I was in a car which my father was driving on a country road in Gallia County, Ohio, headed to a farm where I was going to begin working. A farmer had decided to hire me to work on the farm, and although I was inexperienced with farm-work, I was a hard worker and I would be able to do the work well.

The scenery we passed was picturesque. Large round bales of hay lay in one field along the side of the road. I kept my eyes on the hay after we drove past, and I noticed one bale had rolled into the road behind us.

I had never been to the farm where we were headed, but I had a map to show me the way. On the map I could see the farm was at the end of a dead end road in an isolated area. However before we could reach the farm, we ran into a problem: the road became so narrow and uneven, we couldn't drive any farther on it, and my father had to stop.

Since we weren't far from the farm, I decided to walk the rest of the way. I began walking and I hadn't gone far when an unusual sight confronted me: along the hill to my left I saw four small elephants marching along a path just over my head. They were only a few meters away from me. I stood facing them and lifted both my hands into the air over my head, almost in an act of homage. The elephants stopped and looked at me, and I had a vague feeling I could communicate with them. I recalled I had a candy bar in my father's car, and since I thought my father was still nearby, I told the elephants I would feed them some candy. I distinctly heard one elephant tell the others that I had a candy bar. They seemed pleased with the idea that I would give them some candy; but suddenly, without warning, they turned and ran off.

Turning around and looking behind me I saw what had frightened them: a large orange tiger with black stripes, standing not 10 meters away from me. I began backing away from the tiger. The immediate landscape around me was rocky – mostly large, smooth, round rocks. It would have been a pleasant area to walk through, if not for the fact that the tiger was facing me. I backed up until I could go no farther, for I found myself at the edge of a high cliff with a valley down below me.

The tiger didn't make a move toward me, but it didn't move away either. Finally it simply lay down, blocking my exit.

I turned and looked out over the valley, and witnessed another unusual sight. There below was a herd of dark red cattle being chased by two mountain lions. I was mesmerized by the chase, thinking this was the way nature was supposed to function, with predators chasing their prey. However I knew such chases were generally no longer the case since man had wiped out most predators. One lion knocked down a calf and pinned it to the ground. The second lion knocked down a second calf and the rest of the herd stampeded away. In the commotion, one large cow (perhaps 10 times larger than the others, completely out of proportion with the scene) stepped on one of the smaller cows and seemed to squash it. The herd then continued running out of sight, leaving the lions to their feast.

Now that I looked around the valley and the surrounding hills, I could see other herds of animals which didn't look like cows, although I couldn't tell exactly what they were. It finally dawned on me what was happening: the owner of this farm had obviously turned the farm into an animal sanctuary. I wondered if there was fence all around the farm to keep the animals in, or whether they just knew where to stay.

I loved the idea of the farm being an animal sanctuary. However that didn't solve my immediate problem: how to get past the tiger. When I now turned back to look at the tiger, my problem had multiplied: now a mountain lion had also shown up and was slowly moving toward me. The lion looked so powerful, I knew I wouldn't have a chance if it attacked me. And I saw no means of escape. However, it wasn't completely clear whether the lion viewed me as prey, and whether it intended to attack me.

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