Bored Into Insanity

[Rei]

The hazy sun blazed warmth down on the inhabitants below. Lazy clouds passed overhead, slowly and carefree. The leaves hanging happily off branches of trees danced, full of life, under the direction of a soft breeze. One of the leaves, unable to maintain its grasp, was pulled effortlessly away from its place of birth and twirled through the air freely. It made circles around in the blue sky before the breeze forced it into the thick bars of a cage. Sadly, the little leaf lost its freedom, the life draining from it as it solumnly landed on the dirty floor of the cage where a huge, white paw crushed its fragile little body.

The enormous paw gave way to an enormous body, clothed all in white with umber-colored, faded stripes strategically lining its body. A pink nose leaned in to sniff at the dead leaf as its white paw lifted away from it.
That was the best excitement the tiger had recieved all day.

With a magnificent groan, the white tiger rolled over onto its back and looked out at its world through the bars that contained it.
The land was beautifully sculpted, scattered with cages here and there. The toys that were given to them to keep their minds occupied were tattered and played with so often that they've obviously lost their fun. None of the occupants played with them any more. All they did these days was stare. Stare at the sky. Stare at the sun. Stare at the trees and the leaves and the birds. The moon. The stars. That was all there was to do.

Sometimes, though, people would come along to look at them. It wasn't uncommon, but didn't happen everyday, either. Those days, many of the occupants would be up and about, staring at the people instead of the other things they normally stared at. Those days, Rei, the "ghost" tiger, would often make up her own dialogue whenever she would see the people.
"Wow, look at her beautiful stripes!" she would say, "Look at those huge paws and those golden eyes! I'll bet she could eat you in one gulp." And then for the other person if there were pairs, "I wouldn't put it passed her. Look at how bored she looks. I'll bet she'd do it just for fun." And again for the first, "Yes... lets look at the other cats."
And then they'd be gone. And Rei would be stuck in boredum once again.

An enormous yawn took over control of her face as she rolled over again.
"Why don't you go to sleep?" she asked herself. And in reply, "Because I've slept too much already."
"Maybe you could roar. Its always fun when you roar."
"Done that."
"Rub your head against the bars."
"Eh... I'm sick of that. I feel like my head is bruising."
Rei sighed loudly, obnoxiously,
"I wonder what the others are doing to keep themselves from going insane?"

Such was the life of a big cat in a setting such as this.

[Selva Nevoso Cuella Jengibre]

<Nevoso was splayed out on the dusty earth, his mane cascading over his shoulders and across the soil, picking up bits of dust and debris. Pale golden eyes stared out lazily through the bars. The sun was beating off of the ground until undulating waves of heat rose, distorting the lion's field of vision. It made the bars look fluid and pliable, like he could walk right through them and out of his enclosure if he so pleased. He probably wouldn't have, though, being relatively content but for his boredom, and perhaps a bit of horniness from a lack of female companions.
The lion was pretty fond of his gifted life. Being a rare and beautiful white lion, he had been raised in the home, pampered to extremes, and even now had one of the larger enclosures. His owner came by frequently to offer bits of meat and scratch his chin and ears, and the occasional visitors were always thrilled by his majesty. The only setback was that, to avoid fights that might mar his perfect appearence, his owner had kept him entirely solitary. This might have been acceptable for a juvenille, but as a mature male in his prime, with females nearby, it was just plain... frustrating.
Right now, however, none of those thoughts were present; he was half asleep, in fact, lazing in the sun. He had given up on playing with the mediocre toys strewn throughout his exhibit; they were too simple for an intelligent beast. It was time better spent sleeping, sun-bathing, or snacking on left-over meat. Perhaps later today, the human would deliver a special treat, such as meat wrapped up in a tricky box or bag. He always enjoyed that; it made getting food a puzzle, a challenge. That was unfortunately about the extent of entertainment he'd have for the day, sadly.
Other felines were a bit more playful. Cuella, a young canadian lynx, was still at that age where anything could amuse her. While everyone else had ruined or grown bored of thier toys, Cuella still found them exciting. She would stalk up on them, imagining them to be some fiesty prey animal, then launcing attacks. Grabbing a plushie in her mouth, she'd "gore" it with her back legs, sending bits of fluff flying everywhere. Swatting a ball across her exhibit, she would bat it behind a log then fish it out as though it were a hiding rodent in a burrow. To her, the menagerie was not a dull place at all; it was full of excitement, with the added benefit of free meals and a loving, attentive owner. What more could a cat ask for?
Perhaps Jengibre could have answered that question. Sitting silently in the small pool of water, really just a watering trough burried to simulate a small pond, the tiger stared out blankly across the way to the playful lynx. He could not see what she was so worked up about; it was just a toy, and there was nothing special about them. In fact, Jengibre didn't find anything particularly exciting. He didn't lunge over to his meals like some of the other cats, nor did he purr and grovel for the humans. Instead, he spent most of his time crammed into the undersized "pond" in his enclosure, restful and in quiet reflection.
His neighbor, Selva, was anything but restful. The bold serval was always alert, constantly surveying her surroundings, dashing over to observe the occasional human visitors, or trying to drag someone else's meal through the bars into her cage. The serval was one of the few present at the menagerie; the place's owner mostly only appreciated exotically colored animals, and as far as servals went, that left a pretty limited menu. She was actually quite typical, but for a neat little streak of white leading down to her ginger colored nose. Still, if you asked her, she was anything but average, and not because of color. Selva was a highly confident, self-assured female, perhaps to a fault. Raised in a home for most of her life, she thought she was the creme of the crop, a well adored pet who held a higher rank amongst the man-animals than all of the other beasts in the menagerie.>

