A fictional “editor” informs readers that the story that follows “was recorded in Hindi on a series of tapes by a nineteen-year-old boy in the Indian city of Khaufpur” and that “nothing has been changed” other than its translation into English.

Animal says he doesn’t remember a time when he was human, though he’s told he once “walked on two feet just like a human being” (1). He says he was “born a few days before that night” (1), a reference to the 1984 Bhopal industrial disaster, in which thousands of people were killed or injured as a result of a methyl isocyanate gas leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant. Ma Franci, who we will later find out was a French nun at the orphanage where Animal grew up, told him stories of his walking upright, but Animal finds no comfort in these stories, asking, “Is it kind to remind a blind man that he could once see?” (1).

Animal avoids mirrors and is haunted by the sight of his shadow, feeling “raw disgust” (2). He is tormented with jealousy and “rage against all things that go or even stand on two legs” (2)—Ma Franci, waiters, dancers, herons, and even ladders.