“Enclosure”

The child wanted to see penguins. Or paninis. Or pancakes, once, in a passing comment muttered into a pillow this morning. And now here we are. It doesn’t matter. We have shaped her desire into something educational. We are here because we are good parents. We are here to make a memory. Or a moral. Or a nap.

It’s sunny. We are greased in sunscreen, every pore sheened with industrial SPF. We are holstered with water bottles, nut-free snacks, wipes for stickiness and for shame. We are ready to enjoy this. Parking is seventy-five dollars. The kiosk does not take Amex. I press my card harder, as if force could persuade it. A teenager in a laminated lanyard materializes beside me. He speaks in the tone of someone recently woke from death.

He says, “You could circle around and try again.”

I cannot tell if he means street parking or life. I nod like someone pretending to understand. We circle. The child chants zoo, zoo, zoo in the backseat, a glitching bird trapped in a loop. My wife blinks slowly, storing rage in her molars. We did not leave at the time she wanted. The car loops like a drain. A spot appears, godless but shaded. We emerge. We do not park, we are delivered. We are already late for the moment we were supposed to enjoy. We’re already sweating through our best selves.

We enter the zoo like people walking into a dream they forgot to study for. Inside, the map is a maze drawn by a child who hates children. All colors and loops and emblems that might be bathrooms or bear traps. My wife holds it sideways, then upside down.

“It’s beautiful,” she lies.

The stroller squeaks like something inside it is trying to escape. It was a hand-me-down. It has a limp. Every fifth step it resists, a mule with a grudge. My wife tries to smile at a duck by the pond. The duck turns its whole body away. We haven’t even seen an animal yet, and already I am exhausted by this performance of joy. Not just mine. Everyone’s. Joy duct-taped to a tantrum in Crocs. Joy gnawing its own arm after an hour of “Baby Shark.” Joy with lipstick on its teeth. Joy pretending it’s not crying in the bathroom.

At least the sun has the decency to cloud. The child is upright. My wife wears shoes that do not actively injure her. We reach the petting zoo, which, we remind ourselves, is the reason we came. Goats, sheep, a donkey that looks like it’s doing time. The child vibrates with proto-language glee. We approach the feed dispenser. A large, smiling sign instructs us to insert quarters for “goat-approved treats.” Beneath it, the machine grins its coin slot at me like a smug vending priest. I have no quarters. No singles. Only a twenty, as crisp and useless as virtue. There’s a change machine beside the dispenser. It accepts only ones. The signage makes this clear with the same tone as an eviction notice. I pat my pockets like a mime with a head injury. My wife, already fatigued by the effort of not murdering me, shakes her head.

“I’ll go,” I say.

I do not mean it bravely. I leave the wife and child behind and begin the pilgrimage. Through the reptile house. Past the churro stand. Past the map that now makes less sense than ever. I pass a man in a lemur costume smoking with his head off. He does not look at me. I respect him for this.

At the front of the zoo, I explain my pilgrims plight to the ticket booth attendant: I need change for a twenty. She says she cannot do that. It’s against policy. I ask what policy. She gestures vaguely at the air above her, as if the policy might descend from the rafters and smite us both. She sends me to the café.

The café smells like bleach and beef. I explain again: quarters, feed machine, single bill problem. The cashier nods like she’s heard this a thousand times, and hated every one. She says I have to buy something. The cheapest item is a six-dollar Spongebob ice cream bar sealed in laminate and shame. I buy it. The cashier does not offer a smile. Only change. A mechanical clatter that feels like failure. I pocket the quarters and begin the sojourn back. A child screams somewhere nearby. A goat bleats like a car alarm in my brain. I carry the ice cream like a peace offering to a war I already lost. It begins to melt in its packaging.

As I approach the petting zoo, a goat is standing uncomfortably still at the fence. Just waiting. It locks eyes with me. I do not believe in omens, but I do believe in warnings delivered by livestock.

“You people never bring enough,” the goat says.

It doesn’t bleat. It speaks. Clear as a voicemail. Its lips don’t move, but its eyes glint with human disappointment.

“I—I’m coming back with feed,” I mutter, checking my hand to confirm I am not dreaming. The quarters are warm, sweaty from the journey. The goat snorts like a therapist punctuating your delusion.

