“So I’m at the zoo, right?” I was leading to something but I knew he’d interrupt with the most unlikely question.

  “When was this?” King asked. He was named King by his father because on the night he was conceived, just as his father was groaning and quivering, he saw a vision of his son sitting on an iron throne right before he came. The exact Iron throne from game of thrones but instead of naming his son after a Lannister, he named him King.

  “March.” I said. I remember it was March because there was a March discount at the zoo that I took advantage of.

  “March this year or March last year?” King asked. I think there was someone who told him that an intelligent mind always asks questions so he figured he’ll just do that all the time, ask questions. Never mind the question to be pointless, as long as it was a question, the air of being inquisitive would pass him off as a man of high intelligence. I mean, he had a lot of stress being named King and all. He had to fulfill his father’s orgasmic omen in some way.

  “March last year, being that March this year hasn’t happened yet.” I said.

  “But do you wish it happened?” King asked.

  “What would wishing it happened achieve?” I was getting irritated at the questions now

  “I don’t know, maybe you’d go to the zoo again.” King said and started swaying back on forth like a rowboat. I hate it when people rock back and forth, what’s wrong with you? Are you at sea? Are you so fickle that a push from the wind makes you rock? Are you a boat? Looking at King, he sort of did resemble a boat, his nose was the prow. He a dominant nose, a nose that demanded you notice it. And to top it all off there was a zit growing at the end of his nose. You feel like popping it but then again it’s a nose, the facial equivalent of an asshole.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Anyway, so I was at the zoo.” I pause to see whether he’d interrupt me. Luckily he does not so I push on. “And there’s this elephant enclosure and inside the enclosure is an elephant and its just standing there, chewing cud and this child beside me points and says, ‘Wow, what a big hippopotamus.’ And the confidence with which the child said the incorrect name for the animal was so adorable, it’s as if the kid had been waiting patiently ever since learning the name and now he saw his chance and there he was, hippopotamusing away incorrectly.”

  “And this amused you?” King wondered.

  “Yes it did. Because everybody corrected the child, his parents were like, ‘No Alexander, that one is called an Elephant.’ But Alexander spoke out, ‘No that’s a hippopotamus!’ The child was ignorant to anyone who dared correct him and we just all unanimously agreed for the period of time we were before the elephant’s enclosure, that the elephant was a hippopotamus.” I concluded.

  “But what if it was a hippopotamus and all of you were wrong save Alexander. What if the original name for elephant is actually hippopotamus and the whole world is wrong except the child.” King said, he stopped rocking back and forth and scratched at the stubble on his chin.” Damn, I fear sometimes.”

  I felt like King was having an epiphany of sorts and it was my duty to usher him through it somehow. “You fear the chance that you might be the only one who is right but the majority deny you this for their opinion is different from yours? It does push you to defend your sense of self, like Alexander did. To stand against an overwhelming tide and deny it root to push you a fraction. That I think isn’t cause for fear but exultation.”

  “No, I fear hippopotamus.” King said and stared at me. I stared at him too, we stared at each other and I made a mental note to cut King off.

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