"Last night, at the Festival of Feathers," Nelly said, "we had an incident."
"It's way too early for this," Fletcher groaned, slinking down in his seat.
"A beautiful event, for those like Robin who maybe have never attended, because she only just started here," Nelly said, smiling at Robin who smiled anxiously back; Nelly leaned forward on the table, "lights, soft music, really just a love letter to the species that we feature here at Wild Kingdom. We have bird themed drinks and snacks, and you can get your photo taken with a bird. Kids love it and, secondary to Birdapalooza, it's the most hyped up event of the year here."
"Is there a point to this?" Harvey asked, leaning against the counter, drinking his coffee.
"More than there is to your life," Nelly said, making him look hurt.
"God, sorry," he whispered.
"So I head the event every year because, well, I like birds, to put it bluntly. I love birds of all kinds, all colors, all shapes and sizes. But my favorite bird has to be the Peacock. The colors on its tail, and that beautiful sheen of dark ocean blue feathers, there's just...there's really nothing nearly as majestic in the aviary kingdom, in my eyes anyway. So I do the event, and it goes swimmingly, and everyone has an excellent time. Children get their photos taken with their favorite birds, and all in all, we raised a lot of money for the zoo. Good for us! Go team!"
A small, but scattered, round of soft applause filled the room. Nelly then sat fully on the table and sighed, still smiling.
"And then, I went to get in my car and go home," she said, "and you know what I discovered when I got in my car? While I had been working all night, someone, I guess, thought it would just be a riot if they put a Peacock in my car. And, guess what? When I got into my car, it had shit everywhere, because it was so stressed out from the experience that it literally lost control of its bowels and covered the interior of my car - a car I've only owned for two weeks, by the way - in shit."
Nobody spoke. Hell, everyone was afraid to breath, let alone respond.
"Fletcher, you ever accidentally leave something like, I don't know, meat out in the sun? The heat makes the stench ten times worse when it rots," Nelly said.
"Sadly not in the habit of leaving prime rib out to dry, no," Fletcher replied.
"That's okay, it's just an example. Imagine that stink though, I'm sure we've all smelt it at one point or another, right? Rotten meat? Meat we just didn't get to cook soon enough or meat we forgot about. You know, sometimes you come home from the grocery, you leave a bag on your porch and you just...it slips your mind, you forget about it. Three days later it's the foulest odor on the planet. So imagine that...but localized within a car. It was 94 degrees all day, even well into the night. I opened my car door and almost fainted because the stench was so overwhelming, and I wasn't expecting it, that it hit me in the face like a truck full of shit."
"How's the bird?" Robin asked nervously, and Nelly smiled.
"Glad of you to ask! Bird is surprisingly okay, they're resillient fuckers," Nelly said, "anyway, I managed to get my car taken in, had the interior completely fixed, no more smell, and the bird's been returned to its habitat. A happy ending for all involved, especially my poor vehicle. But let me say this," Nelly said, her voice lowering as she leaned against the table and angrily glared around the room, "if I ever find out who it was who put that Peacock with a bowel problem in my car...I assure you that you won't be fired. Instead, you're gonna work here forever, and every single day, you're gonna open your locker, and it's gonna be filled with shit. Every. Single. Day. And all your belongings that you might've left in there, after cleaning it out, will be covered in shit. Your whole life will be nothing but a shitstorm, 24 hour shitcycle, a shit hurricane if you will. You will go to sleep every night knowing that when you wake up, you will once again have to be face to face with animal feces, you will live, breath and eat shit. So you better fuckin' pray to whatever God you believe in that I never find out who you are, because if I do..."
Nelly shook her head, laughing lowly.
"...if I do," she said, "you will know no peace. You will know no safety. You will know no joy. You will only know shit."
And with that, Nelly stood back upright, smoothed out her blouse, skirt and jacket and smiled at everyone.
"Have a nice day at work everyone," she said, before turning and exiting the room. Nobody dared breathed until they knew she was far enough away from the room and down the hall.
"So who did it?" Fletcher asked, but nobody would come forward.