“No feed. Just freed.”

Behind it, the other animals stand in a loose semicircle. I blink. The goat returns to its usual programming: blank gaze, cud chewing, aloofness perfected over centuries. I return with the coins hot from my pocket, the Spongebob bar melting down my wrist like a cartoon hemorrhage. My wife does not speak. She accepts the ice cream like a war widow receiving a folded flag. I hold out the quarters to my daughter. There are eight. Two dollars' worth. Twenty dollars transmuted into six bucks’ worth of cartoon grief and a handful of small metal promises. She reaches with reverence. Her sticky fingers close around the coins like she’s been chosen. As if I’ve not handed her money, but fire. She walks to the dispenser, guided by some ancient understanding of vending mechanics passed down through blood. My wife lifts her into position. The child inserts the first quarter. A clunk. A small miracle. Eight kibbles rain into her palm. She squeals. A goat approaches like a summoned spirit. My daughter feeds it. It chews, unimpressed. My daughter feeds it again. She laughs, the laugh of someone who believes in fairness. The machine gulps quarter after quarter. I watch each one vanish, the clink of it triggering something ancient in my spine. She finishes the last. Holds up both empty hands like a magician concluding a trick. All the money is gone. But the child is radiant.

There’s a social order here. Not among the animals, among the staff. The zookeepers walk like they own the place. Not arrogantly. More like heirs. They have keys that jangle. Radios that crackle. They move with the loose, inherited confidence of prom monarchs who’ve traded their crowns for utility belts. One of them, Fred, according to his badge, leans against the penguin tank like it’s his personal mirror. He’s… excessive. Rugby thighs that strain the seams of his khaki shorts. A certified pre-owned christmas ham for a neck, the kind you either inherit or inject. The kind of jaw you could chip a tooth on. Thatch-thick strands that seem too sturdy to shed. When he squints into the sun, nature herself dims the light out of respect. His shirt sleeves are rolled just high enough to reveal a tattoo that says “WILD AT HEART,” curling up his bicep like it's still 2007. The kind of thing that would make you roll your eyes, if you weren't so enraptured by the way he rips open Gatorade bottles with his teeth. He pets a chinstrap penguin with two fingers and a half-smile, like he’s rehearsing intimacy in case anyone’s watching. The penguin watches him back, unimpressed.

Lana watches him too, perched on a bench near the service gate, mid-break, sipping a juice box with posture so flawless it looks AI-generated. Tanned legs crossed. Lip gloss holding in 92% humidity. Blonde ponytail arcing proudly like a featured extra. The kind of beautiful that inspires impossible hope in men who call women “females.” She’s in uniform, same zoo-issued khakis, same polo, but on her, it becomes something else entirely. Like Barbie took a gap year at SeaWorld. Like she could tame a sea lion and a frat party without breaking a sweat. She watches Fred like she wants to lick his knuckles. She is quietly unmoored by the aesthetic event that is Fred. Protein powder mascot. Tear drop quad daddy. Silver thumbring revealing to her just enough to lust over a man at war with the part of himself who wants to dance. And somehow that makes it worse. Or better. She looks unsure. She adjusts her sunglasses and crosses her legs the other way, just in case. Fred laughs into a walkie-talkie and the sound ripples outward, unintentionally summoning desire and confusion in equal measure. She clocks him approaching and stands in one fluid motion, like she heard a cue I missed. They don’t speak. Just fall into step, like two halves of a well-practiced bit. Same walk, same pace, same zoo-issue utility belt swinging in sync. It’s eerie, how easily they match. Like they’ve been trained. Like whatever comes next has already been rehearsed. Somewhere, a penguin slips. A father drops his map. A mother forgets her child’s name. Fred and Lana don’t notice. They just walk together, trapped in an open air cinemagraph of longing.

The education staff hate them. Almost as much as they hate themselves. They wear polo shirts and a look that says: I used to believe in this. They wield clipboards and facts like shields.

"Did you know a giraffe’s tongue is eighteen inches long?” one of them asks a child who has already wandered away. She repeats it anyway. For herself.

