The hot straw smell of lion grass, the cool green smell of the hidden water hole, the great rusty smell of animals, the smell of dust like a red paprika in the hot air. And now the sounds: the thump of distant antelope feet on grassy sod, the papery rustling of vultures. A shadow passed through the sky. The shadow flickered on George Hadley's upturned, sweating face.

Filthy creatures, he heard his wife say.

The vultures.

You see, there are the lions, far over, that way. Now they're on their way to the water hole. They've just been eating, said Lydia. I don't know what.

Some animal. George Hadley put his hand up to shield off the burning light from his squinted eyes. A zebra or a baby giraffe, maybe.

Are you sure? His wife sounded peculiarly tense.

No, it's a little late to be sure, be said, amused. Nothing over there I can see but cleaned bone, and the vultures dropping for what's left.

Did you bear that scream? she asked.

'No.

About a minute ago?

Sorry, no.

The lions were coming. And again George Hadley was filled with admiration for the mechanical genius who had conceived this room. A miracle of efficiency selling for an absurdly low price. Every home should have one. Oh, occasionally they frightened you with their clinical accuracy, they startled you, gave you a twinge, but most of the time what fun for everyone, not only your own son and daughter, but for yourself when you felt like a quick jaunt to a foreign land, a quick change of scenery. Well, here it was!

And here were the lions now, fifteen feet away, so real, so feverishly and startlingly real that you could feel the prickling fur on your hand, and your mouth was stuffed with the dusty upholstery smell of their heated pelts, and the yellow of them was in your eyes like the yellow of an exquisite French tapestry, the yellows of lions and summer grass, and the sound of the matted lion lungs exhaling on the silent noontide, and the smell of meat from the panting, dripping mouths.