"...I don't think I wanna eat lunch today," Robin said softly.
***
"They call it the Hippo Campus," Casper said as he drove Robin across the zoo.
"And why do they call it the Hippo Campus?" Robin asked, "just to be cute, or?"
"The whole area is presented like a school, educational, ya know, for the benefit of the kids who visit," Casper said, "so yeah, it's just a cute little pun, but it's also a neat idea. You know, places like zoos or aquariums, or as I like to call them Aquatic Zoos, have the chance to educate while also entertain, and the kids are so enveloped by the wonder of the animals that they don't really realize they're being taught, and even if they do, it's so interesting that they don't care."
"Kids are dumb like that," Robin said, pulling the foil back on her breakfast burrito and biting into it, chewing as she asked, "and what am I doing over in this area?"
"You will be giving a presentation on the Gazelle. We try to keep most of the animals grouped together by localization, so animals you'd find in, say, Africa, are all together. Hippos and Gazelle's, for instance. Don't ask me why it's done this way, ask upper management."
"I don't think I will, because that would insinuate I care enough to know," Robin replied, as Casper patted her on the shoulder.
"That's the spirit!" he exclaimed.
The Hippo Campus was, she couldn't deny, pretty cute. Very colorful and filled with cartoonish depictions of hippos in various situations; some little cartoon hippo children wearing clothes and backpacks on, clearly ready for school. Casper parked in the center and Robin climbed out, bumping her head on the roof.
"Yeah, you gotta watch for that," Casper said, "I'll come get you when it's over! It goes in a circle, so you'll wind up back here, and it's a long walk back to the main office, so I'll come pick you up."
"Thanks," Robin said, giving him a thumbs up and finishing her burrito, tossing the wrapped in a nearby trashcan that looked like a Hippo with its mouth open, ready to accept refuse; Robin stopped and stared at it for a moment before narrowing her eyes and whispering, "that's really creepy."
She wiped her hands on her pants and approached the area for the Gazelle tour, happy to see a group of kids and their parents already waiting. The thing about giving tours, and part of why Robin felt she was a good choice for this job, was that she had to remembered a ton of Gazelle factoids, and having tried to be an actress, constantly running lines and memorizing scripts, this was a skill Robin already posessed in spades. She stopped at the front of the line and smiled out at everyone.
"Hello, hi!" she said brightly, "Welcome to Miss Gazelle's Tour! Today we'll be visiting the majestic and graceful Gazelle in their natural habitat, and you'll learn all sorts of things you didn't know about them! Please follow me and stay in a group, kids please hold onto your parents hands so nobody gets lost or left behind!"
With that, she started leading them through the tour. Performative action. That's all Robin knew.
***
When Robin had been in the 7th grade, she was part of the schools performance Carnival of the Animals, and - coincidentally enough, though she wouldn't remember it as an adult - she was given the role of the gazelle. Course, the costume was nothing more than a body suit and a felt mask with cardboard antlers, but still. She'd gotten the role primarily because she was lanky, lithe, very tall. Same reasons she thought might benefit her being an actress, her waifish ballerina-esque figure. And while it certainly helped her in terms of dance or roles, it didn't help her in terms of friends.
After all, middle school is nothing if not the human equivelent of the Serengeti. Survival of the fittest. And Robin experienced that firsthand. Thankfully, there was a 9th grader there from the neighboring high school - she was helping do the choreography - who liked Robin and took her under her wing. By the time of the actual performance, Robin was easily the best dancer among her cast mates, and she owed it all to that 9th grade girl. She was grateful, but she also felt something else. Something she never understood and could never put into words. Something she would hide away forever after that. Jealousy, maybe? Who knows. All she knew was she was grateful to this girl, and was sad when she was gone.
She still had that costume in her closet to this day. And this day, in particular, she'd be once again hit with that familiar feeling.