“Eighteen inches…”

The food vendors are in a different tier entirely. They glisten. They are burnt and bustling and visibly unwell. They move in short, quick bursts, like prey animals. They are always out of something. They speak only in sighs and upcharges.

The merchandise employees are chipper. Disturbingly so. One tries to sell me a plush tiger while my daughter is mid-scream. “He’s reversible!” she chirps, flipping the tiger inside out to reveal its sad face. “So he can feel all his feelings!” I stare at her like she’s offered me a loaded gun. She smiles harder.

The ticket agents are already dead. They simply haven’t stopped working. The ushers wear name tags and expressions that beg you not to ask them anything ever again. Even the animals seem to know.

A capuchin monkey sits hunched on a plastic log, peeling a grape it has no intention of eating. It watches a zookeeper approach with a lidded bin of enrichment puzzles and shakes its head, slow, disappointed, paternal. When the bin is opened, the monkey knocks it over without touching a single item. Then it locks eyes with the keeper and mimics wiping sweat from its brow. The zookeeper doesn’t notice. But I do.

The macaw perches high above the crowd, feathers slicked back like it just got out of a board meeting. It paces its little branch, muttering. As a staffer passes beneath, the bird flaps once, violently, performatively, and sends a peanut spiraling down onto the staffer’s clipboard. Then, in perfect English, it says:

“Not that page.”

The staffer looks up, startled. But the bird has already resumed its default stance: holy and bored.

At the far end of the trail, a tortoise lifts its head like it’s hearing its name in a will. It stares, unblinking, as a janitor mops up a shimmering puddle near the flamingo pond. I can’t tell if it’s vomit or melted slushie or the last remnants of someone’s hope. The tortoise tracks the janitor’s every movement. When the janitor pauses to wipe his forehead, the tortoise blinks, once, and I swear it whispers,

“You missed a spot.”

And the flamingos. They’re positioned like a ballet troupe mid-strike: one leg up, heads cocked, eyes forward but not focused. They appear still, but then I notice: one flamingo taps its foot in a six-count rhythm. Another mirrors the tap. A third tilts its beak toward the gate. Their movements aren’t random. They’re in formation. I don’t know what they’re planning, but I know it isn’t peace.

Everywhere I look, a parent is losing the battle. Dads in ironic tees limp behind feral children. One says “Deus Ex Machina – Excellence Through Guesswork” over a body that looks recently defeated by both CrossFit and fate. Another dad’s shirt reads “I’m Not Yelling, I’m Puerto Rican,” which is doing a lot of work on his behalf, but not enough. He trails behind a daughter who is actively disrobing while shouting about a squirrel that “looked at her weird.”

A woman with twin boys walks in slow, deliberate zigzags, like her GPS is buffering. One child bites her wrist. She doesn’t react. She might not feel pain anymore. She might have evolved beyond sensation.

A mom near the seals has an eye twitching in Morse code. I stare too long. Is it a message? I’m too tired please don’t talk to me even in Morse.

Another mother sits on a bench with her head in her hands. Her child is standing on the bench behind her, braiding her hair into what appears to be a noose. Neither speaks.

There’s a couple mid-argument near the lemur enclosure, speaking in the silent, furious code of people who’ve been married too long to perform it publicly anymore. The man gestures toward a map. The woman shakes her head. He points harder. She folds it like a death certificate.

I pass a group of moms in matching Lululemon and visibly different stages of breakdown. One is speaking too loudly about hydration. Another is eating loose almonds from her pocket like they’re Xanax. The third just stares into space and says,

“I didn’t think I’d be this kind of mother.”

No one responds. They just keep walking. At the playground, a child is crying on the top of the climbing structure while his dad stands below him holding an empty juice pouch and looking straight into the sun. Not at it, into it. Daring it to do something. There’s a woman whispering to a vending machine. There’s a man picking up spilled goldfish crackers like he’s harvesting crops for winter. There’s a couple arguing about whether turtles count as a win for the day. Everywhere I turn: joy undone. Boundaries breached. People coming apart politely. It’s not a zoo. It’s a proving ground for parental failure, and we are all quietly auditioning to be last place.

