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June 1 - June 28, 2022
Humans waste words. They toss them like banana peels and leave them to rot.
It’s not so bad, I wanted to tell the little boy. With enough time, you can get used to almost anything.
Stella is a mountain. Next to her I am a rock, and Bob is a grain of sand.
Gorillas are not complainers. We’re dreamers, poets, philosophers, nap takers.
“Memories are precious,” Stella adds. “They help tell us who we are.
I like colorful tales with black beginnings and stormy middles and cloudless blue-sky endings. But any story will do.
“A good zoo,” Stella says, “is a large domain. A wild cage. A safe place to be. It has room to roam and humans who don’t hurt.” She pauses, considering her words. “A good zoo is how humans make amends.”
“I always tell the truth,” Stella replies. “Although I sometimes confuse the facts.”
“Humans. Rats have bigger hearts. Roaches have kinder souls. Flies have—”
“Humans can surprise you sometimes. An unpredictable species, Homo sapiens.”
“Bad humans killed my family, and bad humans sent me here. But that day in the hole, it was humans who saved me.”
Growing up gorilla is just like any other kind of growing up. You make mistakes. You play. You learn. You do it all over again.
But hunger, like food, comes in many shapes and colors.
But human ways are hard to learn, especially when you’re not a human.
Humans have so many words, more than they truly need.
“And it’s not a domain,”
“It’s a cage.”
I hear Stella’s kind, wise voice: Humans can surprise you sometimes.
Humans. Sometimes they make chimps look smart.
‘Elephants Are People Too.’”
“I don’t want a zoo,” Ruby says. “I want you and Bob and Julia. This is my home.”