***
With the tour over, Robin found herself just outside the gift shop, chewing gum, watching people go by. She wondered what it must be like to just...be able to have an ordinary job. To do ordinary work. Course, if you love what you do, then it's anything but ordinary, but still. She wished she could stand to live like that. Work in an office, maybe have friend nights on the weekends, get the holidays off, but...she had to do something more. Someething grander. Robin sighed and rubbed her eyes when she heard someone shouting.
"Littering isn't cool, you know!" the girls voice rang out, causing Robin to look up towards her; she was clearly shouting at a few kids who'd thrown trash on the ground and run away, as she added, "Just because your parents let you get away with trashing the home doesn't mean you can trash everywhere you go!"
Robin smirked as the girl turned and started to pick up the trash, putting it into a little bucket. Their eyes caught, and the girl walked in her direction.
"You're not wrong," Robin said.
"I know."
"That's just despicable behavior, frankly," Robin continued, "you're not a janitor, though, so it's good to see you pick it up even without it being your job."
"The zoo is supposed to be beautiful," the girl replied, "it's supposed to be this harmonious place where all the animals can co-exist, albeit sectioned off from one another for obvious reasons, and the grounds are supposed to be pristine. We let so much of the world get ugly, we destroy so much of it, I just...I don't wanna see it happen to the zoo too."
Robin smiled warmly. This girl clearly cared greatly for not just her job but also the place proper. The girl set her things down on the table and sat down, joining Robin. She was wearing a large sunhat, presumably to keep herself from tanning, as she had an almost unearthly paleness to her, and she had medium length golden curly hair. She wasn't, however, wearing a uniform that represented a specific animal or section, and this confused Robin. The girl reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out her inhaler, taking a few puffs.
"Don't you have a vehicle?" Robin asked, "ya know, like a cart or whatever?"
"I use a segway," the girl replied, "...are you new?"
"Just started, yeah," Robin said, "I'm Robin Glass."
"Sophie Hart," the girl said, smiling.
"So, why do you think they call it the Hippo Campus?" Robin asked, "Casper said it was because it's not only a pun, but it's also educational, ya know, to inspire the kids or whatever. What do you think?"
"I think this zoo cares far too much about presentation and not enough about conservation," Sophie said, "but...it is cute, I guess. I don't know. I try not to think too much about it cause I have to focus on so many other things. I just do my job and keep quiet and away from everyone."
"Why's that? Everyone's been pretty nice, albeit Fletcher who's kind of an ass, but an enjoyable ass," Robin said.
"Animals have always liked me more than people, guess I feel the same way," Sophie said, shrugging, and this made Robin's heart hurt. The way she said it, the tonal inflection, it just sounded so sad. Like it was something she claimed not to be bothered by but inevitably spent a lot of time thinking about. Sophie sighed and looked around at their immediate surroundings, before adding, "I don't know. Maybe I belong at the zoo. I've always been kind of a curiosity to people. Something to gawk at. Maybe it's the right place for me."
"Hey," Robin said, softly, "hey, you're okay. You're not a curiosity. You're a person."
Sophie smiled weakly, then stood up.
"I should get back to things," she said, "it was nice meeting you."
As she started to head away from the table, she stoppd, dragged one of the small cartoonish kid hippo cutouts holding a finger up and put it near another so it looked as if it they were picking the others nose. Robin laughed and Sophie waved goodbye. The thing was, as Robin went about the rest of her day, she couldn't get what Sophie had said out of her mind, about being a curiosity. This was something Robin had long felt about herself, It's hard to fit in when nobody has ever made you feel like you do. After changing back into her pedestrian clothes, carrying her uniform over her arm, Robin headed for the parking lot, only to find Nelly leaning against her car, smoking.
"Hello," Robin said.
"It's a bad habit, I know," Nelly said, "how's your week been going?"
"It's been...interesting," Robin said, "...sorry about the thing with the birds. That...that sounded-"
"I don't wanna be the bitch," Nelly said, "but I have to be, otherwise people step out of line. I have to instill fear in them or they don't listen. Humanity isn't much different, ultimately, from the animal kingdom. We all rule in a hierarchy, some of us willing to terrify others to be in control. Someone has to be the alpha. I'm not...I'm not always like that, and I'm sorry that your first week has seen you see me like that, cause it isn't fully representative of the spectrum of personhood that I encompass."