Just past the playground, tucked between the otter exhibit and the bathroom line that stretches like a bread queue from some invisible famine, I see a sign I haven’t noticed before:

PARENTAL ENCLOSURE — OBSERVE QUIETLY. DO NOT TAP GLASS.

I pause. The sign is printed in the same cheery zoo font. Blue bubble letters. Smiling cartoon stroller. An official-looking plaque beneath it reads:

“This exhibit contains common North American caregivers in various stages of behavioral decline. Species include: Sleep-Deprivedus Ambitious, Snackus Passive-Aggressivus, and the increasingly endangered Me-Time Maximus. Please respect their coping rituals.”

I assume it’s a joke. A partnership with some parenting blog. Until I see the enclosure. A long, glass-paneled habitat. Air-conditioned. Lightly misted. Faux mid-century furnishings arranged in sad clusters. And inside: parents. Actual parents. Slumped on benches. Clutching half-eaten yogurt cups. Some are scrolling silently. Others sip cold brew and stare forward, blinking just often enough to be alive. A man in a visor and Crocs is folding napkins into tiny cranes. A woman in yoga pants is gently rocking a plastic baby. One couple is reenacting an argument about screen time on loop. Their voices are low, reverent, like museum audio guides.

Behind them is a water feature shaped like a Keurig machine. Next to it: a dispenser labeled “Emergency Xanax (Decaf).”

I check the map. There is no parental enclosure listed. I glance back. A young zookeeper appears behind the glass, holding a bucket of granola and mumbling affirmations into a microphone.

“You’re doing your best.”

“This is just a phase.”

“The guilt means you care.”

The parents inside nod slowly, like cows beneath a storm. One of them looks straight at me. And smiles. Too long. Too knowing. My stomach tightens. I blink and I’m inside. No glass. No boundary. Just me, seated now on the faux-leather bench beneath a fake ficus, holding a laminated zoo map stained with what I hope is ice cream. I look down and I’m already mid-conversation—

“She just won’t nap anymore,” I’m saying to no one.

My voice is thin, warped at the edges like tape that’s been rewound too many times. Across from me sits a version of my wife, her posture museum-still, nodding with her mouth but not her eyes. Beside her, a man with my face, slightly puffier, slightly more resigned, is tearing apart a juice box with his teeth.

“Do you remember the before?” someone asks from behind a potted plant.

“What before?” I reply.

“The before before,” they say.

The lighting in the enclosure dims, then flickers. Overhead, a soft chime plays, a bedtime song rendered in Muzak, piped through invisible speakers. Everyone in the enclosure simultaneously checks a nonexistent monitor. No child appears. There are no children here. Only their aftermath. I turn toward the glass. Outside, I see the zoo, the real one, I think. The paths. The popcorn carts. The flamingos, still planning their revolt. My daughter stands there, holding my hand, but not my hand. The hand of the other me. The me who didn’t stop moving. The me who didn’t sit down. She waves. I raise my hand to wave back, but the glass is gone again. I’m outside. My wife is beside me, finishing the Spongebob bar. My daughter is chasing a pigeon with diplomatic immunity. The Parental Enclosure is gone. But something in me still feels sealed.

We keep walking. The child wants a red panda. Or a hot dog. She chants both like a spell. We nod as if either is possible. The path bends just enough that you can’t see where you came from. Not so much a turn as a gentle insistence. Forward is easier than explaining why you’d go back. The landscaping is oppressive if you start noticing the patterns. Lavender in threes. Fuchsia in strict little bursts. Then white, like an afterthought. Repeating like the landscaper got nervous halfway through planting and needed control. The grass has the texture of something printed. The bushes have been trimmed into soft, identical mounds. Anything that grows outside its assigned zone gets hacked. Even the dirt looks vacuumed. I realize I haven’t seen a squirrel. Or a bee. Not even a bird, unless it’s behind glass with a taxonomy sign. We pass a large rock with something etched into it, but the surface has worn smooth, words erased by intention or by time. My wife keeps walking. I hesitate. For a second, the rock looks newer than the trees. Like it was placed after the fact.

