Galena,

You know that I can never forgive you.  It is St. Patrick’s Day, and I am sitting here at my grandfather’s old desk writing you this letter and spilling green beer all over it. I can’t even cry because this beer tastes delicious. But just because I can’t cry doesn’t mean I’m going to forgive you.

What is forgiveness, anyway? Is it the unballing of a crumpled paper sitting in the shape of a fist? Is it a wife trimming her husband’s mustache? A mosquito coughing up blood? I don’t know, because that’s not how I feel.

I want to make this letter so thick that they won’t be able to slip it between the bars to give it to you. Instead, they will have to  hang it from a post just a few feet away from you, just out of your reach, and you’ll watch it flutter and dangle, a dandelion seed on the edge of a cliff, and you’ll be thirsty for it. You will want to know what it says and where I went and how I am but there is no way in hell I am going to hand-deliver it. No way.

I can’t believe the way you acted. No regard for anyone but yourself. I can’t understand it. After all I’ve done for you, all I’ve given you. I protected you, I defended you; I made sure you were warm or cold, depending on the season. And what thanks do I get? Nothing. Just stabbed in the back, a skewer through an onion, a piece of beachglass in my left foot.

Galena, you are the stupidest piece of shit zebra I have ever met, and I am transferring to the reptile exhibit because I hate you.

Sincerely,

Ms. Ashley

Assistant Zookeeper

Takoma Park Zoo