Story Unspoken

BY Elgar the Ape

This is a manifesto a testimonial and a distress signal a few years ago I left the comfortable moss of my jungle grove for the smoke commotion and straight lines of the big city like many country monkeys I had forsaken a large family and close community for the crowded loneliness of this tropical metropolis as dirty as a beggar’s bowl back home we found physical and psychic comfort in easy affection extended clan carefree sexual relations plentiful food and lush surrounds we made small commerce with ground nuts and tree fungus and sport with insects and lizards what was I to do our home was making way for progress and big burger cows I still live in close quarters but inhabit a world apart I live like an illegal immigrant without status or entitlement scraping for the scraps I make do with urchin work gathering rubbish off train tracks lighting fires with the collective refuse and the like I have to learn how to fit in act like the rest of us and speak if I want to earn my place I have discovered human friendship with rare patient individuals who seek the unusual and the cast-away from compassion curiosity and motives high and low missionaries and opportunists exceptions that prove the rule the devil knows his own and birds of a feather I find solace in the mixed company of big arsed baboons mandrills capuchins Barbary and general rock apes we make happy company freely swinging in parkland or abandoned structures and cherish time away from human expectations the authorities try to disperse these congregations intolerant of a more joyful but less productive people yet mostly we are ignored and enjoy our diversions this is something of a leper colony, not the high society but you do know I have been invited to the A-list parties but I spurn bourgeois vanity as my social lubricant and refuse to be a novelty act or a fashion accessory such as would you like to meet my Portuguese friend et cetera people delight in my resemblance to people they find amusement in my visage and freely interpret my actions and deduce non-existent motives and personality traits because because because I cannot beg to differ I cannot speak a human language no retort I am their creative space perhaps it is a shame I have learnt to comprehend human chitter chatter a tandem tragedy I have not learnt to speak much to say I hear you all talking about yourselves to one another and in good turn listening attentively providing commentary and sympathy for the soul in the spotlight recognition and affirmation soothes the trials of living as an individual where can I get this emotional succour I find consolation in beer and cigarettes and new freedom of a credit limit extension but some have suggested I open a restaurant to make a business of ape food and win acceptance through stomachs as many new arrivals do but is there an appetite for raw fruit fungus and flesh?