Farther down the path, we approach a bend in the hedges. Just before we round the corner, I see them. Five children. Black. Silent. Standing in the shade of a sugar maple that feels older than the zoo itself. Dressed in layers not meant for leisure. Wool, cotton, hand-mended. One girl wears a shawl knotted too tight at the collar. A boy has boots that look borrowed from someone taller. The smallest child holds a stick like a pen, or a wand, or a weapon. They aren’t playing. They’re watching. They watch other children shriek, chased by parents already out of breath. They watch a flock of tourists gather around a fenced-off bird whose wings have been clipped. I cannot describe their expression. It isn’t anger. It isn’t sadness. It’s something quieter, deeper. Longing? Confusion. Immense, bottomless confusion. Why would a bird live behind glass? What is this glistening creature with cat like whiskers and shark like fins leaping out of glass enclosed ponds for applause? Why is this—this loop of noise and concrete and signage—what the world has become? They don’t have names for what they see. But they understand containment. They understand performance. They understand when something is not free. They watch an animal be asked to beg for food. Then they watch people cheer for it. They watch another animal walk in a circle so many times its pawprints have worn a track in the ground that no one else seems to notice. One of the children, an older girl, maybe ten, meets my gaze. She doesn’t look away. Her eyes are steady. Unblinking. There’s no emotion in her face that I can name. No anger. No pleading. No fear. Just a faint head tilt. A stillness too perfect. And something, just for a second, like a smile. Not kind. Not cruel. Not anything I know how to read. It catches in my throat. My mind scrambles to interpret it. Is she amused? Is she warning me? Why does it feel… familiar? Why does it feel like judgment? Why does it feel like she knows something I’m not allowed to? The thought rises: Menacing. And then shame chases it, fast, hot, flattening. I hate that my brain went there. I hate that I can’t unthink it. I turn to my wife, suddenly desperate to be witnessed. To be reassured that the world is still as it was. She’s pushing the stroller forward, adjusting the sunshade, humming “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” under her breath with dead eyes. When I look back, they’re gone. Not folded into the crowd. Not walking away. Just missing. Like a breath I forgot to take.

We turn the corner and find ourselves at the amphitheater. Packed. Wooden benches in a giant semi-circle. Rows of parents slumped like stadium corn. Children buzz. Foam fingers wag. The show is about to begin. A rocky enclosure with a painted backdrop of the sea. A sign reads:

SEA LION SPLASH SPECTACULAR – 2PM

The speakers crackle with pre-recorded ocean sounds, too loud, too clean, like a corporate focus group’s idea of waves. The stage is a rocky island, concrete painted a grotesque color palette approximating natural rock. A fake lighthouse blinks in the background, its bulb flickering like a dying conscience. A rope bridge connects the main walkway to the center island. No real purpose, just flair. Just the illusion of drama. A booming computerized voice announces:

“Welcome to the Sea Lion Splash Spectacular!”

The crowd claps, not from excitement, but from reflex. A man next to me mutters,

“Here we go, aquatic trauma hour,” and bites into a churro.

A synthetic fanfare blares as a woman appears. Windbreaker, headset, glossy hair pulled tight like a threat. Clydesdale curls cascading down the back. Lana. Zookeeper. Ringmaster. Televised trophy wife. Her teeth flash like she’s daring the world not to believe in her.

“WHO’S READY TO MAKE A SPLASH?!” she screams.

The crowd whoops. A dad with a stroller on his shin yells, “My back isn’t!” Chuckles. Ritual. Children shriek. Adults wince. From the other side of the rock island, Fred emerges, cohost, zookeeper, former alpha animal handler with a gait that implies a knee injury and some nonzero military trauma. Lana throws a sequined arm toward the pool.

“We’ve got a VERY SPECIAL FRIEND who’s feeling a little SHY today!”

Fred chimes in, baritone too smooth to be trusted.

A sea lion surfaces briefly, then disappears again with the theatrical timing of a union dispute. Lana forces a laugh.

“Aw, come on, buddy! Don’t be modest! They LOVE you!”

She claps violently, and the audience, confused, claps too. Fred leans down to the mic, deadpan.

“He’s been reading the news. Give him a second. Maybe he saw something he wasn’t supposed to.”

A long silence. Then: the sea lion reappears, a geyser of water, one slick flipper slapping a plastic ball Fred is dangling from a rope. A child in the front row screams. Another claps with eerie precision. Lana throws both hands in the air like a megachurch pastor.

