Mama Ape and Papa Ape: The Tale of Two Dreamers

He winces, sensing the sharp knots twist inside him, like little claws attempting to tear his stomach. It is no mere grumble but a silent roar, a reminder that he has not eaten since he woke up. The first light came a few moments ago. He scratches his cheek as he steadies himself, easing his mind clouded by yesterday’s nightmare. He has a responsibility to fulfill. His eyes search his surroundings, looking for any fruitful shrub with fruit that bursts with flavor on the first bite, perhaps an edible root or a crunchy nut. His stomach roars again. He can only hope.

His eyes feel hot and stinging, like staring at the noonday sun. He cannot shake off the horrifying memories from yesterday, and notices he is dragging all four of his feet as he walks. He rubs his eyes, removing the gunk drying out in the corner of his eyelids before hitting himself once to wake himself up, followed by another, and another, and another. The forest floor is full of horror. He does not have the luxury of death. The pain reminds him of his family, of his commitments.

The distant sun is due east, and acquiring food always requires a full Ape hour, regardless of his efforts. The shadows of the trees have barely moved, a full Ape hour has yet to pass.

His cheeks ache after making certain the horror from yesterday does not haunt him today. He shakes his head, remembering instead the stories taught by his elders, tales from his late Mama Ape and Papa Ape. Chronicles passed down to them by their forebears, who learned them from their own forebears.

They recount the legend of many Ape lifetimes ago, when Apes dwelt in Paradise. A blissful place it was, full of countless trees with green crowns reaching the clouds above. It was a home blessed with plentiful food. Fruits were in such abundance that it was rare fortune for an Ape to savor the same delight twice. Fruits came in bright colors, diverse textures, and flavors impossible to describe. Apes only had to swing to a nearby branch, for they knew nothing of what they call hunger. They were known as the Great Apes. They who knew only joy and laughter, who reveled and made merry, doing what Apes always did. A place of perfection. It was Paradise.

Then came the Doom. The Elders know not of the true nature of the Doom. Few claim the Doom spanned many Ape lifetimes, others believe it happened within a mere Ape day, but they are united in their account of what happened thereafter. The Great Elder Apes learned of the Doom from the songs of Birds and the trills of Insects, who heard the tale from schools of fish. They retell the story of how the Doom came to the Fish. They recount their home, the Ocean, an unimaginable place surpassing the magnificence of the Ape Paradise. The vast, infinite blue disappeared overnight, costing lives beyond counting. Neither predator nor prey was spared. In its place now stands a mountain range of solid, cold, white stone, rising high toward the clouds above.Somewhere far away, cold-searing winds brought stones of ice, instead of rain, freezing everything in hoarfrost. The Paradises of both worlds, of all worlds, collapsed in a single Ape day.

By the next morn, upon first light, the Elders recount that the tall trees they call home have grown short. The numbing cold winds up north transformed Paradise to an expansive, arid landscape, nearly barren. An invasion of muted brown, devouring every green in its wake. The abundance of ripe fruits turned sour, falling from its branches. All trees lost their green crowns and could no longer sustain the inhabitants of the Paradise of the Tall Trees. Their forebears, once perfect, were forced to walk. The Great Apes were born to swing, not walk. What was once Great was now merely Ape.

We are no longer the Great Apes, his Ape parents claimed. We, who traverse upon four limbs, think of ourselves as Ape. Our ancestors lost the Paradise, reduced to legends because of the Doom. Our forebears thrived in the sky while we survive on the ground. The ground is full of peril. Behind every leaf, every shrub, lurks evil: monsters with sloping backs and shaggy fur, those who walk with their heavy forelegs, strangely longer than their hind legs. They hunt in packs of numbers beyond counting, they laugh as they tear you apart, staining their maws with your blood. He recounts the dread that pounces from the shadows. A gigantic brute made of muscle, a maw full of savage teeth. Its cruel canines, eerily long, are the last thing you see before it sinks them on your neck and feasts on your innards. Those who are careless, the desperate few who dare venture into the open, away from the protection of the sparse forest, meet the winged death. They know not how it truly looks. He saw it many times, another Ape snatched away in a single beat of its wings, its monstrous talons carrying its victim away, followed by a screech, never to be seen again. He saw only a glimpse of its hooked beak and remnants of its feathers the size of branches.

