The raid on the zoo

The crowd besieged the zoo gates, thousands of them hooded, masked and unmasked, armed with hammers, crowbars and petrol bombs, the gates were twisted, hammered, exploded and burnt. Eventually the crowd surged through an opening and poured into the unprotected zoo. Far away a police superintendent made the decision to do nothing. The zoo was too high risk to recapture and could afford to be lost, instead officers would surround the Bank of England and the city, for bankers must be saved even when the lesser parts of the city are allowed to fall.

The riot leaders, following the commands of organisers far away, ran to where they were ordered, to steal the animals for which there was a market: rare spiders, snakes, lizards and the like. The more organised had thought to bring cages to carry them in, protective gloves to handle them and even metallic grips with which to carry their prey.

Others seized animals merely for fun. Penguins were stolen as potential bath time pets, llamas were pinched as potential sources of food and wool and across London for the next week or so certain low-quality fast food establishments were best avoided for all but those of the most exotic taste-bud.

But some of the looters forgot the purpose of cages. Yes they are there to keep the animals enclosed, but they are also there to protect the public. To protect the public from tigers and lions and other animals with tooth and claw, poison, stealth and strength.

One foolish boy, raised to ignore the notion that actions have consequences, forced open the door of the tiger compound. He strolled inside, assuming himself king of his new domain, free to grab whichever animal he saw and kill it for food, or catch it for sale. He understood neither the law of the land nor the law of the jungle.

In the panic caused by the riots the keepers had been unable to get to the zoo for the previous two days. The animals were not only terrified by the rioters, London filled with the howls, cries and screeches of an entire world’s worth of fauna, they were also hungry and in the case of the tiger alert and on the prowl, crouching in the corner waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike down its prey.

Altogether eleven looters lost their lives. The boy didn’t even have time to notice his death, so swift was the tiger’s paw. Others died more slowly, some agonised deaths from the poison of rare snakes or spiders for which they had omitted to bring cages, trying to steal them home in a pocket or a tesco bag, others were trampled by elephants and one boy had a heart attack, brought on by the powerful stench of a skunk he’d stuffed into his jacket.

But those eleven deaths would pale into insignificance. For the tiger door was open, and a swift feast on that first scrawny looter did nothing to fill the bellies of a cage of unfed tigers. One by one they strolled out into the night, into a zoo of looters who soon thought to flee, except for two more victims who were culled in the confines of the zoo.

Two more light meals did not suffice, and the tigers marched on, through the open front gate and out into the night of a London on fire.

Now London lies in terror. In every alleyway and dark corner a tiger lurks, ready to strike. The riots now a long-forgotten fear, a distraction from the real threat to society. For a tiger once unleashed may never be re-captured, will never be returned to its cage.

One small boy’s error means that London is doomed. For in a fight between man and tiger, tiger will always win. Flee now, while you have a chance. Flee, flee to lands far away from London, which is now the tigers’ domain.