“YESSSSSS! THAT’S OUR BABY BOY! GIVE IT UP FOR KEVINNNNN!”

Kevin emerges again. Slaps the water like he resents being named Kevin. Like a middle aged accountant being called Baby Boy. The audience claps harder, trying to will his enthusiasm into existence.

Fred deadpans again: “He’s going through a divorce.”

Lana shoots him a look. Fred stares at the audience, unblinking.

“I’m kidding. We don’t let them partner. Too messy. They get… ideas.”

Lana pivots hard. “NOW who wants to see Kevin ROLL OVER LIKE A GOOD BOY?!”

A hush falls over the crowd. The sea lion blinks once, twice. Then flips. Perfectly. Water arcs like choreography. The audience loses it. Screams, applause, phone cameras raised like little communion wafers. Fred lifts his mic again, voice low and strangely mournful.

“He didn’t used to do that.”

A woman in front of us whispers, “I think he’s depressed.”

Her partner says, “You would be too if your job was ball play for toddlers.”

Lana makes him wave. Kevin waves. She makes him spin. Kevin half-rotates. She tosses a plastic beach ball. Kevin watches it arc and fall with the resignation of a man watching his lottery numbers almost hit.

“Let’s give it up for ear flaps!” she chirps, and the crowd, god help us, obeys.

She holds up a rubber ring. “This trick took six months to teach!”

She tosses it. Kevin doesn’t move. Lana laughs like a can of whipped cream hissing its last hiss. “Oops! Even our smartest boy has off days!”

A child in the audience frowns. A Black girl in a powder blue hoodie. She’s not laughing. She’s staring. Not at the sea lion. Not at the glass. At the space behind it. Lana tosses again. Kevin turns away. Someone in the back cough-laughs. A child starts chanting “Do it! Kevin! Do it! Kevin!” with increasing desperation. The crowd picks up the chant. A dad near the aisle pulls out his phone and starts livestreaming.

Lana presses forward. “Let’s try something easier—Kevin’s famous splash!”

She claps. Kevin blinks. She claps again. Kevin dives, suddenly, gracelessly, disappearing beneath the surface. The crowd murmurs. Lana stammers. Her voice hiccups into static.

“Do it! Kevin! Do it! Kevin!”

Desperate clapping. Hopeful clapping. A baby screams. Someone’s soda spills. The air shimmers with confusion. No one quite sees how it happens. One second, Lana is beaming, mid-stride, across the rock bridge to her next Kevin command. The next, her body is trying to right itself as her boot breaks contact with wet rock the wrong way. The rope bridge tries to catch her but gives under the weight of her hips. On the way down, the soft at the back of her skull makes contact with a jag in the painted rock. Her headset mic amplifies the crack. A sound that silences the crowd as her body hits the water.

“Lana?!” Fred says, frozen, taking a beat too long for what just happened to click. Another beat of silence passes. Two more. A mother gasps. A child cries. One dad claps out of habit. Another claps, uncertain. A pigeon lands on Lana. Kevin’s head pops up from the water, awaiting more fish.

A man in cargo shorts says, “Is this part of it?”

A teenage girl says, “That’s so real.”

Fred carefully crawls toward Lana, like he’s Adam suddenly realizing he’s naked. He doesn’t touch her. Just stares. His mic is still on. You can hear his breathing, ragged, too intimate.

Someone whispers, “Should we… leave?”

Someone hisses, “We paid for the show.”

Another says, “Well if she’s hurt, they better comp our next visit.”

Kevin bobs at the edge of the pool, unblinking. Watching. Finally, an official sounding voice comes over the speaker:

“Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Sea Lion Splash Spectacular will not continue. Thank you for your understanding. Please find your way to the exit.”

No one moves. The music does not stop. The ocean track loops. Lana’s body remains, one arm bent like it’s trying to finish the show without her. Kevin, sweet, sullen Kevin, makes one slow circle around the pool. And dives.

A child turns, lip trembling. “Daddy, is she dead?”

The father, khaki shorts, sunglasses pushed into his scalp like a crown of thorns, squats down, hand on the child’s shoulder.

