Rewilding

Three months without students and we're

starting to see changes around campus.

For one, grass has grown all over the place,

filling in the footpaths and parking lots

and even the courtyard where on sunnier

days students would sit and study and

sometimes protest. The grass has attracted

grazing animals, which look a lot like cows

except they are small, standing no taller

than the average dad's waist. The grazing

animals in turn have attracted predators:

birds of prey with fearsome beaks and 

wingspans as wide as the space between

goalposts. They light on the vine-draped

buildings scanning the herds for signs

of the weak or aged, swooping down to

snatch a cow in its talons and carry it

back to its perch as the cow screams 

in a disturbingly human fashion. 

This is how nature maintains balance,

you tell yourself. If not for the predators

the cows would breed out of control, 

eating all the grass until they starved

and leaving the campus as barren as

the screens of our sleeping computers.