DANNY'S PARADISE

A mouse jumped over a little boy’s feet on its way to a hiding place, the boy looked at the little creature and was startled. He never saw a mouse before. So he asked his father what was that little thing with a tail? The father said, “Frogs don’t have tails.” The boy said, “So that was a frog?”

“You’ve never seen a frog before huh, son? Well that’s what they do, they hop from place to place and then into ponds and puddles.” Daddy said.  “But this frog went under a house.”

“Where?” Daddy asked his son. The son pointed the place and his dad was puzzled, but then realized that it had to be a mouse.

“Ah, now I get it, it was a mouse Danny. Was it furry?”

“Yes.” The boy said.

“And it jumped over your feet?”

“Yes.” The boy said again.

“Well the mouse took liking to you and wanted to be part of our family. Perhaps the mouse was showing you some affection and wanted to play, but since you got startled; because you have never seen this critter before; it got also scared and hid itself in the crevice of our house.”

The boy did some thinking and decided that all creatures are playful and that they want to come closer to humans, especially children. But what makes them so shy?

The boy grew, went to school until he graduated from a collage majoring in biology. In a very short time he amassed a collection of mice, frogs and all sorts of critters. But those critters did not really want to play. None of them were interested in any relationship with their captor. Danny realized that their confinement is the cause of their resentment; so he wrote theses regarding this phenomenon stating that little creatures must be free and only then their inquisitive nature allows them to be playful. He was right, but only partially.

Danny went on a long trip to the Amazonian jungle and tried to befriend as many creatures as he could. Bug bitten and tired Danny tried to befriend snakes and lizards as well as mice. It was a long and tedious process. He realized that befriending a snake and a mouse at the same time was not a good idea. Befriending a dung beetle and a lizard was also not good. Each creature fed on another and so they were more than enemies, they were at war. When you befriend one you alienate another.  

Danny wondered if animals are also jealous or envious. Some are, especially among the ape family. Freedom to all creatures means also taking their chances at survival. So Danny decided to examine their DNA. To his surprise he realized that their survival instincts are written in DNA and no matter how would you like to change it you would have to isolate each creature and feed it with their preferred food until they lose any appetite for game.

Years passed and the animals have fattened and became lazy. Although the isolation was spacious enough for them to establish a territory of their own, their predatory instincts started to wane so much that their young had nothing to imitate except playing with buzzing insects.

Danny became an old man, but his research was inconclusive for when he was with lions they playfully rubbed their furs against him just as all cats like to do. The antelopes were not afraid of the human omnivore and looked for treats in his hand. Snakes were so familiar with Danny that they too relaxed and slept and he could touch them without any display of any defensive aggression. 

Looking at the clock his time was quickly slipping away. Danny decided to crown his research with the final experiment. He decided to bring all his creatures together into his paradise.

Lions looked curiously at the antelopes and the antelopes at the lions parsing their impulses. Hyenas also acted quite relaxed and curious. Some DNA strands ‘rang bells’ while others rested. Which ringing bell was the right own begged the question. All other critters looked at each other as if they saw them for the very first time. Danny seemed satisfied. One lizard climbed up on a lion playing with his mane. The lion shook his head in displeasure, after all his genes told him that he is king.  The lizard flew off the lion’s mane near by a grasshopper. They looked at each other not knowing what to do. The grasshopper jumped and the lizard ran after him, so the grasshopper jumped again, even higher this time, but the lizard, fascinated with the grasshopper’s hop tried to do the same, so both started to hop.

The king lion took his stalking posture, lowered his posture and stealthily made his way toward an antelope. The herbivore antelope jumped as high as it could. The lion was thrown off his course; he tilted his head as if puzzled by the creature’s behavior. Well fed and lazy he just used his instinct in a playful manner and so did the antelope.

The study was bore fruit, but the seeming success was also expensive. Lions kept devouring the thrown to them chunks of meat, and all other critters ate granulated food made just to their liking. All creatures grazed, chewed cud and eventually stopped paying attention to each other; as if the lost paradise had been found.  

The funding for Danny’s project was withdrawn and there was no more money for food for his animals. The fences were dismantled and the crew left the animals alone. Danny’s health was failing and he needed special care.

A couple of years passed, but Danny’s mind was still on his paradise experiment. He wondered how his African pets were doing; he himself could not go back to see them, he was too frail.