“No, no, sweetie, she just fell. People fall all the time.”

His voice sounds like he’s reading off a laminated card.

“Like… like how you fell last week near the slide. Remember?”

The child does not remember. Not like the child will remember this. Onstage, Lana’s body is being approached by two staffers in matching polos. One holds a tablet. One holds a mop. Neither seems authorized for death.

“Is she floating like the seal?”

“No, sweetie, she—she’s just resting.”

“But why is her leg the wrong way.”

He glances. He should not have glanced.

“That’s… that’s how trainers sometimes lie down. They’re very flexible.”

The woman next to him snorts.

“You gonna tell her the tooth fairy's gonna do the autopsy?”

He glares at her. She shrugs, peels fruit leather for her toddler.

“Daddy, are we going to die?”

The question is plain. Like asking about weather. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.

“No. Of course not.”

The announcer’s voice returns, stuttering: “Thank you for visiting Sea Lion Splash. Our next show will begin at four.”

The crowd slowly scatters. A controlled demolition of empathy. The father lifts his child back into the stroller. She watches the stage over his shoulder, her eyes catching on the clean up crew. Kevin, paddling slowly in the tank, silent, waiting for the next trick. The father leans down, whispers,

“Let’s go look at the penguins, huh?”

The child nods, but doesn’t blink. And just before they exit, she asks—

“Daddy, do the animals know we’re watching?”

He doesn’t answer. He pushes the stroller forward. Forward is easier than explaining why you’d go back. We head toward the penguins. The Sea Lion stage is now roped off with branded caution tape that reads “WET AREA — DO NOT CROSS.” A staffer crouches beside the blood with a pool skimmer. Another wheels out a sandwich board sign that reads:

“TRAINING IN PROGRESS. THANK YOU FOR UNDERSTANDING.”

Kevin does slow, balletic loop in the tank, still waiting for a fish that will never come. We pass a cluster of staff huddled near a back gate. One wears a headset. One has a lanyard with too many keys. They’re pretending to check something on a clipboard. But their posture is all wrong, tight shoulders, eyes scanning for eavesdroppers. Someone forgets to mute their walkie. A crackle. Then a voice.

“Same protocol as last month. Don’t escalate.” A pause. “Already scrubbed the feed. Social team’s on it.”

Another voice joins in, lower, impatient. “They need to stop sending newbs into the Splash rotation. She wasn’t cleared for Kevin. Jesus.”

“Policy changed. Nobody tells the trainers till after.”

Silence. Then: “Tell Maintenance to swap the mats again. And for god’s sake, someone get Ken off the stage.”

The stroller wheel catches a rut. I stumble, pretending not to hear. The walkie clicks again. Softer now, like a sigh that didn’t mean to be spoken aloud:

“We’re gonna lose another one.”

The staffer mutters something about radio interference, slaps the device, and walks away. No one else seems to notice. The child starts chanting again—

“Red panda, hot dog, red panda, hot dog…”

And forward we go. Toward the arctic exhibit. Toward the penguins. Toward the next enclosure.

A robotic penguin twitches its head and blurts, “Waddle this way!” in a jingle-tone.

Then, glitching:

“Who’s watching…who’s watching…who’s watching…”

A staffer slaps the panel. It restarts.

“Waddle this way!”

The child narrows her eyes. “That wasn’t right.”

We pass into the Arctic Hall. It’s colder here, but not real cold. Vending machine cold. Insurance office cold. The air smells like bleach and freezer burn. A fog machine exhales rhythmically from a fake ice cave. Near the center of the hall, a woman stands alone, staring into the penguin enclosure. The penguins stare back. Five of them. Still. Watchful. They don’t wobble. They don’t blink. They look like they’ve been waiting for her. Her hair is wet. Not from water. From time. From forgetting how long she’s been standing here. Her child pulls at her sleeve, voice high and nervous.

“Mommy, why are you hiding?”

She doesn’t answer right away. Just breathes. The kind of breath that comes after too many held. The kind of breath that thinks it's alone. Finally, she says—

“I’m not hiding, honey.”

Though she is. Everyone is. A soft PA chime echoes overhead. Something about discount plushies. Something about making memories. The penguins don’t move.

