Encouraging News

For as long as any of us recall behind the observation window above the experimenter's desk read, The Hylobate Primate Lesser Ape Research facility or Ralph. On this morning, we found ourselves locked in a curious stare watching two men in overalls with ladders begin taking down the sign. Within thirty minutes they left the way they arrived unfazed by our watchful eyes. On the same wall, the TV mounted to entertain us wasn't Father Vondehaar. His calm soothing voice in the morning we enjoyed at breakfast, instead Fox News announced George Grabencooters, and Angela Schultern, another morning Sunrise program.

Gabriella confined to her cage like the rest of us held the bars to the door. Her soft voice gives away her uneasiness. "Why did the sign change?"

She folds her legs, wraps her arms around and pulls close to her chest and waits for someone to answer. Newton whispers she shush, stay quiet until the lights go out and Ralph leaves. She resigns placing her chin on her knees for the long wait. She is a Lars species, a blond with soft yellow fur, curious eyes and a grimacing face.

A dream returned with my mother sharing her prophetic vision of Ralph's future. I remember her gentle eyes gazing at mine, her coaxing hand, her words in the tender moment she held us together. She said we were different from their species. I glanced over at my aged father sitting with other male subjects in another experiment. This one was to save fuel by reducing the ventilation rate inside airplane cabins. When this ended several months later, two came down with a cough, and another died of something unknown.

After this, he partook a long-term cannabis study until his death. He stayed high all the time, lounged, and napped more often. The cause was sedentary aging. The investigation continues with all of us but one. We smoke during the night under the surveillance of cameras.

My mother protected me from some studies. My first one sniffing poop she thought beneficial to an Ape's health. I did not tell any difference. Another, sketchy, an experimental infection under the skin with the larvae of the Dirofilarial Immitis. A study lasting fourteen months ended with the detection of the antibody. The worm lives in hearts and I'm in the next test with real ones.

I was full of curiosity, bright eyed about the world, and often stared endlessly watching the primates on the other side of the protective windows. Without my mother beside me I might had gone crazy as some did. We never saw them again. In this artificial world with its unchanging features inside an empty space, I wondered how this became our fate.

In the center an object unworthy of its name, the jungle, I'm sure isn't, and a gym neither, something from Ralph's imagination. Three posts leaning on one another. I recall as a juvenile how fun for a week. The pale mint walls empty of anything have several skylights high up near the roof. Steel doors with small ports fill daily with ogling stares, flatten faces pressed against the windows. The worst are school children screaming a gibberish excitement, and tiny fingers pointing at us, palms slapping the glass. A joyful chatter of ignorance and how unpleasant they are to us. I'm glad the panes are reinforced.

The ceiling, a pale blue artificial sky with no effort at realism. The powerful luminance of the halogen bulbs, massive with not a single shadow except under the converging poles of the "jungle gym." The stark brilliance shocks our senses when the lights switch on and comes with an unending buzz. At least imitate a gradual change would do well to our disposition. The vents drone a humming noise blowing a draft of chilly air down to the floor. I am certain for their comfort, but we live tropical niches without this convenience, or better put, the inconvenience.

The stainless-steel bars of our cages, strong and narrow spaced, an arm gets past but not the shoulder, sometimes the occasional resting leg protrudes. Why am I in here and not on the television? The window to worlds never visited wondering what is out there. The real things I yearn to touch, sniff and hold. I don't ask myself anymore.