The most desolate zoo in the world

The Greyfield Zoo is about three kilometers from my home, and I started going there to copy animals when it was already a zoo in vain. I don't know what it was, but the zoo gave the impression of desolation, with a few old, half-dead trees displaying not animals, but empty cages, almost all of which were rusted or broken, and the only remaining inhabitants of the zoo were a group of mallard chickens, an elk, and two monkeys, that's all.

I have long since passed the age of zoo obsession, and I came to this forgotten zoo only because I was studying painting. My painting teacher, who is well known locally for his skill in drawing animals, suggested that I come to this place to sketch animals, saying, "Don't go to the city zoo, it's too noisy and chaotic.

Everything seemed to be in the middle of a nap except for the wind blowing the leaves and the chirping of the pheasants, except for the two monkeys in the monkey room, which were very active and always looking at me while climbing and running. The two surviving monkeys, one old and one young, the younger one would sometimes suddenly jump on the older one's back, and every now and then the older one would stretch out its long arms to scratch the younger one's dirty fur a few times, so I guess they were a father and a son. I didn't know how to draw the blind eye, but after hesitating for a long time, I left the position of the eye empty on the paper.

After leaving the monkey house I wandered around the garden again, and when I passed the abandoned monkey cage I saw an old man in blue work clothes sleeping in the cage, sitting on a large tank, holding a thick pipe in his hand, which was still dripping water, but he was asleep. I guess he's the only keeper here. Probably my footsteps woke him up, and the keeper suddenly stood up and shouted at me, "Tickets, buy tickets!

I guess the keeper was in his sixties, and his pale face had a natural anger. I saw him dragging the hose out of the lion's cage, a dark, rough palm reaching toward me, and as I nervously dug into my pockets I heard him fumbling with my drawing folder, drawing monkeys? The keeper's nostrils sprayed my face with a smell of alcohol, his voice still angry, you have to buy a ticket to draw a monkey, 10 cents, buy a ticket!

I couldn't help but protest when I handed him the 10 cents, this kind of zoo also deserves to charge admission? I was deliberately talking back to this annoying old man, but I found that he stuffed the money into his pocket when his face was already an apologetic expression, he blinked his cloudy eyes at me, after a while he left me and went into the lion cage, I saw him grabbing the hose to spray water on the ground of the lion cage, while spraying water and muttering: you are angry I am not angry? No one cares about these animals, but they do not die you have to keep, do not die, you have to feed them, give them out of the manure, all by myself. Now no one is in charge of the garden, I'm the only one in charge, I'm a man with a neck in the ground, I have heart disease, arthritis, it rains all over my body to smoke, but I still have to serve them, to serve them eat, drink, shit, ah!

I didn't have the patience to listen to the breeder's complaints, it was already dusk, and the chimneys of the factories in the nearby ash field industrial area were already a carmine red, I left the zoo and rode my bicycle to the city with the workers who were off duty in the industrial area, passing the soap factory when I saw a familiar figure pedaling his bicycle down the slope, going against us. The man wore glasses and had a black scarf over his shoulder. I recognized him as our school biology teacher, whom I did not call, and I wondered what he was doing in the area of the gray field.

My drawing teacher criticized my animal sketching, he thought my two monkeys were rigid and stiff, they didn't look like living monkeys. They look like two monkeys! He pointed to the old monkey I had drawn and asked me why I had drawn only one eye. Where is the other eye? I said, "The other eye is blind, I can't draw it. The drawing teacher raised his eyebrows, "You said that is a one-eyed monkey? He slapped his thigh and said, "Isn't that the best material for sketching? You must draw the other eye, you always can't catch the charm of the animal, and then draw the one-eyed monkey, draw the other eye too, draw it well the charm of the monkey may come out at once.

Probably because I was stupid, I never knew what the teacher meant by "charm". But I was determined to capture the charm of the monkey, so a week later I went to the Greyfield Zoo, three kilometers away.

On that day I met the school biology teacher by chance. I was quietly observing the two monkeys in front of the monkey house when I suddenly heard someone call my name and the biology teacher came over to me with a smile. I asked him what he was doing here, and he smiled a little mysteriously and said, "I came to see the animals, you know I am most interested in animals. I said, "You should go to the city zoo to see the animals, that's where the real animals are. The biology teacher shook his head and pointed his finger at the keeper's red-brick hut and said, "I'm an old acquaintance with old Zhang, I often come up here and talk to him about something.

I can't guess what the biology teacher and the keeper will talk about, and it's not appropriate to ask more questions. But the biology teacher is undoubtedly very familiar with the zoo, I heard him introduce me to the zoo's many inside stories when I was drawing the monkeys.

