Eastern Market (Short Story‪)‬

I have always been drawn to the term human resources, although as a kid I was torn as to what it meant--whether it was resources for humans, as in a library of useful stuff to which humans had access, or whether it meant resources made up of human ingredients, a person warehouse that non-humans shopped at for all their human needs. And now, as half of the Human Resources department at the Detroit Zoo, I know that it's a little of both, but mainly it's a person warehouse. Today, however, is Saturday, and even though I am working, I am not making sure employees fill out their W^s, or enrolling them in their benefits plans, or taking out any owed child-support from their checks, or administering drug tests and sending out rejection letters to those who fail. Instead, I am downtown, in Eastern Market, petitioning to get a proposal on the ballot that would reinstate the zoo tax, which will otherwise expire in January. If we don't get enough signatures, or not enough people vote for it, then the zoo will go broke sometime in March and close.