Translation

When the programming was completed and tested, the translator was launched. As soon as it went live, all of the people who had worked on it quit and pooled their resources to buy land in a rugged, lonely place and live in quiet community with their families (and no phone or internet). "Yes," they'd confirmed before they left, "it can translate vocalizations of any kind competently into human words. It works only from them to us, but real communication is possible for the first time." They gave the tech specs to the government, as requested. All media outlets and platforms exploded with speculation about how their dogs and cats, ferrets and monkeys would take everyone to task, but the programmers could not be reached for comment. Seema had, on a whim, translated the words of something that was the last of its kind ... and then more of the words for everything that knew it was nearing extinction. "No tears for the end ... return to the others," Sudan (the last white male rhino) had whispered. "Return to love ... loneliness is finished ... peace to you ... peace to you ... peace ..." They told no one as they left that, at the end of the hedgehog video shorts and Hollywood signing a movie deal with an elephant, there was a world of tears and regret for the claiming.