[Amrou Tawrah Nyami]

This particular menagerie has certainly made a name for itself, covetously acquiring rare and exquisitely colored felines from around the globe. Seen as rare and special by the human population, the exotic cats were treated like breakable objects to be set on a shelf and adored in safety. Some of these collected felines didn't appreciate their exotic colors, nor the attention it brought them. Amrou was one such creature, a bitter and unfriendly ivory lioness. She paced the back of her cage when she wasn't ignoring or alternately insulting her neighbors. Ever since she was little, born into a litter of 'normal' siblings, and grew to resent the adoration her mother and breeders showered her with. They pampered her, hugged her, smothered the life out of her, all while her envious siblings grew dark feelings toward her. The fact that she grew just as bitter toward them was apparent in her adult behavior, as she made a name for herself as being moody and unpleasant. As she stalked by the wall she shared with a particularly infuriating serval, she raised her lips in a half-hearted and disdainful snarl, simply over the fact that the serval was still alive.

Amrou's polar opposite, Tawrah, was unfortunately directly across from the serval, too close to both her and Amrou for comfort. Tawrah enjoyed quiet conversations and despised confrontation of any kind, catching more than enough of it from the two hissy females nearby. As a result, the tigress tended to hide in the back of her enclosure, butting her head against every other bar as she paced. This tended to allow most of the human attention to drift to the serval and white lioness, which was alright by her, only every once in a while stepping forward to leech some affection from the admirers. Her nearly stripeless pelt and crooked crossed eyes tended to steal the show, accidentally fueling the animosity toward her from any jealous animals.

Then there was Nyami, who would have clawed out his own eyes to have the opportunity to grab up attention like that. If he could, he would scoop it all up and hoard it away in a big edible pile that he could roll in and cover his fur with. He'd throw it around and kill it, making it his and no one else's, and maybe even kill himself to be with it forever. As it was, when his keepers briefly visited his isolated enclosure, visible but unreachable by the general public, he would try to pull them into his cage with his claws, purring like a maniac. It seemed though that the harder he tried though, the quicker they left him. The whole situation was only making him more manic by the day.

"Hey you!" He cried to no one in particular. "Talk to me! What's your name! Tell those people to come over here! I can smell them!"

The cries were far from new. It happened every other day it seemed, when his energy just tumbled over the edge even more than usual.

[Kitties]

