Skippy, the Kangaroo of Love was deeply saddened. Since he was but a young kangaroo of three, he had had a habit of removing love from himself, working on the assumption he would always have enough to go around, and placing it in the hearts of those who needed it.
But poor, poor Skippy; Alas, by the time he way twenty he had given all but twenty-five percent of his love away. He had always assumed that placing his love in the hearts of others would fill him with happiness at having helped his fellow sentient beings. But this was not true, for he found himself a lone island of cheer in a dark and hurtful world.
His heart, he found, was dark and cold as obsidian, his feet even more so. It was with all this in mind that he opened the first business to deal in hearts and heartbreaks: Skippy’s Store O’ Hearts. His prices, he decided as a result of his cold and dark heart, would have to benefit him more than the customer.
The store sold things as follows: Recognition from s/he whom you love, one hundred pecks. A passing “Hello, [insert name here]”, two hundred and fifty-three hugs. An “Oh, hi. How are you?” and following conversation, seven hundred hugs per every five minutes. Going out to coffee or some other such trivial meeting, one thousand, five hundred pecks. For a date, it was much more. Fifty thousand, nine hundred and seventy-six hugs, add nine hundred for every following date.
By the time he had made his seventh sale, Skippy found he had been filled with all the love he had lost, with one difference. This time, he told himself, it’s all for me! I will not share my love with any other being on this planet, this solar system, this galactic arm, this galaxy, or this universe or anywhere else!
It was this that triggered a change in Skippy. Somewhere deep down inside, a switch had been flipped. Within weeks, all sentience was lost, and Skippy became as those who had fallen in love with themselves before him. He wandered off into the wild, ignoring people as they called to him.
One month later, he was caught in a trap, stuck in a cage, and shipped overseas to America. There he was placed in a pen in the San Diego Zoo, where he resides to this very day, a warning to all young humans and animals alike. A plaque on his cage reads “Skippy, Kangaroo of Love: Beware all ye who read this, you, too may become like this kangaroo, a once sentient being who fell in love with himself, lost all sentience, and was caught by hunters.”