I became a dad the day before yesterday.
His name was Happy because I was so happy about his birth and his infinite energy made lots of my friends happy, too. I watched him learning to walk, to run and to jump with happiness. The only problem was that he was too young to perceive unknown dangers, and my eyes couldn’t leave him for a moment — maybe next second I would lose him.
When the sun was going down, we found a covert to rest. I laid in the bushes and couldn’t go to sleep until I heard the snore of Happy.
“Wolves!” A shouting broke the silence of night, I jumped up and noticed there was a pool of blood beside me where should be my precious. Happy disappeared! The wolves’ eyes like green evil lights shining in the darkness. “Help me! They took him away!” My voice has already broken. All of them watched the shadows running away and heard Happy’s sharp voice becoming far away in silence. None of them wanted to risk. I was out of control and crazily ran after the wolves but suddenly someone used his corners hitting my stomach and the world became dim and I fainted in pain.
I dreamed Happy growing up, there were no predators and we never needed to hide or run anymore. I was awaked by the dazzling sunlight in the morning. Others stood around me sadly. I thought they didn’t want to say anything.
“If we hadn’t stopped you, you would have dead, too.” Someone finally said.
“Better to die.” I thought, but said nothing. I wanted to escape from them, as soon as I can. I wanted to forget all these horrible things, the black blood and the evil light in darkness. I walked away in their silence.
The prairie was covered by hot air and despair. I didn’t know how long I had walked. Tired, hunger and thirsty made me faint again. I lowed my head and tried to search some watery grasses.
“Hey! Stupid ox. Stop! What are you doing, you are hurting me!” Someone shouted when I ate and seemed like not just one people speaking, but there were no one except myself. I watched around.
“Who are you?”
“I am the grass you are eating!” The hundreds and thousands of voices said again.
“Am I crazy now? How can grasses speak?” I said, more like soliloquize.
“I don’t know why, neither. Never see a killer could speak in my life” The grasses waved in the wind.
“Am I a killer? You must make some mistakes, I just lost my son.”
“We lost our brothers every moments.” Thousands were crying and yelling in the prairie.
“But I am hungry and thirsty.” I tried to contradict.
“Maybe that is why they killed your son.” They said banteringly.
I laid in the grasses and let them hold me like I was the baby of nature. Is that our fates, building our lives based on the lives of others? Since we were born, we had had to kill others or to be killed. We could’t choose and we live without freedom. The nature limits us and give us neither die or live. I do not want to be a murderer. I rather die alone in peace. Wait, but if I dead, all of this things would disappear and become meaningless. All my thought, all my struggling just mean nothing. There is no peace in die!
How long had I stayed here, or where was here? I didn’t know. Hunger had grabbed me in dizzy, and almost made me forget I needed to eat. I watched around the prairie and the food waved to me like the apple in the garden of Eden. Black clouds came from the west and occupied the sky rapidly. Then the drops fell in the field and hit me like thousands of bullets shoot me together. I stumbled and leaned against a tree. When water fell in my mouth, the want of food which came back more drastic drove me to eat, to “kill”. The screaming of animals and grasses amplified in the pitter-patter. I lowed my head to eat and tried to ignore the screaming. But whenever I ate, the picture that the wolves ate my son appeared in my head again. I kept vomit even there were nothing in my stomach. My eyelid became heavier and I gave up struggling.
The world became dark. All my feeling faded away. The only memory was Happy and I played in the prairie with dumb grasses.
After a heavy storm, a dead, bony buffalo lay under a baobab where the grasses were lush and green. And not too far away, a group of vultures were coming.