A little boy glanced up admiringly at his father in uniform. ‘I also want to become a forest officer when I grow up!’. ‘Really, Luan?’, his father asked, beaming at his son. Luan giggled.
‘I will come back as soon as possible’, his father said and waved his son goodbye. The sun had almost set and the dim sky was adorned with a tapestry of clouds.
Fredrich walked towards his crew that he worked with. He detached the fake badges and ranks he had worn in front of Luan. One of his colleagues winced at him. ‘Your son, Luan, doesn’t know we are poachers, does he? That we kill animals, not protect them?’. A grave look etched upon Fredrich’s bony face. ‘No, he doesn’t. I want him to get raised well, not end up like me’.
His colleague patted his back and they followed the rest of the crew into the steep edges of the Great Escarpment.
Men walked around, unboxing guns in the safety of giant bushes. The ridge of the hills were blanketed in darkness when the crew armed themselves and started walking one-by-one down into the grassy lands that belonged to animal sanctuaries.
Suddenly, a soft whimper rung across the heath.
‘It’s a rhino’s cry!’, Fredrich called out to his crew, dispersed in all directions. ‘It’s a rhino’s cry!’, he told himself. ‘Trace this rhino…it must be somewhere around. Load the tranquilizer! Look out for forest rangers if any…’. His mind plunged into alertness.
Fredrich pulled a tranquillizer gun from his pocket and focused carefully. His eyes darted across the wild grass. The most beautiful thing about a rhinoceros is its horn, Fredrich had always assumed. He thought that it not only helped the animal to gather food and scare away other animals, but it also gave glory to the creature. The animal might be able to camouflage in the bushes, but the dainty horn is visible to the eye, even in the darkest of nights.
In close sight, Fredrich saw a grey figure hovering around. He approached the rhino carefully, who was feeding its child. The rhino had a narrow and long horn, rather pointy. So, she was the mother. Her child, so little in size, cuddled up to the mother and shook its tiny ears.
A cold wind blew, rousing movement in the dry, tall grass. Fredrich tightened his grip on his tranquillizer gun. Both the rhinos laid themselves on the prickly grass, their ears pressed to the ground, listening to the secrets and stories the soil told them.
The mother closed her eyes, dozing off to a peaceful sleep when Fredrich aimed his target, but the child was restless, as though it knew what was about to happen. It would gape at the horizon: like the sunflowers await sun, like stars await the moon, like a child awaits his father.
And the realization dawned upon him. His own son was waiting for him at home, believing the stories of his father rescuing lives. But in the quest of changing his son’s life and his own, he had only caused damage to animals that had done nothing to him. And now when he looked around, there were no targets, there was only peace.
Fredrich sat there for a long time. He knew it was long, because when he got up, the boundless pastures had plunged into darkness; the rhinos fast asleep. Of course, he knew he could still wrestle the creature and slash away its horn. But his remorse made lifting the weapons heavy.
The air was crisp. Sounds of chirping filled the air with freshness. The crew gathered back where they had dispersed. ‘We’re leaving!’, one of the men called out. Fredrich got up and followed the other poachers as they made their way out of the bushes.
The roads were empty. Fredrich headed off on his route when someone interrupted. ‘Your home’s the other way!’. ‘I know’, he replied, ‘I need to get something for my son’. ‘Chocolates, goodies?’. ‘Nope. I’m applying to become a forest ranger. I think it’s right time to do something for the wild’. A smile etched upon Fredrich’s face. ‘After all, I’ve ripped so much of its beauty, I should be the one to put it back together’.
By: Apoorva Vishwanath
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