Robin smiled and nodded.
"Women have it hard," Robin said, "you can't win at all, in any way, so you just do what's best and try to keep going. I don't think you're a bitch, Nelly. I think everyone else is just an ass."
Nelly laughed and took another long drag. Robin said goodnight, got in her car, and drove back to the apartment. Nelly, after finishing her cigarette, stubbed it out in the parking lot and did the same. As she stopped for some food on the way home, she couldn't help but think about what Robin had said. Women did have it hard. Survival of the fittest. And women were the fittest because they were the ones who had to survive the most.
***
Robin was laying in bed beside Kyle, who was asleep, a book on his chest. As she stared at the ceiling overhead, listening to the soft hum of the air conditioner, Robin realized she couldn't get Sophie out of her head. She rolled onto her side, her eyes landing on the bedroom closet, where her Gazelle costume still sat, tucked away with a million other things. She thought back to middle school, back to that 9th grader who made the costume and did the choreography for their performance, and she twinged inside a little. Why did Sophie make her feel the same way she had? Maybe she just needed female friends. She didn't really have any. Hell, outside of Kyle she didn't really have anyone, and if what Nelly said was true, it would be better to band together as women then try to go it alone as women.
Robin shut her eyes and tried to sleep. Maybe tomorrow, she thought, she'd seek out Sophie again, and have lunch with her. If anyone knew how it felt to be alone, it was Robin, and she didn't want anybody else to feel that way. After all, what is the animal kingdom if not a manner of pack mentality? Everyone deserved to belong somewhere. Maybe she'd even bring the Gazelle mask from the play. Sure, it was old and cheap and goofy, but it would fit her for the role of her tour guide. After all, it wasn't so surprising, women being actresses. They always have to pretend to be something and someone they aren't. All of life as a woman is performative. And maybe that's what Robin liked and saw in Nelly and Sophie, women who recognized this, and didn't care. Who were willing to be themselves.
Humans are just animals masquerading as something else, really.
"It's way too early for this," Fletcher groaned, slinking down in his seat.
"A beautiful event, for those like Robin who maybe have never attended, because she only just started here," Nelly said, smiling at Robin who smiled anxiously back; Nelly leaned forward on the table, "lights, soft music, really just a love letter to the species that we feature here at Wild Kingdom. We have bird themed drinks and snacks, and you can get your photo taken with a bird. Kids love it and, secondary to Birdapalooza, it's the most hyped up event of the year here."
"Is there a point to this?" Harvey asked, leaning against the counter, drinking his coffee.
"More than there is to your life," Nelly said, making him look hurt.
"God, sorry," he whispered.
"So I head the event every year because, well, I like birds, to put it bluntly. I love birds of all kinds, all colors, all shapes and sizes. But my favorite bird has to be the Peacock. The colors on its tail, and that beautiful sheen of dark ocean blue feathers, there's just...there's really nothing nearly as majestic in the aviary kingdom, in my eyes anyway. So I do the event, and it goes swimmingly, and everyone has an excellent time. Children get their photos taken with their favorite birds, and all in all, we raised a lot of money for the zoo. Good for us! Go team!"
A small, but scattered, round of soft applause filled the room. Nelly then sat fully on the table and sighed, still smiling.
"And then, I went to get in my car and go home," she said, "and you know what I discovered when I got in my car? While I had been working all night, someone, I guess, thought it would just be a riot if they put a Peacock in my car. And, guess what? When I got into my car, it had shit everywhere, because it was so stressed out from the experience that it literally lost control of its bowels and covered the interior of my car - a car I've only owned for two weeks, by the way - in shit."
Nobody spoke. Hell, everyone was afraid to breath, let alone respond.
"Fletcher, you ever accidentally leave something like, I don't know, meat out in the sun? The heat makes the stench ten times worse when it rots," Nelly said.
"Sadly not in the habit of leaving prime rib out to dry, no," Fletcher replied.