The biology teacher said that there used to be thirty monkeys in the monkey house, but now they have all moved to the new zoo. The remaining two monkeys had pneumonia and stayed here, and so did the deer over there, and nobody wanted them.

The biology teacher said, "You saw the old monkey's blind eye, right? That is five years ago to a drunkard with an iron bar stabbed, he held incense coke in one hand, the other hand hidden behind the back to hold the iron bar. There are always such people in the world who don't love animals, and it's okay if they don't, but it's amazing how brutal they are to animals.

The biology teacher also said, I love animals, I love all animals, even the one-eyed monkey that is blind in one eye, of course the one-eye is always a pity, if it were in my hands, I would make it a little more beautiful and perfect.

I could not get deeper into the conversation with the biology teacher, and frankly I found him a bit odd, a person who draws monkeys and a person who loves monkeys do not have much in common.

I didn't know how to draw life in the eyes of a blind monkey. I thought it was too difficult to draw animals, especially monkeys. I suddenly remembered the drunkard and the iron bar in his hand. I seemed to see the real moment when the old monkey lost its eye, and a strong tingling feeling suddenly spread throughout my body.

It was about half an hour later that I heard the noisy cries of the mallards from the place where they were kept. Turning around I finally understood the purpose of the biology teacher's visit to this place, and I saw the keeper leading the biology teacher into the fence door, and the keeper grabbed a wildly running mallard with an unusually young and agile movement, a mallard with gorgeous rainbow feathers, which flapped its wings in vain in the keeper's hands and finally being cast into a blue cloth pocket, I saw the biology teacher open that pocket, then grab the two corners of the pocket and tie a dead end.

I had only a passing acquaintance with the biology teacher, but since that encounter at the Greyfriars Zoo, our relationship had grown much closer. I met him in the staff cafeteria and couldn't help but ask my question, how come the old man was willing to give you the golden chicken? The biology teacher smiled mysteriously at me as he chewed and swallowed his bun, and he said, "It wasn't a gift, I bought it. I still didn't believe it, I said how could he sell you a zoo animal? The biology teacher looked around, and the smile on his face became more mysterious. I was familiar with him, and he suddenly came close to me and whispered into my ear that he owed me a favor, and that I had solved his grandson's schooling problem for him.

The biology teacher warmly invited me to visit his specimen exhibition room, so I followed him to the hut located in the area of the school factory, once inside I first saw the beautiful mallow.

It was fixed to a tree stump, and it was obvious that it had been opened up and finished with embalming. I saw that the pheasant's posture was lifelike, but its feathers were still stained with traces of blood and medicinal solution.

I actually have quite a few bird specimens. The biology teacher moved the mallard specimen to a position between the owl and the ostrich, and he said faintly that what I wanted to do now was a primate specimen.

I didn't care for the biology teacher's words, I should say I was very uncomfortable with the atmosphere of the hut, I felt many birds and many cats and many animals I had not seen staring at me with wide eyes, due to their static and the light in the room, each animal looked unusually peaceful and comfortable, but I smelled an indescribable sour smell in the air, it made it difficult for me to persevere through every kind of specimen displayed in the hut. As I made a hasty exit from the hut, the biology teacher was still looking fondly at his specimens, and I heard him murmuring inside: How strange, why don't they love animals?

I guess the biology teacher must have regretted his invitation to me, and I myself regretted going to the hut. For the whole afternoon after I came out of there, I was in a depressed mood, and the wet, blood-stained and drugged feathers of the pheasant flashed before my eyes from time to time. I took pity on the pheasant, and for the first time in my life, I became emotionally invested in animals.

I tried to bring my pity for the pheasant into my painting later, and my painting teacher thought that my animal sketching had made great progress, and that you had now captured the charm of a monkey. He pointed to the old monkey I drew and said, "You have drawn the blind eye, the magic in this monkey is in the eye, now you should understand, right?

The second time I met the biology teacher at the Greyfield Zoo was a Sunday morning. It was drizzling that day, and I noticed that the brown monkeys in the monkey house, father and son, showed an amazing affection in the rain. The young monkey was tucked in the arms of the old monkey to hide from the rain. When the old monkey, soaked to the skin, raised his forehead to look at the rain in the sky, I suddenly felt that his only eyes were filled with some kind of worry. It was the biology teacher from our school.

When I approached the window their argument stopped abruptly, they seemed to be wary of me, I saw the breeder twisted around, with his back to me, and the biology teacher showed me his characteristic gentle and innocent smile, you also came? He said, I am talking things over with old Zhang, he is in a bad mood today, talking about things like a quarrel. In fact, he is a great guy.