:Amaterasu possessed the grace of a feared and loved creature- confident and languid and fat from a life eating much but exercising little. Ears canted at a calm, uninterested angle, eyes half-closed and body conforming liquidly to the ground of her cage, the ginger tiger radiated with a complete lack of care for anyone or anything, just on the border of sleep but not bothering to take that last step into comatose-hood.
:Until, of course, the nearly silent sound of a paw crushing a leaf bounced through the air, touching Amaterasu’s ears and perking her curiosity enough that her head lifted, eyes opening to reveal amber orbs and ears cocking forward towards her fellow. The ginger female easily recognized the insane white tiger- after all, there wasn’t much to do in the menagerie other than consider the other cats- and thus she expected the ensuing ‘conversation’.
:Such dialogue always made the female feel somewhat uncomfortable, and thus, once the other cat was finished, Amaterasu stood and padded to within a foot of the bars, head cocking as she considered the now-laying tiger. She sat, then laid down once more, expression calm and body lax. She cleared her throat to catch her neighbor’s attention. “Any chance you’ll slide that leaf over for inspection?” tone joking, obviously not serious- “some of us don’t have anything to do but chat to hold off insanity.” Hint hint; the big cat thought sarcastically to herself, hoping the other wouldn’t be too addled to hold up one side of a conversation.
:The female couldn’t help but feel gregarious, although some bit of quavering instinct twittered and growled at the very thought of speaking with another tiger- an unrelated female, at that! Yet the bengal was bored and tired of silence- being raised by humans had left her aching for company at the oddest of times.:
:Meanwhile, Anahita was anything but languid. She stood at the front of her cage, large ears cocked forward blue-grey eyes tracking the motions of the other cats. Muscles weren’t tense, yet a rigidity could be seen about the tigress. Despite her lively nature, the toys strewn about her cage had long since lost any value, and thus the white female found relief from boredom in watching the other cats interact and play and exist. Granted, some of them weren’t very interesting, but even the sight of a chest rising and falling with regular breath was more interesting than watching the unloving components of the world or, even worse, sleeping.
<Odd kitty. Poor, insane, little kitty>
::You call her insane? Listen to yourself, y’fool.::
<You’re just bored, trying to pick a fight.>
::Nope, just pointing out the obvious::
{Oh, shut up, the both of you. You disturb Anahita.}
[So we’re all to be quite for the cat’s benefit?]
{Yes.}
::Forget that::
<Whatever. It doesn’t matter, anyway. We never talk ‘bout anything interesting.>
::Like that can be helped. What is there to be talked about?::
{See what I mean? We chat without reason, and then we disturb the tiger. That’s all we need. A disturbed tiger.}
“Please, be quiet.” Anahita murmured it to herself, skin shuddering with a natural dislike of vocalization- after listening to the voice’s bicker and chatter and mumble amongst themselves, she couldn’t grasp the fact that speaking was natural, could be good, informative. Despite her dislike for speaking, she couldn’t help but occasionally intervene when the voices really got going- the sound of their voices was like the sounds of a fight, the squeal of a child, the yowling of a cat. Pure horror.
The cat’s skin shuddered once more, and, voices quieted, she returned to her inspection of the oh-so interesting surroundings. She sighed, squinted, and then retreated from the front of her cage, curling up in the back, side pressed against bars that joined her cage with another cat’s. Hopefully, the other feline would be gregarious, and perhaps would come over and lay beside her. The thought was so very appealing.:
:Belobog sprawled, knees jutting above a back a bit bony from his occasional refusal to eat and forelimbs as straight as the sphinx’s before him. While his almost pure white coat should have drawn endless attention from any visiting humans, a glance at his grotesquely crossed eyes quickly sent any interested folk skittering away, uneasy and disgusted by the sight they had just seen. Why would the bother to look at a deformed tiger, after all, when there were so many more interesting cats to see? Such thoughts were always lurking at the edge of the male’s mind, nasty little reminders of his own inadequacy.
:When creatures weak and pitiful as humans manage to keep you in captivity, and find you nothing but disturbing, how is one supposed to cope? Belobog did not know the answer to that particular question. He didn’t much care to find out, as he suspected the answer would not appease him, would make him feel worse. Should one go along with it, grovel, purr, beg? Should one play with tattered toys as if you were but a cub, fascinated and in love with curiosity? Should one thank whatever being one believed in for free food and no danger?
:Belobog snorted at his own thoughts, tilted his head down and closed his lids over his hated, disgusting eyes. How was he to know? Who was he to care? So many questions, so few answers... so little care. Melancholy-lit yellow eyes opened to consider the world, the pacing female tigress that was caged next to him. The small bit of the tiger’s heart not devoted to depression quivered with a bit of unity, unity that said: ‘look here, a female much like you, a female whom shares disability and a snowy coat and perhaps some personality traits. This female could be a friend.’
