The female black rhino hunches down and shits. It is morning, and the sun is just beginning to strike down hard at the green dew soaked plains. Under the snow capped peak of Kilimanjaro. The hulking beast turns, and hesitantly sniffs at the piled shit. The turd-pack steams vibrantly. The rhino spins, and lurches off into the morning light. Kicking the top half of the mound of turds hard upon departing with her rear hoof. A gazelle leaps quietly through the high grass. Disgusted from the scattering stench of it all. The rhino turns a gloating heel at the weak minded gazelle while lumbering off. Her horn is up. Her hoof trot's high upon these abundantly green plains of Africa. A week later. The green has become brown. The female black rhino squats low in the shade patch of a giant Cypress tree. The water hole is almost empty, and drying fast. Except for some caked and flaking mud. Her mate is late, and has yet to arrive. A pride of lions stare on and lick their lips patiently. Not yet so eager to try their luck. They know how dangerous a full grown rhino can be. So they wait and clean one another pretending not to notice the dying rhino. The rhino is exhausted, and in dire need of water, and rest with both eyes closed. The rhino falls asleep. with a shit stain still on her hoof. A buzzing fly lands on her horn's dark ivory tip. Her tail whips slowly, and awkwardly. The heat of the afternoon sun creates wavering mirages. They offer no hope only odd visuals all around. On these scorching Plains of Africa. The leopard crouches and flexes. Then crawls closer, but even still, slower. Towards the slurping baby sounds. Young gazelle nursing and suckling. Hears not the silent cat and feeds on. Pounce! White glint of teeth. Tit-rip, blood! Mother startled, bounds away not looking back. She will have another one when the rain comes again. Off to her right she spies a pride of lions attacking a dying rhino with a shit smear on its back hoof. Love comes seasonal, but leaves flash flood on the plains of Africa. The sleeping baboon hears something. Some sound that stirs him wide awake. Something foreboding in the night's long shadows. He rolls over to see, and smell and listen. He sees many eyes glaring down at him. He hears more than two heartbeats watching. He smells his brothers and his cousins judging him, tense. He exhales a sigh of relieve. He assumes that it is a bad dream, and he's safe. But they smell his fear, and his red soft swollen ass. They need to stroke his fuzzy brown adolescent fur. His growling friends and family move in, Gang-raping his soft red swollen ass. Repeatedly, until dawn. Holding one another's stinking hands. They then recede back into the night's long dark niches. On these unforgiving plains of Africa. A pair of hyenas cackle and howl nearby. Having witnessed, in detail, the barbaric deed. The sun breaks wide and ruthless. As a warm wind sweeps through the Great Rift Valley. The baboon washes his ass in the waterhole's corner. Quitely and quickly, before running off to go find some nuts and berries with his clan. Before it gets too hot. He spies a pride of lions licking clean the off-white rib cage of a felled female black rhino with a shit stain on it's hoof. The baboon smiles, and limps away. The heat pounds the dry grass with a wicked passion. Today, on the relentless plains of Africa. The young cheetah siblings peer out from their hideaway. They are waiting for mother to appear from out of the horizon. Eager, for her distinct shoulder blades jutting beautifully up into the afternoon sun. They are very hungry, and extremely thirsty, but they know better not to move without the consent of their mother. Nevertheless, where could she be? It had been two days by the older brother's calculations. As he cleans his sister, he suddenly smells a wonderfully familiar scent. Food... turning his head towards the water hole. He notices a vulture half-submerged. It's dying in the sitting water. Deciding to risk it. He springs bounding towards the dying scavenger. The bird of prey still aware, awkwardly lifts itself off to safety. The cheetah cub knowing he has been cheated gets over it. He decides to take a quick drink instead. One, two, three laps of delicious water then back to his sister. Finishing up, he turns and sees a pack of wild dogs coming up fast to drink and size him up. He has the speed to get back to his sister, but he also knows that would be the end of them both. So, he sits instead. Licking the last living drops of moisture clear from his lips before he is savagely torn to pieces. His sister looks on. To parched to cry, and to smart to move. Across the water hole under a shady giant Cypress, the sister notices a male rhino sniffing at the horn, and bones of his stripped mate. The right back hoof of the skeleton has a dark mark upon it. Her brother died quietly and bravely. And she is still starving. The sun has fallen below the tall grass. As the sky burns on majestically unaware. Mother is still nowhere to be found. And odds are, dead too, on these merciless plains of Africa. Grunt! Warm surge. The hyena is born cross-eyed, and bow legged with a hard splash post mother's squat, and loud giggle. He is the runt of six. Tired and unable to laugh. mother beds down with pups to rest for the sun, and another day of survival. She turns to clean her massive bitch cunt, and finish off the juicy after birth. Her pups whine in disapproval for having been unceremoniously dislodged from her tits. The runt rolls from mother's milk and warmth into a bone covered corner of the den. Nevertheless, his nose is sharp for milk and he drags his bow-legged and cross-eyed tiny ass back to a tit, for the night. The moon is high and full of shadows and craters tonight. Under a timeless Cypress tree a vulture hops around the bleaching carcass of a dead rhino with no hoofs, and no horn, and no mate. The night regresses obliviously. The sound of thunder merges with lightning flashes off in the distance. The rains are coming, again. Coming back to the parched plains of Africa.