My younger cousin once killed an ostrich; he had brought a bouncy ball to the zoo for a reason unknown to me. It slipped out of his hands and rolled down a hill into the cage, sneaking under the chain-link fence.
Caged animals are so sad looking, sitting there, standing there; whatever they are doing they're just there. They don't have the freedom or privacy that they would've had in the wild. Captive animals are doomed to a small pitiful capacity, they're dwelling in a limited living space, they're segregated. They're a tourist attraction. These animals are idle, as to protest their imprisonment, when they do move it is a slow, dragging of the feet, paws, or hooves. If it weren't for these walls they could run around as they please, go from place to place, eat for themselves. Once an animal is in captivity for whatever amount of time, it is in captivity for life. The animal is so used to being hand-fed and everything that is being done for it that it is domesticated.
Sometimes there are lion shows or a show with bears wearing hats and riding bicycles or a man with a music box and a dancing monkey, any animal show where an animal does a trick. The animal is trained to the undergarments of society, a woeful beast. People stare and are awed, but what's that? Nothing; it's unwillful, it's slavery, it's a shame.
Aside from these shows and any other confined civilization there's the ostrich cage, hidden, down a small hill, which includes three awkward looking creatures; a long flexible neck and two stringy legs connected together by a bulky, feathery egg of an abdomen. Atop of its head are just a couple of feathers. The ostrich; (noun) one of natures balding, lop-sided organisms. It's a flightless bird, with wings that are useless except for warding off unwanted attention.
Once the ball had stopped rolling and was in place in the cage, the ostrich stared at it. The large bird stared at the ball curiously yet scared, as a dog might investigate an unfamiliar object. It would nudge the ball with its beak, possibly toward outside the cage, in attempt to set it free. After some time of nudging the ball, the ostrich began to violently peck at it, letting the target know that death is the only path to true freedom. Bored with antagonizing and deteriorating it's victim, the ostrich firmly takes hold of the ball within its beak, and once it's in place, with one gulp, swallows what's left of the pulp substance, teaching it to sleep with the light on because you never know what's hiding in the room, waiting for your most vulnerable time to eat you.
Not too long after this incident there was a short article in the paper stating that an ostrich had died during a surgical effort at removing an unidentified object from its throat.
It was there where a witness learned that no barricade will keep anyone safe. I saw an interrogation of an inadequate object go awry, backfire on the kid with a magnifying glass sitting at an ant hill.
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