Then came another horror that haunts him every after dark. It was when the laughing fiends feasted on his Ape siblings, barely reaching two rains old. Two of the monsters, in their brutality, tore his Papa Ape apart, who dared to fend them off. What is left of him is a puddle of red beyond recognition. He still hears his Papa Ape’s bones being crushed in the distance as he fled with his Mama Ape, only to witness her head, stained red and twisted, torn on the morrow by the smiling terror when she dared to return home. No amount of sleep offers an escape from the haunting echoes of his Mama Ape’s desperate pleas. He still dreams of them after dark.

Feeling his hair standing upright, he strikes his own cheeks before pricking his ears, his eyes remaining alert. He has his own Ape family now. None shall betray his senses today. Now is not the time to remember Paradise, a place foreign to both him and his family. He resides in reality, not legend.

His nose twitches, catching the ripe scent that leads him to a shrubbery. A momentary glow forces him to halt. He feels his hair standing again. He notices a scale, hidden underneath the vegetation. The scale belongs to evil. A monster unlike the others, a monster of a different size, one without legs, one that hisses instead of roaring and laughing. The evil creature reveals itself, its villainous eyes fixated on his. He can hear it inviting, daring him to come closer between its hisses. He hears it calling him a coward. A weakling. A prey with no place in this world, deserving only to be eaten. Only the strong matter. The monster growls. He hears its high-pitched, airy taunts. It warns him this part of the forest has been picked clean by his Ape neighbors.

I am an Ape! A descendant of the Great Apes of Paradise, we who survived the Doom! He hears a sharp noise escaping from his mouth. Neither of them moves. Should he take a step closer, the slithering evil will strike. If he flees, its long body remains within distance, its bite will end his life. They both wait.

His eyes quickly assess his surroundings, absorbing every little detail. In a blur, he takes a step. Then, the hissing evil stretches forward. In the blink of an eye, a crack echoes as he finds the creature’s head crushed by a stone the size of his forefoot. Its smooth scales still shine under the light of the sun, yet he does not hear it hiss. He turns, his eyes finding his forefoot, clutching a stone, now stained red. The dreams that come every after dark haunt him momentarily. He shakes his head again before moving toward the thicket.

The fruit is small, sharing the same shade of red staining his forefoot. It has two broad, pronounced, rounded curves gracefully converging to a delicate point. He tilts his head, hearing soft, gentle whispers from the fruit. Whispers of familiar sensation, like the rhythm inside his chest. He winces once more, feeling his insides twist. He shakes his head and remembers his duty to his Ape family. He disregards the pain now rising to his head. He gives the fruit a sniff and holds it in his mouth. With a gentle tug, the fruit breaks from the shrubbery.

In the distance, between the green undergrowth, is a wounded tree. They were fortunate to find such a blessed tree containing a cavity in its trunk after it caught fire two Rains ago. Small, perhaps in comparison to the trees from Paradise, it serves as their home. From afar, he hears his Ape children yawning and crying. One of them rubs its eyes after staring blankly at the sky. They are stunted in height, with brittle fur and dry skin. They sit with their round, bloated stomachs clinging to his Ape Wife, pounding their clenched forefeet into her back in demanding cries. He meets her eyes, flushed red, drawn, and more worn than his. He sees the stain of red between her legs from yesterday’s incident.

He lowers his head, dropping the distinctively shaped fruit from his mouth. He still hears its gentle whispers again, mirroring the beating inside his chest. The fruit invites their Ape children in a sudden burst of energy enveloping them at the sight of the fruit. Then they all hear a sharp, loud growl, a powerful sound that silences them all. He tries not to lift his head but her voice forces his eyes to meet hers.

Again? Her brow dipping downward, her lips pressed into a thin line as she gestures toward the fruit. Her eyes burn with regret, yet pleading. His eyes wander again on the red stain between her legs. You bring only one fruit, again. You have five Ape children, she says as she gestures to their starving offspring. He hears the pain in her ire. I lost a child I carried for nine moons yesterday, I lost a daughter who succumbed to hunger half a moon ago, and our eldest departed a moon past, as I was forced to prioritize feeding our weak daughter. She covers her face. I am unable to endure another loss, she says. She covers her teary eyes, her voice breaking with each hiccup of her sob.

