A lion went on a killing spree. He chased down antelope, zebras, wildebeest. Any creature he came across was game: rats, lizards, baboons, he killed them all. And when he was finished, he dragged their carcasses into a pile and began to eat.

Scavengers gathered around him: vultures, hyenas, insects of all shapes, drawn by the stench of death. There was going to be a feast like never before. They could sense it. They just had to wait. But when the lion had eaten his fill, he did not move aside.

“Have you finished eating?” a hyena asked, stepping forward. The lion sent him back with a roar. “Come any closer and I will add you to the pile,” he warned. “It was I who killed these animals. Me, and only me. And I intend to keep them for myself.”

“But you can’t eat them all,” the scavengers replied. “There’s too much. It will rot and putrefy and turn bad before you get through one tenth of what you’ve accumulated.” “That is not your concern,” said the lion.

The scavengers felt it was very much their concern. “You don’t understand,” the hyena explained, from a safe distance. “It is our role to clean up the remains. Together we are able to dispose of everything. Nothing goes to waste, nothing gets left to spread disease. Everybody benefits.”

“It is you who do not understand,” the lion bellowed, raising himself high above the crowd. “Things have changed. You will have to earn your feed. Build a monument to commemorate my achievements and I will allow you to eat as you did before. Now, go! Hurry, before the stench gets too strong.”

The scavengers muttered among themselves. They shook their heads, but eventually they set to work. The hyenas and jackals stripped dead trees, the vultures carried the trunks, while insects bound them with threads of vine and sticky trails, and mongooses rolled rocks to secure the foundation.

When they had finished, the lion came down from his seat and began to circle the monument. “You have done well,” he said. “You worked quickly. I did not expect you to finish so soon. But, tell me, what is it meant to be?”

“Why, sire,” the scavengers replied. “Do you not see? It is a cage. We have built you a cage.”

 Richard Parkin, 2024