With an oxygen mask on his face, intravenously fed the old man kept fighting the slipping away spark of life.

Danny’s friends came to see him and perhaps say goodbye. But Danny was not yet ready.

“Would you please do a dying man's last favor?” Danny whispered.

“What is it daddy?” Andrew asked his father.

“Please take me back to my paradise. For the last time I want to see how my friends are doing.”

After many deliberations Danny’s friends and family agreed to meet the dying man’s wish. They figured that the old dying man has a choice to either expire on the hospital bed or in the open planes of Africa.

Danny was happy and the spark of life clung back to him; he seemed to be revived and strengthened. But, to get the hospital discharge was a problem. Taking into account Danny’s high stature as a respected biologist the doctors finally agreed to grant a conditional release.

The team arrived at the former camp of paradise. The wooden bungalows they have left behind were in terrible disrepair and it made no sense to restore them.  There was no time to work on them. They set up a tent camp instead. 

Riding in a four-wheeler Rover the team kept scanning the rough terrains for any signs of their now free and wild friends. It was a challenge, which they were no longer accustomed to. Some of the transmitters they have earlier attached to the animals were still emitting signals, although weak yet traceable. Inevitably, they had to track at least one of their friends. And so they did. Some of them where killed by their traditional predators others injured yet still alive.

* * *

During that period of time some other lions stalked and attempted to grab the now free and friendly antelopes, but to their surprise the paradise lions defended their friends. Amazingly they were able to distinguish the wild ones from those they grew up with in paradise. Also the smaller critters did the same for their friends. But how were they able to distinguish between friends and foes? Was it through scent, special markings or some endearing features; perhaps all of them?

* * *

The paradise team spotted a hyena and a nearby pride of lions that just made a kill. As the team approached the scene someone said that the hyena resembles Halo the male hyena from paradise, and the lion’s mane looked like that of King's. Danny reached for binoculars magnifying his view.

“That’s them!” He exclaimed.

“Help me out.” Despite his frailty the old Danny asked for help in getting out of the jeep. He slowly started to walk, first toward the hyena making those old familiar to Halo sounds around the feeding time in paradise. With his ears raised Halo froze still.

“Halo. Is that you? Come here boy.”

The team was still in the vehicle when the hyena bolted toward Danny. They shrieked in fright. “Oh my God, he’s going for him!”

Danny just stood there with his arms opened welcoming his friend, who instead of attacking him behaved like a dog wanting to be embraced, licking the man and dancing around him with joy. The lion pride watched this unusual spectacle but only one started toward Danny. Again the team screeched in fright, but this time with a little hesitance, wondering… watching.

“King, my boy!” Danny cried with excitement. The hyena was still dancing, cowering like all the male hyenas do before a dominant matriarch, squealing softly, overjoyed. The lion went straight for Danny and fell straight into Danny’s open arms and knocked him down to the ground. His mouth still dripping with blood from his fresh kill King was overjoyed, rolling on the ground with the old man and then he stopped. 

King looked Danny over, smelled him and then lied beside him as if guarding the old frail man, perhaps he detected Danny's frialty and although he displayed exuberant happiness; he also displayed signs of gentleness. Danny slowly rolled toward his old pal and grabbed his bountiful crown, his mane, indeed a king of his own castle with pride numbering about twenty.

The embrace lasted a short while. The lion pride looked on puzzled, ‘has their dad gone mad or is he making another kill?’

Those of the old paradise crew moved toward Danny being greeted by Halo wagging his tale like a dog. Everyone was wiping tears off their faces.

Danny remained motionless. At first the lion King acted as a guard over his old friend, then he smelled Danny once more. King gave the last long and mournful farewell roar for his friend and then stretched out his body next to Danny’s. Both bodies, that of a human and that of an animal remained still.

Cautiously, Andrew approached the pair. The team lifted Danny’s body off the ground and carried him to the car.

At the start of the engine, King lifted his head and looked in their direction for the very last time. Halo sat back on his hind lags watching the departure.

Andrew has built upon his father’s legacy. Although his research is incomplete few points must be emphasized as we draw closer to the moral of this story.

* * *

If we can train animals to make peace with each other, even before the Messianic Age, we can do the same for each other today.

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God.” – Said Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 5 and verse 9.