He is aware his consort refuses to feed herself until all of their children are fed. She has every right to demand in anger. He is tasked with foraging like every other Papa Ape before him, yet his responsibility pales in comparison to her duties. He remains silent. Silent as the slithering evil whose head he crushed with a stone. He simply walks away.

In the distance, far from home, between the thicket of shrubs, he finds himself breathing frantically, his ears ringing. All four of his legs feel weak, as though they might give way beneath him. He remembers the counsel from neighboring Apes suggesting to abandon their ailing offspring on a thicket of shrubbery. His head spins at such a thought. The loss of another child would surely result in the death of his wife. She will be consumed by grief from his incompetence and her passing shall bring about the demise of all of their children. Should they all perish, none shall remain to recount the story of the Paradise lost, the Legend of the Tall Trees by the Great Apes.

His throat tightens before a roar rises deep from his chest, louder than the smiling monster. It takes a full Ape hour to find a piece of food. His head is spinning as he walks back and forth. He is responsible for five Ape children and his Ape Wife, thus demanding seven Ape hours to nourish all. Seven Ape hours upon the sparse forest floor, teeming with danger, where he is vulnerable to the maw of gnashing teeth at any given moment, where his consort might never find him. His death would spell starvation for his family.

His disjointed, uneven steps do nothing to stop his eyes from wandering from side to side. He paces on all four of his legs between two shrubberies in restless motion. Something inside his chest wants to escape, yet another loud roar nearly rips from his throat. Then, in the corner of his eye, as the leaves move, he spots a subtle shine in the distance. He furrows his brow, squinting his eyes further, striving to identify the danger requiring his attention. Up there, perched on a faraway tree, is the villainous evil, its body entwined around a leafy bough. It bears the same scales as the creature he killed moments ago. Their eyes meet once more. He hears it hiss, taunting him with its hideous tongue, yet it dares not raise its voice.

Its presence causes his nostrils to flare, and his jaw clenching at the sight of it, yet the distance between them gives neither the opportunity to hurt the other. He senses the silence between its hisses is full of derision. He finds himself blinking, standing rigid and unable to move from his spot as a blur speeds from the corner of his eye toward the slithering creature. He hears a loud thunk on the trunk next to the scaled evil. It moves, sliding from the base of the bough to its very tip. He tilts his head to the side, his eyes following it. Another taunting hiss from its tongue draws another blur, tearing through leaves, whistling like the wind passing above the head he had crushed earlier with a stone. He does not understand why the presence of the crawling evil causes a throbbing pain in his cheeks and throughout his face.

It hisses once more, long, exaggerated, and scornful.

He anticipates the blur this time. To his surprise, he discovers himself clutching a stone with his forefoot, still stained red from the earlier encounter. He observes how his long toes grasp the entire stone. His forefoot moves the stone toward his other forefoot. His eyes follow the stone, finding his forefoot rising toward his shoulder. His eyes wander to the opposite side, finding another limb mirroring the other. He momentarily loses his balance as he glances downward, observing his legs in a strange position.

He finds only two of his feet, not four, planted on the ground. He observes his toes wriggling, curling inward, drawing the earth closer. The earth feels strangely warmer than ever.

With the stone in his forefoot, he searches for the creature mocking him earlier, only to find the bough empty. The strange feeling stirring within confuses him. His fear and anger toward the slithering monster feel different.

The children sleep in the warm darkness of the cavity. Her eyes feel heavy, she is eager to close them, if only for a moment. She hears soft thumps in the ground, catching her attention. Her forefoot reaches for a nearby stick she hides inside the cavity. Outside their tree, near its entrance, are fruits. Fruits. Her eyes quickly count them, six in number. Six fruits. She glances upward, finding her Ape husband with a fruit in his mouth. Seven. Only an Ape hour has passed. How? She asks. Her husband does not answer. He bites his fruit, its juices flowing from his lips as he grins from ear to ear, his eyes beaming as he giggles. She wants to thank him, yet her husband walks away, seemingly taller than before and faster than his usual gait, walking away in a very unusual manner.

