“Oh my god,” Liz said. “Oooohh my goooood.”
Jay blinked; he had just walked into the break room, and upon seeing his coworker staring down at her tablet screen while gripping her face in despair, he paused. “Uh. Something wrong, Liz?”
“It’s Houdini.”
“No,” Jay said, lighting up. “He got out? Again?”
“Look at this.” Liz snatched the tablet and held it up. “Look at this shit. We’ve got his enclosure watched from every angle. I begged my boss to approve the budget for a nanny cam so we could keep an eye on him. So tell me, how the fuck does a twenty-five foot python not only manage to break out of his enclosure, but also slither all the way from the Reptile House to the Safari Zone at the other ass-end of the zoo, without anyone catching him?”
“You can’t stop true love, Liz.” Jay grinned. Liz let out a groan.
“I just don’t get it. Why is Houdini so obsessed with a lion, of all things? Why can’t he just stay in his perfectly comfortable, temperature-controlled, and well-maintained enclosure, and get himself fat on a bunch of mice? Why?”
“Excuse you, Mr Sunshine is so much more than just a lion. He’s, like, 50% of the reason why anyone comes to our zoo.”
“He’s a fucking lion,” Liz yelled, waving an arm. “Who looks at a lion and thinks, ‘wow, he’s a really handsome lion’? Who the fuck comes to the zoo just to check out a lion?”
“The people who wouldn’t come to our reptile house anyway,” Jay said. “Except when they find out we’re the ones who keep taking Mr Sunshine’s snake boyfriend away from him. Did you know that there’s a petition to keep them together?”
“No,” Liz said, aghast. “How many signatures–?”
“Well, it got on tumblr,” Jay said, “and you know how that goes.” He pulled out his phone and started typing. “…Let’s see… looks like it’s at twenty-thousand signatures after… two days.”
“No,” Liz repeated. Jay flipped his phone around.
“Look.” He pointed at the header image on the petition. “They used that really cute one from, like, three weeks ago.”
The photo showed Mr Sunshine laying on the grass, golden mane shiny and fluffy in the sunlight, with Houdini’s long, unusually green body draped over his mass. They looked like they were cuddling. Houdini liked to rest his head in Mr Sunshine’s mane, and this photo had been taken at just the right moment where Mr Sunshine had started nuzzling Houdini. They looked like they were kissing, if a lion and a python could kiss.
“Oh my fucking god.” Liz groaned. “My boss is going to kill me,” she said, even as she took the phone out of Jay’s hand to add her signature to the list.
(Fifth of my entries to my self-inflicted challenge, 100 Lifetimes.)
Loki is the Philosopher King 