One word of explanation, this is a piece of material I wrote for a novel one day I would hopefully finish (maybe in ten years? dunno). The “I” in the story is a human-turned-lion (the human is me) living on a reserve of the Born Free Foundation.
So this is a crazy idea about why lions can but don’t talk to humans. Kinda rushed, inspired by Descartes’s theory on why monkeys can but don’t talk in fear of being enslaved by humans. Propelled by the great efforts to make myself believe that TLK is true.
“My mum once told me a story,” Elsa said, “Back in the Roman Times, Romans built arenas. They caught lions and tigers and let them fight to death. Then I asked mum, ‘why didn’t’ they stop fighting and run together?’ mum said ’because the Romans would spear them instantly if so.’ You see, even though the winner would only live a few minutes more than the loser, it was worth fighting for. To live on is the ultimate drive behind every life. If I were the lion, I would fight on till I die even for a few minutes’ sake. Also, they were choiceless, the weak were, are, and will be controlled by the strong. Imagine if you humans know we can talk, even though our material civilization is still virtually zero due to unsuitable body, what would befall on us? You will enslave us, do the wicked torturous experiments on us like the monkeys, and finally, since you can’t bear the possibility of the rise of the lions, you would do the Holocaust. We want to live, so we have to conceal our intelligence completely. Our hunting techniques are still ancient since the Science stopped. The last lion community, the Pride Lands, dissolved into prides. Nothing was left for us, and we’ve known the final extinction was coming soon since the dramatic drop of our population started 50 years ago.
” I wanted to say something, but how to comfort a dying species? “Let’s talk about something else.” If there’s nothing to ease the pain, then try to ignore it. Many people live on half a life, deliberately ignoring many painful things, now I see many lions also live on half a life.
Created by Simbaholic