I wonder where the kind lions went. Perhaps you remember them, the ones that climbed down from their courthouse or library pedestals to see children safely home. There were jungles then, clearly delineated, with cruel lions and predators of every sort. The kind lions led children away from the undergrowth, toward the light from kitchen windows, telling them what they needed to know to become kind and strong themselves.

The libraries are gone now. Courthouses are sleek and featureless, their walls of black glass revealing only our own reflections. The few lions that are left are made of the same stuff as their pedestals. They are neither kind nor cruel, just senseless stone the rain wears away. Palms and baobabs grow between houses, hiding the windows, and from them comes the chittering of something unnamable.