One is the loneliest number

On Tuesday, May 24, two newly introduced capybaras made a daring escape from the High Park Zoo in Toronto. During their mad dash to freedom, the tropical critters left behind a single capybara in the pen, who was evidently left out of the escape plans. Th

Okay guys you will not believe the day I have lined up for us. I am so happy to welcome you to the pen. We’re going to start with a lovely bit of three-and-a-half hours of lying virtually motionless in the wading pool, followed by a brief waddle around the grass, two more hours of imitating a fat furry log, a leisurely eat, then some … guys?

Guys? Hellloooooo? Friends? Fellow rat-shaped beach balls? Countrymen?

Are you hiding in the little hut? I will admit I have often found succour in the hut, away from the prying, judgmental eyes of the cursed emu. But there is much lazing about to be done, and soon the emus’ sight-lines will be blocked by the rotund, bobbing heads of the small humans. Do you know about the small humans? Their eyes are too vacuous to suggest any hint of malice, and they might even offer us carrots, even though that flies in the face of everything we know about wild species diet management. Still, carrots.

Oh my god, is the gate open? GOOD LORD ONE OF THE RACCOONS IS AFTER OUR RESERVES OF LEAFY GRASSES AND AQUATIC PLANTS AGAIN! DEFEND YOUR NEW HOME FRIENDS! LIE DOWN ON OUR STASH WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT! Wait a minute. Our pile of bland roughage remains inexplicably untouched. And now that I think about it, the raccoons subsist largely on the ends of hot dog buns and stained popsicle sticks. They would not use a healthy green plant to so much as wipe the underside of their fetid ringed tails. But if no one is trying to get in, that must mean that you … they … they left?

Those … those sorry ingrates. Do they not understand what a paradise this is, among the yaks and llamas? Their only job here was to freely procreate. They have hours of bliss fullness ahead of them; their only concern was holding off long enough to get bribed with delicious bananas. What miserable fools! Oh, please, save me from this grassy heaven, where we might leisurely explore each others’ prickly, bulbous bodies, free from the threat of anacondas getting a two-for-one special on fertile rodents.

Oh my goodness — are there anacondas out there? What of pumas? I distinctly remember stories of caiman in one of the ponds near here. Oh, my new friends were probably just eager to explore their new environs; they did not know that the mothering womb of our enclosure ends at the chain link. Yes, yes, that’s it: they just wanted to smell the sweet cherry blossoms, to break reeds with our fastidious beaver cousins, and now they are going to end up in the belly of some foul cat, or smeared across the fender of some texting ninny in a black SUV who is plainly ignoring that Parkside Drive is a 40 zone.

If only I had warned them on our initial tour, instead of bragging about how often the wading pool is refilled. I am useless, good-for-nothing. I don’t deserve to have friends to rub my scent gland on or discreetly watch while they make the capybara with two backs. I am a horrible bore, my fur is faded and drab, I let my teeth grow too long, I spend too much time near the Highland Steer, and now his breathtaking stench hangs around me like the cloud of sadness that is my life. I am not a capybara. I am barely even a vole.

No. NO. You will not fall into this trap of self-pity again. You can wiggle your buttonlike ears with the best of them. You were top of your class in sitting placidly while a bird picks parasites from your fur. People take pictures of you, and then they put those pictures on Instagram, sometimes even without a filter.

Matter of fact … Bird! HEY BIRD! Come sit on my head! SIT ON MY HEAD! Because people will love it, that’s why. No, it is not a trick, I lack the imaginative planning necessary for deception and the canine teeth with which to eat you. People love this stuff, I swear. There’s like a whole website of it. Bird! Squirrel? Eh? You guys need a win.

What does an oversize rodent have to do to get someone to sit on him around here? To hell with it, it’s time for the big guns. Hey! Small human! Free capybara rides! C’mon, just climb over that fence and we can have ourselves a South American aquatic mammal rodeo. There’s no way that doesn’t go viral. I promise not to drop you in poop.

Oh, yeah, fine, you go see the bison. Can’t get enough of staring into that gaping, uncomprehending abyss. I hope he tramples you, small human. You and the fat guy who keeps lifting you above the fence, who didn’t even bring carrots.

Still, at least he is there to lift you over the fence. At least you will die together, in that horrible bison stampede. Who will I die with? Who will I live with?

Hey, chicken, you ever stood on a capybara?

YOU WILL NOT FALL INTO THIS TRAP OF SELF-PITY, AGAIN.