"That's okay, it's just an example. Imagine that stink though, I'm sure we've all smelt it at one point or another, right? Rotten meat? Meat we just didn't get to cook soon enough or meat we forgot about. You know, sometimes you come home from the grocery, you leave a bag on your porch and you just...it slips your mind, you forget about it. Three days later it's the foulest odor on the planet. So imagine that...but localized within a car. It was 94 degrees all day, even well into the night. I opened my car door and almost fainted because the stench was so overwhelming, and I wasn't expecting it, that it hit me in the face like a truck full of shit."
"How's the bird?" Robin asked nervously, and Nelly smiled.
"Glad of you to ask! Bird is surprisingly okay, they're resillient fuckers," Nelly said, "anyway, I managed to get my car taken in, had the interior completely fixed, no more smell, and the bird's been returned to its habitat. A happy ending for all involved, especially my poor vehicle. But let me say this," Nelly said, her voice lowering as she leaned against the table and angrily glared around the room, "if I ever find out who it was who put that Peacock with a bowel problem in my car...I assure you that you won't be fired. Instead, you're gonna work here forever, and every single day, you're gonna open your locker, and it's gonna be filled with shit. Every. Single. Day. And all your belongings that you might've left in there, after cleaning it out, will be covered in shit. Your whole life will be nothing but a shitstorm, 24 hour shitcycle, a shit hurricane if you will. You will go to sleep every night knowing that when you wake up, you will once again have to be face to face with animal feces, you will live, breath and eat shit. So you better fuckin' pray to whatever God you believe in that I never find out who you are, because if I do..."
Nelly shook her head, laughing lowly.
"...if I do," she said, "you will know no peace. You will know no safety. You will know no joy. You will only know shit."
And with that, Nelly stood back upright, smoothed out her blouse, skirt and jacket and smiled at everyone.
"Have a nice day at work everyone," she said, before turning and exiting the room. Nobody dared breathed until they knew she was far enough away from the room and down the hall.
"So who did it?" Fletcher asked, but nobody would come forward.
"...I don't think I wanna eat lunch today," Robin said softly.
***
"They call it the Hippo Campus," Casper said as he drove Robin across the zoo.
"And why do they call it the Hippo Campus?" Robin asked, "just to be cute, or?"
"The whole area is presented like a school, educational, ya know, for the benefit of the kids who visit," Casper said, "so yeah, it's just a cute little pun, but it's also a neat idea. You know, places like zoos or aquariums, or as I like to call them Aquatic Zoos, have the chance to educate while also entertain, and the kids are so enveloped by the wonder of the animals that they don't really realize they're being taught, and even if they do, it's so interesting that they don't care."
"Kids are dumb like that," Robin said, pulling the foil back on her breakfast burrito and biting into it, chewing as she asked, "and what am I doing over in this area?"
"You will be giving a presentation on the Gazelle. We try to keep most of the animals grouped together by localization, so animals you'd find in, say, Africa, are all together. Hippos and Gazelle's, for instance. Don't ask me why it's done this way, ask upper management."
"I don't think I will, because that would insinuate I care enough to know," Robin replied, as Casper patted her on the shoulder.
"That's the spirit!" he exclaimed.
The Hippo Campus was, she couldn't deny, pretty cute. Very colorful and filled with cartoonish depictions of hippos in various situations; some little cartoon hippo children wearing clothes and backpacks on, clearly ready for school. Casper parked in the center and Robin climbed out, bumping her head on the roof.
"Yeah, you gotta watch for that," Casper said, "I'll come get you when it's over! It goes in a circle, so you'll wind up back here, and it's a long walk back to the main office, so I'll come pick you up."
"Thanks," Robin said, giving him a thumbs up and finishing her burrito, tossing the wrapped in a nearby trashcan that looked like a Hippo with its mouth open, ready to accept refuse; Robin stopped and stared at it for a moment before narrowing her eyes and whispering, "that's really creepy."
