Solid Steel

The creature turned sullenly away from the people as another stone
thudded onto his back. They threw awkwardly, as though something
restricted their freedom to abuse him with their mean missiles. He had
never known why the people wanted to ignore him at best, or at worst,
pitch whatever came to hand at his pitiful frame. And why did they
never approach him but stay an even distance away, as if someone had
drawn a line in the dust.

Was he so less of interest than the other beasts who bellowed and
snorted from nearby but seemed to have the people in their thrall. They
didn't have sleeker coats or stronger shoulders. They had neither
louder voices nor nimbler feet. His eyes were as clear as any of the
animals.

The people in uniform sold bags of nuts and fruit peelings to the
people who weren't in uniform who gently fed these to the animals. But
the beast had half-full bags chucked roughly at him by callow children
who stood on that line in the dust. The adults too enjoyed the game,
goading their charges and flinging what they could, again awkwardly as
if through a window, when they thought they were unseen.

The beast was nearly asleep when one child crossed the line in the dust
without a diversion in her step and approached to within a foot to his
supine shape. She fixed his gaze and looked into his eyes. He trembled
throughout his body and wrenched himself awake. The faintest of smiles
began in the corners of her mouth and she held out a full bag of fresh
glistening fruit peel. He had only picked up dried and wrinkled ones of
the ground before and he quivered as he gently took the first
piece.

It melted in his mouth and he took more. Moisture dripped from his
slightly opened mouth as he felt the food glide down inside him. Like
osmosis it filtered through the sides of his throat and gave him a
sensation he had not felt in all his miserable life. His veins pulsed
more quickly and his head rose and fell on his body. The child became
transparent and faded from view as he watched colours spread across the
sky in smooth flowing shapes that billowed in time with the sound of
the wind in the trees. He climbed out of his body and sat nearby,
observing his own every action. He watched, dumbed to rigid stillness,
as he himself lay panting on a pile of straw, body twitching one
minute, then swaying peacefully the next.
Back in his body, the beast felt time stand still as the music of the
evening birdsong wreathed him in soft indescribable satin shapes. The
trees bent down and spoke to him in rhyme and he saw himself young,
rolling in the mud and being cuffed by a distracted parent.

As the feeling returned to his limbs and his eyes came back into focus,
the child reappeared in front of him, in the same spot. She reached out
and took his hand. With eyes fixed on each other neither was able to
speak. The child struggled with her thoughts and composed
herself.
"You can get out of..."
He put his hand up and stopped her almost before she'd started. He
gazed at the child with intense eyes and said,
"Don't say it. I know now, now you're here. But I'd never seen those
bars, that cage, before, until you walked straight through solid
steel."