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Animal Humans and the Great Zoo

Tom Ball

    We lived on Mars, in the Animal human colony. I, Art, said, “It’s truly a World of horror. Daphne responded, “Maybe for you, but it is sheer bliss for me.” I said, “But everyone was forced to get plastic surgery to make their faces animal faces, with a human body. I think everyone is ugly and everything our leaders do is ugly and vile.” She said, “I think our new faces resemble one’s totem animal. And our leaders focus on instincts, making one behave as one’s totem animal. I said, “I don’t want to be an animal human, I want to be a human being. Why are they turning us into animal men?”
    Daphne replied, “Humans are animals, but in the past, we distanced ourselves from animals and put on airs. And everyone’s personality resembles one kind of an animal or another. And I enjoy being a beaver human.” I said, “As you can see, they made me into a tiger human, and I hate killing and eating other animal humans. And I don’t enjoy breeding with other tigers. But this World doesn’t give me a choice.”
    And I asked, “How did such crazy leaders ever get into power?” She said, “Of course our Supreme leader was elected, but once elected carried out her animal program, surprising everyone. But I think it is a brilliant, natural evolutionary step to get back to our roots.”
    Our World was located in the Sirius Star System. And our leaders forbid visitors, and our World was unique, and our government didn’t want other opinions.
    The World was Earth-like and a jungle climate. I had trouble catching prey as I wasn’t a very fast runner. So, I mostly attacked prey while they were sleeping in their lair. And I told Daphne, “I want to eat you above all.” She said, “As always life is dog eat dog. You’ll never catch me, however!
    So, life went on for a few decades and I was still alive. But then one day a ship came from Space, filled with Superhumans. They told us we were an embarrassment to humanity and put us all in cages and called it the “giant freak zoo.” Tourists were welcome to come and see the zoo for themselves. I begged them to change me back to human, but they refused saying I should never have allowed them to change me into a tiger man.
    And I suffered and languished in this jail. And I could roar and talk to the tourists I told them to work to set me free. But most of them just laughed and called me names like, “freak” and “loser.” But one human woman took pity on me after talking to me for a while and she said, “I will pay for genetic therapy to replace your tiger head with one of my own choosing.” And so, it was. And the woman loved me for a fortnight and then she set me free to do as I wished.
    My next move was to start a charity for turning animal humans back to full humans. A few philanthropists gave hundreds of billions, and I was able to change back many thousands. But many didn’t want to change back. With new immigrants pouring in there were now 50,000 humans and 10,000 animal humans. But many of the humans here were animal lovers and some even wanted to make love to the animal men and many others said the animal humans should be set free.
    And people drew up some faces for the animal humans to make them human but resembling their totem animal vaguely and could be identified as such. A few thousand opted for this.
    And finally, the zoo was closed. And so about 6,000 animal humans mingled with the human majority in Animal Human city which was now renamed “Evolution city.” But it soon became clear that the animal humans were third class citizens. And they weren’t given a job to do and lived in poverty. But still some animal humans had children in the lab, and they were born as adult animal humans. In the lab they could cross one type of animal human with another type. So, for instance a lion man could breed with a mouse man and the resulting birth would be a new animal human. Many types of animal humans had gone extinct, but new types were being created every day.
    And in the end the animal humans were resettled in their own colony. And they lived happily ever after.

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