The Marsupial Prisoner

An imprisoned kangaroo longs for his lost children.

   Life in prison wasn’t easy for a kangaroo.  The ceiling of his cell wasn’t tall enough for him to hop in, so Bobby had to bounce idly on the tips of his heels.  The only place he was free to hop was the prison yards, where he was routinely made a mockery of.  The other inmates, intoxicated on humorous notions of a boxing kangaroo, forced Bobby to participate in organized fights.  Outcries to the guards fell on deaf ears, as many of them had a stake in the gambling ring that had formed; the others were indifferent. 
    There was nowhere within the confines of the prison for Bobby to graze, and the meals were ill-suited for his herbivorous diet.  He had become weak and frail due to his malnutrition and regular fights, and began to wonder if he’d ever live to see the day of his release.
    The thought of his joeys was all that kept Bobby’s will alive. It had been years since he was taken from them, but he was confident that his children would be exactly where he had left them.
    “One hundred seventy-five paces north; three cobblestones and a pine bush mark the spot,” he would say to Old-timer, the only prisoner who would listen to or show any sympathy for the kangaroo.
    “That’s where your boys will be waiting, because a kangaroo always keeps its word,” Old-timer would add, finishing Bobby’s oft-repeated thought. Old-timer was serving life for a crime he had never disclosed to anyone on the grounds. He had a crooked nose that looked as if it might come off if pulled, a skinny frame covered in saggy white skin that could be molded like dough.
    On the eve of his release, Bobby was bouncing restlessly in his cell when Old-timer came by, ushered by two stone-faced guards.
    “Been savin’ these for you,” he whispered as he passed, sliding an emptied marble-pouch of peas between the bars.
   
    The next morning, a pair of guards locked arms with Bobby and led him through a receding iron gate and past the prison walls, where they let him go with a jerk and turned back toward the walls in silence. Bobby didn’t take a moment to relish in his freedom. He looked to the sun to gather his bearings and hopped northward, carefully counting his paces.
    By pace one-hundred-and-sixty-five it became clear to Bobby that his children were not where he had left them. He approached the vicinity slowly, cupping his battered hands toward the sky and yelling his children’s names. It wasn’t as he had left it: the pine bush was slanted and jagged, the grass around it was yellowed and flattened.
    “Robby! Bobby Jr.!” he cried to the heavens. No response.
    Again, Bobby wasted little time meddling. He hopped northward, leaving the bush behind, declaring: “I’ll hop around the world to find my boys, if that’s what it takes.”
    And a kangaroo always keeps its word, so hop Bobby did. He hopped over green grass and dead grass, tall grass and short. He hopped over deserts and sand dunes, puddles and bridges. Over skittering reptiles and colonies of ants. When he reached the ocean, he waited for a boat to come to the bay. He’d jump on the boat and hop in place until he had crossed the ocean, because he said he’d hop around the world, so hop he did.
    After a year of hopping and searching to no avail, Bobby was nearing the pine bush where he had began his journey. His arms and legs had grown lean and muscular, but his eyes were droopy and he felt weathered and distraught.
    “Where could they have gone?” he would ask himself. Kangaroos never stray; it was a mystery to him. The crooked pine bush was his last hope. Maybe they had found their way back there, and maybe he could he could jubilantly end his journey where it had began.
    To get to the pine bush, Bobby had to pass the prison where he used to be held. When the outskirts of the jail appeared on the horizon, he shuddered. Though it was atypical of a kangaroo, he decided to veer off his path to avoid coming close to the prison.
    Bobby had just hopped past the jail yards and was a mere one-hundred-fifty-seven paces from the pine bush when he heard a shouting from the distance.
    “Stop right there!” a fumbling guard yelled from behind him.
    Bobby was not going to submit willingly this time, so he picked up the pace and continued northward. He was huffing and wheezing and hopping as fast as he could when something snared him from below and he fell flat on his wet black nose. When he came to, he was being read his rights.
    “Bobby the Kangaroo, you are under arrest for being too adventurous. You have the right…”
    One hundred and fifty seven paces. One hundred and fifty seven paces. Bobby couldn’t stop thinking about how close he might have been, about how worried his boys must be, about how cruel of a joke life seemed to be…

    The jailbirds were roaring and applauding as Bobby was being ushered to his cell. “Bobby’s back!” they yelled. “Look how big he’s gotten… my money’s on Bobby this time!” one said.
    Bobby glanced at Old-timer as he passed his cell. He had grown even skinnier, and a broken cigarette hung languidly from the corner of his lips. “Your boys is here,” he said. “Rob and Bobby Jr., cell D-1. Good to see, good to see you Bobby.”
    “My boys!” Bobby gasped. He broke free from the grip of the guards and hopped, arms cuffed behind his back, to their cell.
    They sat in opposite corners of their cell, their ears flopped over their closed eyes. “Rob! Bobby Jr.!” Bobby shouted at them, and they squinted up at him.
    “Boys, what are you doing here?”
    “Daddy!” Rob sputtered. “Daddy, they arrested us for staying in one spot for too long! We waited, you don’t know how long we waited--”
    Rob was interrupted by a loud thud that seemed to shake the building.
    Outside, a row of kangaroos had splattered straight into the prison walls. A large congregation had come upon the prison and, by orders of their leader, (“Onward! A kangaroo does not change its path!”) had hopped straight against the wall. The other kangaroos followed suit. Row by row they splashed against one another, shaking the prison with each collision.
    With the thunderous thud of the last row of kangaroos, which were the biggest of the kangaroo moms and the kangaroo dads, the prison walls began to cave in.
    All of the guards had either dispersed or were crushed by the stones; the alarms were wailing and the prisoners were howling.
    “Freedom! Freedom!” they proclaimed, but their cells remained intact, surrounded now by rubble and debris. Dozens of kangaroos trampled in rows over the remains while the prisoners bounced about in their cells in disarray.
    Bobby fetched a set of keys from a pinned and lifeless guard and calmly unlocked his children’s cell. He hopped over to Old-timer’s cell.
    “Go on now, Old-timer,” he said as he jostled the lock open, his boys clinging to his legs.  Old-timer laughed a hysterical, raspy laugh and hobbled away from his cell.
    The jailbirds pleaded with Bobby as he and his boys hopped toward the other kangaroos.
    “Let us out, Bobby! Let us out!”
    A female kangaroo who had been separated from the group hopped up and over the debris. Bobby flung the keys into her little pouch and flipped her over his shoulders. “Northward,” he said, and the four kangaroos hopped away from the rubble.
    The prisoners shouted as the kangaroos shrank away into the distance. They were little nails with bobbing nailheads and then they disappeared into the mango sunset.