most amazing thing. Thank you, so much. I want to spend more time here.”
“But, mommy will shout at us, if we come late. You know it is dangerous staying outside our homes after sun down.”
Auro’s head drooped in disappointment.
“However, Auro, we still have to go to one more place. We have saved the best for the last. It is time to see the magnificent wild cat - the tiger.”
Auro jumped up and finished his snow cone in a quick gulp.
“Yes! Let’s go see the tiger.”
I chuckled in merriment and lapped up my remaining ice cream. In all honesty, I was even more excited to the see the tiger than Auro was. It had been my favorite animal ever since I was a little boy. We entered the exhibit and there she was - Tiagra the tiger. We watched the huge tiger from behind the safety glass. It was lazing about in the grass, its back arched in the most graceful way. Auro stood transfixed. He leaned on the glass and continued gazing at the tiger in amazement. The tiger surveyed us with its sharp, orange eyes. It got up from its place and took slow steps towards us. As it reached near the glass, it threw its head back, and gave a thunderous roar. Auro fell back on the ground, tripping over his legs in fear. The tiger did not throw us a second glance and went back to its spot. I picked up the scared little Auro.
“Are you okay, Auro?”
Auro only whimpered in response.
“You are brave boy, Auro. You should not be scared like this. Besides, the tiger was only saying hello. It did not mean you any harm.”
“Promise, grandpa?”
“Promise. Now get up, little kid. I think you will enjoy what comes next.”
Auro got up to his feet and looked at me with a quizzical expression. He knew we had seen all the exhibits. What more was there for him to see? I answered his question by pointing to the signboard behind me. It read: Feeding time at 16:00 pm.
“I don’t want to feed it, grandpa.”
“It will be really fun. Mr. trainer will also be there with us when we go inside to feed it. Nothing will happen.”
I smiled at Auro and offered him my hand. He clutched it tightly and grit his teeth, mustering courage.
“Okay, let’s do it.”
The trainer welcomed us and instructed us to stay behind him until he said it was okay to go ahead. He led us in, and asked us to wait a few feet away from the tiger. He then walked up to the tiger and put his hand on its head. The tiger promptly stood up, and followed the trainer, who led the tiger near us. I could feel Auro’s grip getting tighter. The trainer petted the tigers back and the tiger halted half a feet away. The trainer fished out a couple of pellets from his backpack and placed them in Auro’s outstretched hand.
“Feed these to the tiger. Place them on the tongue.”
Auro nodded and approached the tiger, who did not make any movement. Auro outstretched his arm and kept his hand near the tiger’s mouth. The tiger opened his mouth wide and Auro placed the pellets on the tiger’s tongue as instructed. Auro rushed back to me and hugged me. I watched as the tiger swallowed the pellet. It was not really eating it, of course. It was adding the pellets - battery packs into its recharging sockets.
The zoo had done a brilliant job of creating lifelike robotic versions of all the animals. They resembled their now-extinct real-life counterparts in almost every aspect. What choice did they have? Now that every animal was extinct, if the zoos had to stay in business, this was their only viable choice. I was happy these robots had managed to charm Auro, but to be frank, for me they were still fakes. I remember the days when I could actually watch a real life tiger. Yes, they were endangered back then, but we could still spot them. It makes me think back to those times.
If only we had been a bit more careful. If only we had been less selfish. Even little Auro would have been able to see real animals.