She wiped her hands on her pants and approached the area for the Gazelle tour, happy to see a group of kids and their parents already waiting. The thing about giving tours, and part of why Robin felt she was a good choice for this job, was that she had to remembered a ton of Gazelle factoids, and having tried to be an actress, constantly running lines and memorizing scripts, this was a skill Robin already posessed in spades. She stopped at the front of the line and smiled out at everyone.
"Hello, hi!" she said brightly, "Welcome to Miss Gazelle's Tour! Today we'll be visiting the majestic and graceful Gazelle in their natural habitat, and you'll learn all sorts of things you didn't know about them! Please follow me and stay in a group, kids please hold onto your parents hands so nobody gets lost or left behind!"
With that, she started leading them through the tour. Performative action. That's all Robin knew.
***
When Robin had been in the 7th grade, she was part of the schools performance Carnival of the Animals, and - coincidentally enough, though she wouldn't remember it as an adult - she was given the role of the gazelle. Course, the costume was nothing more than a body suit and a felt mask with cardboard antlers, but still. She'd gotten the role primarily because she was lanky, lithe, very tall. Same reasons she thought might benefit her being an actress, her waifish ballerina-esque figure. And while it certainly helped her in terms of dance or roles, it didn't help her in terms of friends.
After all, middle school is nothing if not the human equivelent of the Serengeti. Survival of the fittest. And Robin experienced that firsthand. Thankfully, there was a 9th grader there from the neighboring high school - she was helping do the choreography - who liked Robin and took her under her wing. By the time of the actual performance, Robin was easily the best dancer among her cast mates, and she owed it all to that 9th grade girl. She was grateful, but she also felt something else. Something she never understood and could never put into words. Something she would hide away forever after that. Jealousy, maybe? Who knows. All she knew was she was grateful to this girl, and was sad when she was gone.
She still had that costume in her closet to this day. And this day, in particular, she'd be once again hit with that familiar feeling.
***
With the tour over, Robin found herself just outside the gift shop, chewing gum, watching people go by. She wondered what it must be like to just...be able to have an ordinary job. To do ordinary work. Course, if you love what you do, then it's anything but ordinary, but still. She wished she could stand to live like that. Work in an office, maybe have friend nights on the weekends, get the holidays off, but...she had to do something more. Someething grander. Robin sighed and rubbed her eyes when she heard someone shouting.
"Littering isn't cool, you know!" the girls voice rang out, causing Robin to look up towards her; she was clearly shouting at a few kids who'd thrown trash on the ground and run away, as she added, "Just because your parents let you get away with trashing the home doesn't mean you can trash everywhere you go!"
Robin smirked as the girl turned and started to pick up the trash, putting it into a little bucket. Their eyes caught, and the girl walked in her direction.
"You're not wrong," Robin said.
"I know."
"That's just despicable behavior, frankly," Robin continued, "you're not a janitor, though, so it's good to see you pick it up even without it being your job."
"The zoo is supposed to be beautiful," the girl replied, "it's supposed to be this harmonious place where all the animals can co-exist, albeit sectioned off from one another for obvious reasons, and the grounds are supposed to be pristine. We let so much of the world get ugly, we destroy so much of it, I just...I don't wanna see it happen to the zoo too."
Robin smiled warmly. This girl clearly cared greatly for not just her job but also the place proper. The girl set her things down on the table and sat down, joining Robin. She was wearing a large sunhat, presumably to keep herself from tanning, as she had an almost unearthly paleness to her, and she had medium length golden curly hair. She wasn't, however, wearing a uniform that represented a specific animal or section, and this confused Robin. The girl reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out her inhaler, taking a few puffs.
"Don't you have a vehicle?" Robin asked, "ya know, like a cart or whatever?"
"I use a segway," the girl replied, "...are you new?"
"Just started, yeah," Robin said, "I'm Robin Glass."
"Sophie Hart," the girl said, smiling.
"So, why do you think they call it the Hippo Campus?" Robin asked, "Casper said it was because it's not only a pun, but it's also educational, ya know, to inspire the kids or whatever. What do you think?"