The child lets out a big yawn. Time to go home. Outside, a crowd has gathered. Silent, reverent, the way people stand at the scene of an accident they’re pretending isn’t one.

A massive bear leans against the glass. Slumped, upright. Not asleep, not awake. His eyes are open, but uninhabited. Like someone left the lights on in a house that's no longer there. He doesn’t move. Not a twitch. Not a blink. A child taps the glass.

Another says, “Is he real?”

A woman whispers, “He’s just resting.”

A teen takes a selfie, angles her lips into sorrow. A man next to her murmurs, “Looks like my uncle on Oxy.”

The bear exhales, barely, and the crowd gasps. A man starts clapping. Half a dozen follow. Applause for breath. Applause for confirmation that the thing still breathes. The bear does not respond. He might be dead and dreaming of staying that way. A zookeeper approaches. Taps a tablet. Says nothing. Backs away.

A girl nearby points out, “There’s no food in there.”

Her mother kneels beside her. “That’s because he already ate.”

The girl frowns. “When?”

The mother hesitates. “Earlier.”

The bear shifts slightly, and a faint smear of pink appears on the glass. No one mentions it. Someone laughs, awkwardly.

The father from earlier leans to his daughter’s ear. “They get sleepy after lunch.”

The child looks up at him. Then back at the bear.

“So do I,” she says. But she doesn’t sound convinced.

The exit path dead-ends at a pair of sliding doors. A glowing sign overhead reads:

“THANK YOU FOR VISITING THE WILD!”

Exit Through the Wonder Emporium™ Gift Experience!

The child lights up. “Stuffed red panda!” she squeals.

We’re funneled into a maze of plushies and plastic. Rows of rainbow-anodized animal sippy cups. Eco-branded hoodies made in Bangladesh. Neon tank tops that say ZOO CREW. A wall of pencils, each topped with googly-eyed wildlife not found anywhere in this hemisphere or the other. The air smells like vanilla and despair. The crowd moves slowly, dazed. Some are genuinely shopping. Others just trying to find the exit. But the exit is nowhere in sight. A mother swipes her card. Declined. She tries again. The doors do not open.

A speaker overhead chirps: “Every visit helps the animals!” Then, lower, “Every animal helps the visit.”

A man carrying a crying toddler looks around. “Where’s the exit?”

A teen employee shrugs. “It’s behavior-based.”

“What?”

“Like… it unlocks when the system registers completion.”

“Completion of what?”

She pops a bubble with her gum. “Engagement.”

He looks down. His kid is clutching a stuffed penguin with a tag that reads:

“I survived the Arctic Slide.”

He sighs. Pays. The doors part.

Only after each group makes a purchase do the automatic doors ding and slide open. A red light turns green. A mechanical voice says, “Transaction complete. Safe travels!”

A woman mutters, “It’s like a fucking tollbooth.”

Just before the doors close behind us, something catches my eye. A flash. A reflection. A small face, pressed against the inside of the glass, visible only from the outside. The ghost-children. Watching us exit. Unable to follow. One of them mouths something. I turn to look. The doors have closed. The glass reflects us like we’re inside. We head toward the parking lot, clutching the red panda.

The child falls asleep the minute we clip her into her car seat. Head tilted, mouth open, fingers still curled around the stuffed red panda like she caught it in a dream and doesn’t want to let go. The car hums. Outside, trees blur. Inside, my wife scrolls. I open my phone to get directions home. Fourteen new emails. All junk. The Dow is down 400 points. I feel nothing. No one speaks. The air in the car is thick with sugar and exhaustion.

My wife finds a small piece of torn fabric in the cup holder. Pale blue. Frayed edge. Wool, or something close enough. Too soft. Wrong era.

My wife frowns. “Where’d this come from?”

I don’t answer. I know exactly where it came from. She turns back to the window. An exhale of air conditioning blows the scrap out of my wife’s hand. It lands gently on the child’s leg. She doesn’t stir.

Traffic thickens. Brake lights blink like warning flares. In the rearview, the zoo sign is visible.

THANK YOU FOR VISITING. REMEMBER TO CARE.

The child exhales. A small smile flickers across her face. She sleeps. We keep driving.