And just like that humans’ grandchildren had no longer any nature to fear. The realization caught like wildfire, “If I own a piece I can preserve it forever…” and so the skins, tusks, and ***** content of Terre’s wildlife were mined, processed, and stored away on the dusty shelves of a million or so peoples’ soon to be rotten bookshelves. Systematically, part and parcel of the threads of the wild world were sectioned, cut, and numbered so that the remaining lives, if you could call them that, would all have a souvenir of a living planet.

     The hunt began a feeding frenzy; taking more human lives than what was even left of any African bush elephant, or Indus river dolphin. The hunger that consumed humanity was not for lives, no, but for the shreds of physical evidence that something once had lived, and it was at no expended cost that every last giraffe, tree frog, and jack-rabbit was displayed on artificial walls under fluorescent lights.

     “The man who sold me this piece said a whole village worth of people fought over the carcass.” When questioned,
     “which village?” he replied,
    “I didn’t get to ask. He was called over to aisle 9.”

     Those who could afford it were buried with their different duckbills, and lizard toes, snakeskins, and fish fins. Covered like a mummified Frankenstein in the garb of a living world. Stored in a plastic container and neatly tucked into a concrete wall surrounded by weathered stones and a manicured lawn. Their family would tell stories about how greatly they loved life in all forms, how hard they worked, how many they killed in order to procure such wonderful treasures. Their story was forgotten; like a thirsty root in the desert.