"I think this zoo cares far too much about presentation and not enough about conservation," Sophie said, "but...it is cute, I guess. I don't know. I try not to think too much about it cause I have to focus on so many other things. I just do my job and keep quiet and away from everyone."
"Why's that? Everyone's been pretty nice, albeit Fletcher who's kind of an ass, but an enjoyable ass," Robin said.
"Animals have always liked me more than people, guess I feel the same way," Sophie said, shrugging, and this made Robin's heart hurt. The way she said it, the tonal inflection, it just sounded so sad. Like it was something she claimed not to be bothered by but inevitably spent a lot of time thinking about. Sophie sighed and looked around at their immediate surroundings, before adding, "I don't know. Maybe I belong at the zoo. I've always been kind of a curiosity to people. Something to gawk at. Maybe it's the right place for me."
"Hey," Robin said, softly, "hey, you're okay. You're not a curiosity. You're a person."
Sophie smiled weakly, then stood up.
"I should get back to things," she said, "it was nice meeting you."
As she started to head away from the table, she stoppd, dragged one of the small cartoonish kid hippo cutouts holding a finger up and put it near another so it looked as if it they were picking the others nose. Robin laughed and Sophie waved goodbye. The thing was, as Robin went about the rest of her day, she couldn't get what Sophie had said out of her mind, about being a curiosity. This was something Robin had long felt about herself, It's hard to fit in when nobody has ever made you feel like you do. After changing back into her pedestrian clothes, carrying her uniform over her arm, Robin headed for the parking lot, only to find Nelly leaning against her car, smoking.
"Hello," Robin said.
"It's a bad habit, I know," Nelly said, "how's your week been going?"
"It's been...interesting," Robin said, "...sorry about the thing with the birds. That...that sounded-"
"I don't wanna be the bitch," Nelly said, "but I have to be, otherwise people step out of line. I have to instill fear in them or they don't listen. Humanity isn't much different, ultimately, from the animal kingdom. We all rule in a hierarchy, some of us willing to terrify others to be in control. Someone has to be the alpha. I'm not...I'm not always like that, and I'm sorry that your first week has seen you see me like that, cause it isn't fully representative of the spectrum of personhood that I encompass."
Robin smiled and nodded.
"Women have it hard," Robin said, "you can't win at all, in any way, so you just do what's best and try to keep going. I don't think you're a bitch, Nelly. I think everyone else is just an ass."
Nelly laughed and took another long drag. Robin said goodnight, got in her car, and drove back to the apartment. Nelly, after finishing her cigarette, stubbed it out in the parking lot and did the same. As she stopped for some food on the way home, she couldn't help but think about what Robin had said. Women did have it hard. Survival of the fittest. And women were the fittest because they were the ones who had to survive the most.
***
Robin was laying in bed beside Kyle, who was asleep, a book on his chest. As she stared at the ceiling overhead, listening to the soft hum of the air conditioner, Robin realized she couldn't get Sophie out of her head. She rolled onto her side, her eyes landing on the bedroom closet, where her Gazelle costume still sat, tucked away with a million other things. She thought back to middle school, back to that 9th grader who made the costume and did the choreography for their performance, and she twinged inside a little. Why did Sophie make her feel the same way she had? Maybe she just needed female friends. She didn't really have any. Hell, outside of Kyle she didn't really have anyone, and if what Nelly said was true, it would be better to band together as women then try to go it alone as women.
Robin shut her eyes and tried to sleep. Maybe tomorrow, she thought, she'd seek out Sophie again, and have lunch with her. If anyone knew how it felt to be alone, it was Robin, and she didn't want anybody else to feel that way. After all, what is the animal kingdom if not a manner of pack mentality? Everyone deserved to belong somewhere. Maybe she'd even bring the Gazelle mask from the play. Sure, it was old and cheap and goofy, but it would fit her for the role of her tour guide. After all, it wasn't so surprising, women being actresses. They always have to pretend to be something and someone they aren't. All of life as a woman is performative. And maybe that's what Robin liked and saw in Nelly and Sophie, women who recognized this, and didn't care. Who were willing to be themselves.
Humans are just animals masquerading as something else, really.