Eccentric Exhibits

Another dream, another zoo. I was with family again and it was late in the day with a couple of hours before closing. The zoo held a lot of promise and I remember feeling excited to be there. Entering an indoor exhibition hall with a rainforest theme, I found a spacious chimpanzee enclosure with a family unit inside. They seemed in better health than the ones described in 'Babylonian Zoo' and the babies were swinging back and forth on tyre swings. There was also an aquarium divided into separate tanks containing various fish including a giant freshwater stingray, a sawfish, and a weird crustacean-type thing with a ring of serrated teeth.

Suddenly the enclosures merged together to allow all the animals access to one another. I watched as the sawfish scurried through the water, making a beeline for the toothy crustacean. The sawfish's first few attempts to eat it were unsuccessful, repelled by the spines/teeth. Eventually, by using its saw, it dislodged the critter from its anchorage in the sand and flipped it sideways into its mouth. I heard the crunching through the glass. Meanwhile. the chimps kicked up a riot in their waterlogged enclosure, climbing higher up the artificial trees and hanging ropes.

In the second part of the dream I was on campus again, taking a walk by the lakes on my lunch break. It was a brisk, Autumn afternoon before October term and some construction was underway for the new intake of freshers. I noticed that a cave had been dug near the lakes, with a path sloping into it and a maintenance man on his hands and knees doing some welding. Looking past him into the subterranean passage, I saw a glass-fronted terrarium with a long snake, a boa constrictor, draped over a tree branch inside. A gold plated sign outside read that it was the 50 year old 'SU Snake' to commemorate the university's 50th birthday. The campus zoo continues to grow.