Zoo Keys

She picked the keys off the ground and watched them dance back and forth. They played gentle soft swinging music in front of her serious dark black eyes.

The tall emaciated man walked toward her out of fear. What would she discover? What did she already know? He was a long slow tide.

A silver Amtrak train from Portland to Seattle slid by heading north on silent tracks, whistling steel.

Passengers looked at the Sound with long hard eyes. They were chained to the earth to pay for the freedom of their eyes.

Her vision was measured, answered by the man.

“Oh, thank goodness, you, my - I mean - you found the keys. How can I ever thank you?”

She held onto a worn leather strap with tight fingers, never taking her eyes off the joy of dancing light.

“What are they for? she asked looking straight at him. “What do they do?”

“Ah, now, aren’t you a curious one,” he said moving closer. He must have dropped them by accident. No, this couldn’t, didn’t happen by accident. He knew that much.

Still, she had them.

He was patient, watching the blue boat arrive from the medium security state pen. It released sad faced men and women guards in their creased blue uniforms. They walked past security, across train tracks to their cars and trucks for a long drive home on crowded highways.

The tide blasted over rocks covered with bright green seaweed and barnacles as the wings of a seagull clapped in the sky.

He needed the keys and knew it would take some explaining.

“How about a sandwich?” he offered.
“What kind?”
“Peanut butter and jelly.”
“OK. Do you have any juice?”
“Let me see.” He looked in his library book bag.
“How about orange, perhaps an apple?”
“An apple please.”

“The keys,” she said. “What are they for?”
“They open zoo cages.”
“Hmm,” she said, watching them dance.
“What zoos?”
“Toronto, Point Defiance, Denver, Vancouver, London, Berlin, Madrid, San Diego, Shanghai.”
“Why?”

“Someone to look after lonely animals and provide some comfort to the young ones especially if they are afraid - you know, being in a strange place and all.”

“It’s their nature to be afraid. It’s either desire or fear,” she said.

“Are you talking about people or wild animals?”

They were in a place with excellent public transportation. Coffee bars every block. Urban poverty. People carried their apathetic or sullen expressions.

Intuition brought them together. Fate and chance. Cumulus clouds growing and building over a Sonora desert, 5,000 feet high. Clear air. Mystique. Fabrications. Automatic writing in central Galway cold water flats. Extrapolations of mysterious human struggles with universal demons.

Value added markets at the corner of 5 & Dime.

"You are a novella full of loud explosions from high elevation bombing runs at night. Night sight infra-red vision tactics under the cover of darkness. Where everything glowed green," she said.

"It's probable," he said.

They were brave people, the man and woman sharing emotional honesty and trust. They acknowledged each others authenticity as Tibetan prayer flags absorbed sunlight bleeding their colors.

They finished their sandwiches and fruit, and selected a zoo at random from their world map.

"Let's go," she said. She wanted to see the keys work their magic.