“Why do you all want to take such a tough call? We are not like human beings? In fact, we are not human beings. We are simply called animals and we are animals .We follow nature and its guidelines.” said King Lion. 

He could see anger on all the faces. He has never heard so many angry voices and that too all united. There must be something to it.

Elephant, “We need to decide now. Time is running out. All non-humans are in danger. We have been suffering for years. We are in the danger zone. We have been losing our forests, lands, privacy and our right to live. And …”

Fox, intervening in between, said, “Yes, very true. They call us cunning and shrewd. In fact ,they are really cunning and greedy. They proclaimed themselves as human beings. Who gave them this title? We always called our selves animals. They left our race in search of evolution, in search of God, in search of new things, and in search of new ways of living.”

Mouse, never wanted to left out as he believed that he hated human beings most, said loudly, “ They misused fire, they misused Earth. They tried to fool everybody by calling Earth as The Mother Earth. They misused skies, they misused planets, and they misused oceans, rivers, lakes, and ponds. They just want more and more, their greed is never satisfied. They want to become superior and rule on everything. You are the only one who is our King. And they have so many leaders, gurus, preachers. All of them want to be kings or behave like a King.”

King Lion was very silent; he seriously wanted to be careful here because he did not want to undermine anybody. They were all together and united against one race — Human beings. He said, controlling his voice, “ That’s fine, but we cannot control others’ greed and aspirations. Decoding their life style and understanding their minds is beyond our imagination. You all are speaking on one common point and I see there is a cause to it. In fact, I am also getting the messages from Oceans and Rivers — our true brothers and sisters. They also want that action must be taken on priority.”

Elephant, to influence and convince, stood up and said loudly, “ You are right King. We are getting messages from everywhere — all the flying species, sinking rivers, remaining ponds, dirty soil, and polluted air. All of them agree that this is our last chance. If we act now, then this act will definitely save the Earth and the Nature.”

King Lion now seems to agree. This was their 10th meeting in last few months and it was decided that in the 10th meeting final decision would be made. King Lion also noticed that no one has missed any meeting. It clearly showed that everybody was concerned on this grave situation. He said , “ What is our objective? I mean; I can give you the go-ahead but we have never crossed boundaries. I do not want to kill unnecessarily.”

Rabbit, “ Our Nature is our God. We all know this. Nature needs time to heal, we want Nature to self-correct and adjust for another 100 years. These human-beings know that they have destroyed the Nature. They know end is coming but they have always been exploring scientific methods, which again had led to disasters.”

Fox supporting Rabbit and insisting, “We want to take action because the question still remains — How will they rectify these issues? They are themselves blaming each other. They are divided by boundaries, religion, politics, culture, languages. They say God is one but they have so many Gods and religions. They know glaciers are getting destroyed, Pollution is killing nature. They left forests to expand and now they are expanding by destroying forests”

Squirrel, angrily and taunting, “ Last heard was that they are planning to expand in Planets and space!!!.”

Lion, raising his voice for the first time, “I mean, what do they want !!. I think they are just afraid of Death and others. They escape from one place to another in a hope that one day they will never die. I always remark jokingly that they need meditation to sit and relax. How foolish this is!!!”

Everybody laughed in chorus and they all could hear echoes of their laughter moment later, as if nature also agreed and laughed.

Lion closed his eyes, thought for a while, and looked at the sky. He always wanted a true nature routine — timely rain, timely weather, clear sky, shining stars, visible mountains, everything was always so near and close. That is our nature, our God. He pondered why these human beings do not want this. Why are they still afraid? They were always in caves and they are still in caves — houses and buildings. Their old habits are same.

King Lion started his speech, “Cavemen, now called human-beings have always been greedy and murderer of nature, other animals living in forests and areas surrounding them. Let one more message be sent to them. Our desire and objective is to settle the nature balance. I am also hopeful that during this period there will be change of hearts in many human-beings and they would like to come back to nature and love it naturally. As planned, I order that action to be initiated immediately and a strong advice to my brothers and sisters to not to celebrate our operation.”

Few weeks later, a review meeting was held to check the status. All animals were together again and waited for the king Lion to start the conversation. King Lion looked at monkeys, dogs, ants, birds. They had the responsibility to contact their immediate friends living around human beings. King Lion looked at them, reassuringly, confidently. He nodded and looked at them one by one. He knew they are the real messengers and always risk their life living around human beings. They are the real secret agents of animal kingdom.

A Bird sitting on the nearby branch said sweetly, “ King Lion,It’s done and working. Everybody as usual is silent, afraid, and in their own houses. We have got enough time and Nature will bless us”.

One of the Ants, added excitedly, “Dear King. They have named it COVID-19 this time.”

Everybody smiled and looked at each other.

Lion wanted to close this meeting. He said proudly,” So we are on our usual work from tomorrow. Meanwhile, as we all know its full moon day. Let’s all go to our river. Let’s swim, bath, and gauge shining stars — all together. Lets thanks and worship our Nature God — all together.”

They were all together for a while, no fear in their minds ,as they do not follow rule of law. They still follow rule of Nature.