I would like to know what they are talking about, but I am standing there is a hindrance to them, I just have to leave and return to the monkey room to continue my sketching. I noticed that the one-eyed brown monkey had become very agitated, leaving the little brown monkeys behind and running frantically over the wire fence, occasionally letting out a few long cries. I also cleverly concluded in the rain that humans and animals have one thing in common: they or they are sensitive to changes in the weather.

I wanted to go to the keeper's hut to escape the rain for a while, but I thought of all the inconvenience that would cause them, so I simply went under the low wooden roof of the deer house, and as I know from my poor zoological knowledge, deer are gentle and kind animals, and during the hour I spent in the deer house, the lonely elk just watched me quietly I spent an hour with the elk, eating its grass and hiding from the rain, until the dense line of rain gradually loosened up again, and gradually the rain stopped completely.

I wanted to leave as soon as it stopped raining, and the paper I had brought was too wet to draw on. I stood up and touched the beautiful neck of the moose and said goodbye to it. I knocked on the keeper's window as I walked past his house, thinking that if the biology teacher was still there he might be willing to go back with me, but there was no one in the house, and all I could see through the window was a pile of things on the table, two boxes of front door cigarettes, a pack of pastries and two bottles of liquor.

I had already pushed up my bicycle, and it was at this time that I heard a strange baby-like cry coming from the monkey room, and at first I didn't know it was a monkey's cry, I just thought it was unusually harsh and gruesome, so I got on my bike and drove towards the monkey room. As you may have guessed, the only monkey left in the monkey house I saw again was the little brown monkey, just after an hour, just after a rain, the old brown monkey who was blind in his right eye was gone, and I saw the little brown monkey meet me with its arms grasping the iron net, and it cried to me like a human baby, and I saw clearly that its pink face was full of tears, not rain, but tears, and that was the first time in my life It was the first time in my life that I saw a monkey's tears, like human tears, which are also crystal clear.

Until then I finally understood what happened in the downpour just now, and finally knew that the biology teacher talked to the keeper today about something other than the golden chicken, but the poor old brown monkey. I was stunned for a moment, I was filled with sorrow and pain, but I didn't know what to do with the little brown monkey, I found a wet salted peanut in my pocket, fed it to the little brown monkey through the wire mesh, but it just swallowed it and spit it out, I always thought it was trembling, and only then did I understand that trembling is the monkey's cry.

A few lines of messy footprints remained on the muddy ground after the rain, leading from the monkey house to the abandoned lion cage, tracing these footprints, I found the keeper in the lion cage, the keeper, like last time, was washing the ground with a hose, although the water rushing out of the hose was very fast and large, I still saw the blood stains on the ground of the lion cage, and a brown I am not a murderer!

I pointed to the water-filled lion cage, stammering, you are here, right here, kill?

The keeper said, here to avoid the little monkey, can not let it see, you do not understand, the monkey is also humane.

I looked at the monkey house on the other side of the woods, and indeed there were branches and houses blocking the view. I still didn't know how to express my feelings to the keeper, I just asked him a stupid question: Is it easy to kill it?

What is not easy for a person to kill? The breeder laughed, he glanced at me contemptuously and continued to flush water towards the ground, after a while he suddenly remembered something and said to me, I have a deep friendship with Mr. Xu, he has helped me a lot, I had to promise him, people are not animals, people have to be conscientious.

I could not say anything, the only thing I wanted to do was to leave the zoo immediately. I rode my bike to the entrance of the soap factory, where many workers were coming and going at the entrance of the factory, and finally relaxed my frightened mood.

I used to sneak outside the biology teacher's taxidermy room to visit the brown monkey. To say the least, I could have hidden my eyes and ears like this, as long as you have some interest in animals, the biology teacher is always happy to open the door of the taxidermy room for you. But I seemed to be afraid of being face-to-face with the brown monkey, and finally chose a quiet afternoon to climb up to the window sill of the hut.

I saw a brown monkey sitting cross-legged on a desk, and to my amazement it was now not only clean and serene, but the vestigial eye that was some sort of feature had gone gold and suffered into a bright impeccable eye, that one-eyed brown monkey I knew so well, and now it had a perfect pair of eyes! I don't know how the biology teacher made the monkey's eye, but I can only marvel that his love for the monkey is a hundred times deeper than anyone else's, and that kind of love is often capable of working miracles.

When it comes to my love of painting, my painting is not destined to be a success. My teacher was a master of animal painting, and he always asked his students to capture the charm of animals, but I think the charm of animals lies in their tears, and I tried for years, but I still couldn't draw those tears, and finally I just stopped painting. I never went back to the grey field zoo in the industrial area, but I guess it was the most desolate zoo in the world.