The Last White Rhino

"He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the crying of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing."
—Job 39:7-8

It started at the watering hole.

New in town, I took a gulp of water. Sand scraped my throat. I nearly spat it out. But before I could, I heard a deep chuckle to my left.

"New in town?" he said before I saw him.

I forced the water down and gave a sandy-toothed grin. "Yep."

"You'll get used to it."

That was the first time I met the last white rhino.

Like meeting a local legend.

At the time, I didn’t know he was the last. I didn’t know much. But I knew he was somebody. Eight oxpeckers rode his back when I first saw him.

We didn’t talk that day. He was busy, and I was nervous.

A hippopotamus flirted with him.

A nearby elephant asked him for advice.

I carried on.

I settled into town, started coming to the watering hole daily. And I kept running into him.

We were silent acquaintances. Familiar faces.

Then, a month in, he nudged my shoulder gently with his horn.

"John," he said. "If you were wondering. Should've introduced myself earlier."

"Nigel," I answered, shaking his horn awkwardly, unsure of the etiquette.

John, the last white rhino, had taken note of me.

"I appreciate you coming to town," he said. "Free tomorrow afternoon? I know a stream with clearer water. You might like it."

I agreed, giddy and nervous. Wondering what I’d done to win his trust.

The next day, we met at the old baobab tree in the town center and walked five miles side by side.

At the stream, we sat, watching the water glimmer beneath sprawling jackalberry trees. The air buzzed with fish eagles and guineafowl, the barking of baboons.

John turned to me, his heavy-lidded eyes carrying the weight of boulders. His breathing was slower than I remembered.

"Nigel, I am the last of my kind. I don’t know it, but I do."

I hesitated.

"The last?"

"Yes. I have always known I would be."

I studied him. His ribs were more pronounced than before. The oxpeckers on his back shifted restlessly.

"I don’t think I feel that way," I said. "Not like I’m the last of my kind. More like... I might be the first. Or the only."

John nodded slowly.

"That is true on one level. False on many others."

I laughed—not unkindly. I liked how he could tell me I was wrong so effortlessly.

He gave a small smile, the same one I had seen him give the hippopotamus. The same one he gave everyone. It wasn’t for anyone else.

Just for him.

"It’s funny, isn’t it? That I could be the last? That you could be the first? What do we know?"

"Not much," I admitted.

"That means you know more than most," he said. "Many think they know much more."

John exhaled—not in stress, but as if sinking deeper into the soft blades of couch grass.

"A rhino is a rhino. A Nigel is a Nigel. An oxpecker is an oxpecker, the way a leopard is a leopard. And I eat everything that is green. You eat everything that is green."

I frowned.

"Green is the earth," he said. "Green is what we chase. I eat everything that is green when I walk these plains. I charge with my horn. I kick with my feet. You eat everything that is green when you walk on two legs. You sip from the watering hole. You scratch your head when it itches. The leopard eats everything that is green when he kills the gazelle and carries him up the tree."

I nodded. And I knew he was right.

"Not a bad gig, eating everything that’s green, is it?"

I laughed, half-nervous, half-agreeing.

And I wondered if I, too, had been searching for everything that was green all along.

Then, we sat silent, listening to the rasp of hornbills, the relentless crickets.

The breeze shifted the dark green leaves of the jackalberry trees.

And my focus came to the present moment.

"You told me you knew you would be the last," I said. "Why?"

He turned his head slightly.

"I just know," he said. "Like the roots of the tree mirror its branches. Like the core of the earth reflects the sky. We are here, and we are above. And here we stand, the narrowest point. The peak of the bottom. Animals chasing all that is green. That is all I know."

And I surprised myself when I said,

"I believe you are the last white rhino. I know it in my bones."

John gave a slow nod, as if he had always known I would say it.

We sat a while longer, watching the sun dip into a deeper orange, shadows stretching over the stream.

Then, without a word, we rose and walked back to town.

The path felt longer this time. Each step felt purposeful.

When we reached the old baobab tree, he gave me a self-assured nod before turning away and disappearing into the ambient glow of dusk.

That night, the wind howled outside my dwelling.

I awoke.

I stared at the starry endlessness.

But there were no city lights.

I felt the most profound sadness, the kind where you have no hope, and you must submit to the agony.

I got back in bed.

Tried to embrace comfort.

But I knew.

I knew the last white rhino had died.

I knew it in my temples, my stomach, and my bones.

At dawn, I walked to the watering hole.

The hippopotamus, the oxpeckers, the leopard, the gazelle—all held their heads low.

We wept together.

The watering hole had never been so silent.

Even the bullfrog withheld its croak.

The last white rhino was gone.

And following his wisdom, I carried on searching for everything that is green.

I sat by the stream where we had spoken.

Sat in the soft blades of couch grass and did nothing at all, exhaling deeply as he had.

And after some time in the savannah, sunbathing in silence, I began to smile softly like him too.

And in silence, I knew:

I was the last.

I sat by the river every afternoon.

And in a moment of stillness, eyes closed along the riverbank,

I was ambushed by the leopard and carried up a leadwood tree.

The leopard, too, was chasing green.

In gnarled branches, I died.

And in my open eyes, the city lights shone.