:That bit wasn’t large enough to warrant action. Thus, Belobog watched as the female thumped her head against various cage bars, far more active than himself. He wondered what it felt like- to care enough to actually occasionally be a beggar of attention. He could somewhat imagine it. The whole-hearted interest-grappling of some of the other cats completely baffled the tiger, however, to the point that the very thought made him feel somewhat ill. He ignored them, focused on this female. He didn’t think that his weary yellow gaze might draw her attention- after all, why should such an animate beast as she take notice of a nearly inanimate monster, like him?:
:Karora suffered comparatively little boredom or anxiety, compared to many of the other menagerie cats. In fact, the low-stimulus, calm environment of the menagerie suited him just fine, providing little opportunity for situations that might cause personal conflicts. Presently, the male was laid out in a comfortable patch of sunlight, letting the golden rays of the sun soak into his beautifully patterned hide while amusedly watching the antics of the more active felines. His personality an odd conglomeration of conserved and cordial, the sight of other cats made him feel complete, happy. Actual physical contact, or closeness, however... it just made him uncomfortable.
:Anyway, lions always treated him oddly, with his short, juvenile main and heavily patterned coat. Mostly, he just confused them, which always made him feel oddly guilty. What right did he have to further complicate the lives of innocent passer-bys? Of course, it was never his choice- the humans were the ones that dictated his distribution. Currently, they didn’t have him with any others- which suited him just fine. Who knew when the need to move him in with another feline would hit them, though? The very thought of it made the hybrid sigh, shake his head to rid himself of a troublesome fly, and feel uncomfortable.
:Standing without much of a thought to the action, the beautiful feline strode forward, contemplated a somnolent white lion across the way with inquisitive eyes, and then paced to the back of his enclosure, then to the front again. The lion reminded him of the social behaviors he always felt inclined to exhibit, minus the physical bits- the white male also made him wonder once more at how the cats were sectioned off, disallowed to interact when their instinct was contrary. Many hours had been spent in thought about social norms and such, with little else to do but think and observe. Without any leopards to contemplate, Karora rarely felt compelled to think that perhaps his nature was to solitude. After all, if those around him were gregarious, surely he should be?
:Still young enough to be impressionable, the male couldn’t help but wince at the thought of all the differences he exhibited to the world, couldn’t help but ache for normalcy so he could interact normally. Was not normal interaction and life the whole point of living? The hybrid sat on his haunches, centered in his cage, and, expression thoughtful, eyes roving, he contemplated life in general:
:Where many cats were calm or contemplative, Delirium spazed and didn’t think at all. The Pallas' Cat was crouched, faced squashed against the bars of his cage, expression filled with awe as he contemplated the energy-filled Nyami. He just couldn’t understand how someone could keep going and going and going and never seem to stop, always winding higher and higher on the energy scale... of course, he didn’t think of the fact that he was quite similar, his vigor boundless. This could (perhaps) be blamed on the fact that he could not observe himself, and thus not consider himself a possible candidate for the ‘Most Wound Up Menagerie Cat’ award.
:When Nyami shouted, Delirium giggled, backing up a pace so that he could crouch in a mock-predatory posture, tip of tail flicking once and ears flattened to his rectangular head. One would think that he was getting ready to kill the serval, but, indeed, the posture was just Delirium’s special little way of saying ‘thanks for the distraction from the typical boredom of life!’
“I’m Delirium and-" he squealed "-you’re interesting." He purred, suddenly, and then spoke once more: "I can’t talk to humans.” While most of the cat’s vocalizations were formed into shouts, certain words very nearly climbed off the register and into the land of incomprehensible. The silvery grey cat bounced away from the cage bars, and, grinning at the other cat, seemed about to burst into the feline form of a supernova.:

[Ren Wolf]

___The grind of truck tires on the dusty dirt road leading into the acess area of the menagerie created a momentary source of distraction for the disenfranchised felines. A large trailer with ventillated shafts backed up towards a large, empty enclosure recently added to the fringes of the menagerie's property. Its loud beeps roused Nevoso from his slumber, his great white head rising off of the soil and third eyelids lazily rolling away from his eyes. He sniffed the air, and immediately became more interested - it's a new lion. Rolling to his feet, grunting a little as he was stiff from sleeping, the white lion padded over to the bars of his cage closest to the still-distant exhibit, letitng out a low huff.
___While he watched, a group of men clad in jump-suits emerged from the truck, heading around back to lift the heavy door. Nevoso was in no position to see it, but within, a large crate hid the form of a sedated lion. The crate shrieked down the metal unloading ramp, causing the white lion's ears to flick back with agitation. Then, the door was opened, and the men scurried from the enclosure as the truck sped out. The door swung shut and was bolted, as was the air lock. Then, all was still, silent, and dull once again. The lion inside the crate made no move to exit, still sleeping soundly from the sedatives. Nevoso snorted, laying down on his belly with his head resting on his paws, hoping to eventually see some action.