When I was 7 and went to the zoo with my second-grade class, I

Host: The afternoon light slanted through the iron bars of the zoo, splintering into stripes that crawled across the concrete floor like the ghosts of a forgotten jungle. The air was thick with the smell of hay, metal, and something heavier — the dull, living scent of captivity. Children’s voices echoed in the distance, full of laughter that felt out of place, as if innocence itself didn’t belong here.

At the edge of an old enclosure, where the paint peeled and the air was still, Jack and Jeeny stood side by side. A chimpanzee sat in the corner — its eyes dark, its shoulders hunched, its small world measured by the width of its bars.

Jack’s hands were buried in his pockets, his expression hard, his jaw tight. Jeeny stood quietly, one hand on the rusting railing, her breathing slow, her eyes fixed on the chimp as if she were seeing her own reflection in those dark, unblinking orbs.

Host: The wind stirred faintly, carrying with it the echo of an old memory — a child’s memory — the voice of Octavia E. Butler whispering through time:

“When I was 7 and went to the zoo with my second-grade class, I saw chimpanzee eyes for the first time — the eyes of an unhappy animal, all alone, locked in a bare, concrete-floored, iron-barred cage in one of the nastier, old-fashioned zoos. I remember looking at the chimp, then looking away.”

The words seemed to hang above the cage like invisible smoke, filling the silence between Jack and Jeeny.

Jeeny: (softly) “She said she looked away. Because she couldn’t stand to see it. I think we all look away, Jack.”

Jack: (flatly) “Because what’s the point of staring? You can’t free it by watching.”

Jeeny: “But you can stop pretending it’s fine.”

Jack: “Pretending is how people survive. You can’t carry every sadness you see. You’ll drown.”

Jeeny: “Maybe we’re already drowning. We just call it living.”

Host: A small child ran past, holding a red balloon, her laughter breaking the spell for a moment. The chimp lifted its head, watching the balloon float up — then settled back, expression unreadable, ancient.

Jeeny: “Do you ever wonder if they remember? The forest? The freedom?”

Jack: “You can’t miss what you don’t know.”

Jeeny: “That’s not true. Every creature knows when it’s not where it belongs. You can see it in the eyes — that quiet, haunted confusion of a mind that remembers sky but sees walls.”

Jack: “You’re giving it human pain.”

Jeeny: “Because it is human pain. That’s the point, Jack. They feel like we do. They love, they grieve, they hope. But we turned that into entertainment.”

Host: The chimp shifted, scratching at the floor, its movements slow — not from laziness, but resignation. A fly buzzed near its ear, and it didn’t bother to swat.

Jack: “You talk as if guilt could undo evolution. Humans built zoos because that’s what we do — control, study, learn. If we didn’t, we’d never understand them.”

Jeeny: “Understand them? Or own them? There’s a difference.”

Jack: “So what then? No zoos? No science? No learning? You think we can just set them free and watch them die out because their habitat’s already gone?”

Jeeny: “I think we could start by not calling cruelty curiosity.”

Host: A faint rain began to fall, dotting the glass of the enclosure, turning the world inside and outside into a mirrored blur. The chimp’s eyes lifted — for a second, they met Jeeny’s. It was the kind of gaze that stripped language of meaning.

Jeeny: (quietly) “Do you see it? That look? That’s what Octavia meant. That unbearable recognition. The moment you realize the animal isn’t the one imprisoned — you are.”

Jack: (turns toward her) “You’re romanticizing pain. She was a child. She didn’t understand context. The zoo isn’t cruelty, it’s compromise. We’re not gods — we’re caretakers trying to preserve what’s left.”

Jeeny: “Caretakers don’t keep their wards behind bars.”

Jack: “They do when the world outside has turned to fire and plastic. That chimp is alive because of those bars.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. It’s surviving because of them. That’s not the same thing.”

Host: The rain picked up, soft but steady, beating against metal and glass. The sound was like whispered applause — gentle, sorrowful, endless.

Jack wiped the fog from the window with his sleeve and stared again. The chimp was now sitting perfectly still, its hands resting in its lap, its face motionless, almost monk-like.

Jack: “Maybe Butler was right. Maybe we do look away. Because deep down, we know this isn’t about animals. It’s about us.”

Jeeny: “Yes. About what we do to things weaker than us — and then justify it with intellect.”

Jack: “We can’t carry guilt for every tragedy we inherit. Humanity didn’t invent cages; nature did. We’re just copying the order of things.”

Jeeny: “No. Nature builds ecosystems. We build prisons.”

Host: A flash of lightning illuminated the cage, throwing the chimp’s shadow against the wall — immense, haunting, like a distorted mirror of man himself.

Jeeny: “You know, I once read that when Octavia saw that chimp, she didn’t just see an animal. She saw a reflection of her own future — a world where humans would cage each other the same way. That’s what Kindred, what all her writing was — a warning from that cage.”

Jack: (softly) “A warning we ignored.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because it was easier to call her imaginative than prophetic.”

Host: The rain eased. The sky cracked open with faint light, revealing the green shimmer of wet leaves beyond the enclosures — like a glimpse of the world before walls.

Jack: “You think there’s redemption in realizing all this?”

Jeeny: “No. Just responsibility.”

Jack: “And what do we do with that?”

Jeeny: (after a pause) “Start by not looking away.”

Host: The words fell like stones in the silence. The chimp turned its back, curling into itself, small and still. Somewhere beyond the enclosures, the sound of thunder receded — distant, tired.

Jack exhaled, long and slow.

Jack: “You know, when I was seven, I went to a zoo too. I remember a tiger pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth. My father said it was hunting instincts. But now I think it was something else.”

Jeeny: “What?”

Jack: “Memory.”

Jeeny: (nodding) “Yes. Memory’s the cruelest freedom.”

Host: The rain stopped. A faint ray of light pierced through the clouds, falling directly onto the cage. Dust motes swirled in it — small, brief galaxies dancing in a sliver of sun.

Jack: “Maybe we deserve the bars more than they do.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why we build them — to remind ourselves what we’ve lost.”

Host: The camera of the moment pulled back slowly — the zoo shrinking beneath the sky, cages fading into the pattern of streets, and the people walking outside looking not unlike the animals within: pacing, waiting, moving in circles they couldn’t see.

And somewhere, under that wide gray sky, Octavia Butler’s childhood memory whispered again — not as guilt, but as prophecy:

That the day we stop seeing pain in another creature’s eyes
is the day we forget what makes us human.

Host: And in that quiet, the chimp blinked once — slow, steady — like the last witness of an ancient truth:

that freedom is not the absence of bars,
but the refusal to stop seeing them.