Before the sun dips below the horizon, all of their children, including them both, are full. For the first time since they started a family, they rest with strange aching full stomachs. Mama Ape and Papa Ape rest next to each other in the open, outside the hollow warmth of their tree. They gaze upon the swathe of clouds above, unto the darkness, at the things twinkling in the distance. They cannot help but wonder what those things could be. They close their eyes as they embrace each other tight. That night, theyshared a dream of a hopeful morrow.

Not long after, their small family expands. Mama Ape now leads their thriving Ape family, mothering many healthy Ape children. Her children, who rarely survived their first two rains, have grown strong, assisting Papa Ape in foraging. A grown Ape can scavenge ten pieces of food in a full Ape hour. Papa Ape has grown efficient these past few rains. Papa Ape now leads a group of ten grown Apes, gathering a hundred pieces of food every Ape hour. Mama Ape smiles, distributing an abundance of nuts crunching on the first bite, edible roots that cure upset stomachs. Her favorite are the berries that taste like their shared dream under the twinkling things many rains ago.

Papa Ape sought to impart his success to their neighboring Apes, mindful of their struggle, which he and his family resolved. Yet he is met with disdain and contempt. An Ape walking on two legs? They beat him whenever he attempts to share his strategy. Ape is Ape, they proclaim. Ape walks on four legs, not two. You are no Ape. They banish Papa Ape away, kicking, pouncing, and biting him as he flees.

Many of their children have perished in the course of their shared Ape lifetime: torn to pieces by the laughing fiends, necks pierced by the smiling brute, snatched away by the winged death. There are those who breathe their last tasting an unfamiliar fruit, while others clash with neighboring Apes. Many still succumb for unknown reasons, such as those who shiver in their sleep, burning hot like the noonday sun, never waking the next morn. All of their offspring now reach their first ten rains. They raise too many to count, but not a single one of them perished from hunger.

Mama Ape soon finds herself soothing Papa Ape, shivering and sweating, his face flushed red, his skin burning hot. He has lost his appetite and has not drunk any water from nearby puddles for two Ape days. Mama Ape traces the gray fur on his head with her wrinkled fingers. Papa Ape wheezes whenever he breathes, with multiple broken bones, he has stopped foraging these past three rains after breaking his right forelimb. He wears his scars with pride, fighting off neighboring Apes who wish to usurp the family they both built together. Their many neighboring male Apes, fighting on empty stomachs, stand no chance. Papa Ape himself, with his gray fur, can fend off three, four, five, or even six hostile young Apes at the same time, while leading his grown Ape sons, all standing on two legs against the growling stomachs of aggressive four-legged Apes. She observes him and their sons protect their family as every other male Ape aspires to mount Mama Ape, yet Mama Ape has no desire for companionship with anyone beyond the father of a new, unusual way of walking.

Papa Ape wishes to hear a story before he closes his eyes, of his favorite tale, of Paradise. Mama Ape recounts the legend, considerably diverging from the chronicles told by their Elders. The story of the Lost Paradise ironically was lost, but all are familiar with the rise of the New Apes. Those who walk in a strange manner, on two legs, not four. An unusual way of walking, resulting in the New Apes never knowing the horror of hunger.

Papa Ape dies with a smile in the arms of Mama Ape. Mama Ape soon follows Papa Ape, the following morn before the first light.

Many Ape ages pass. The forest grows sparser, trees stand shorter, the invasive muted brown devours every green in its path. More songs tell of oceans vanishing, transforming into mountains of cold, solid white stones. The cold winds up north freeze everything in their wake. The heat down south withers everything to brittleness. The Doom persists, seeking to annihilate every world, yet the will of the New Apes survives.

None can recall the Legend of Tall Trees, of Paradise the Elders dreamed. The dream they shared many rains past died with them.

Mama Ape and Papa Ape, arms entwined, ponder on the things beyond counting that shine above the canopy of darkness on their memorable night, never knowing their descendants, sometime in the future, will fulfill the dream they both shared: to reach those very things that twinkle.