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Go shoppingIn this unsettling yet tender flash fiction, innocence meets the wild as an unexpected bond forms between child and animal.
“This toddler and bobcat are best friends,” began the Instagram reel showcasing 2-year-old Zeppelin Paduski walking down a gravel driveway in head-to-toe Carhartt next to a young, male bobcat his mother Jemima—37, yoga teacher and homesteading content creator at @JemimaSaysPrettyPlease—affectionally calls Bobbi Jo (“I don’t believe in gendered spelling for names,” she wrote in the comments when someone asked why male Bobbi’s name was spelled with an “i”).
“Zeppelin and Bobbi Jo met two years ago when he got caught in a bear trap on their family farm and have been inseparable ever since,” the reel continues.
“I nursed Bobbi Jo back to health,” Jemima says to the camera during a break in the voiceover, “after his accident and realized pretty quickly how fond he was of Zeppelin. Once we released BJ—I call him that for short when he’s not listening…shhh, don’t tell—he kept coming back to the farm. At first, I thought it was for food, but then I realized it was to hang out with Zep—they imprinted on one another, Caleb says.”
*Caleb is Jemima’s partner (husband) and Zeppelin’s dad.
“Bobbi Jo and Zeppelin play together, eat meals together, and even cuddle,” the voiceover says over video evidence of them doing each, “and Bobby Jo loves when Zeppelin dresses him up as all his heroes, like Amelia Earhart and Daisy Jones from Daisy Jones and the Six, which his mom shares on an Instagram account @MeandBobbiJoMcGee with their 18,978 followers. Jemima wants everyone to know she doesn’t let the best friends play together unsupervised.”
Not quite besting @MeandBobbiJoMcGee’s follower count, the Dodo post garnered 18,000 views and 7,785 likes the first week it was up but was quietly taken down just 8 days later when the page’s moderator learned that Bobbi Jo violently mauled Zeppelin to death during a Halloween photoshoot where he was dressed as Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Zeppelin was Dr. Fauci.
By Patrick Brothwell
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