Chapter 1
He hears no grumble, only a silent roar. It is his stomach growling. First light came a few moments ago. With a groan, he steadies himself, easing his unsteady mind clouded by yesterday’s harrowing misfortune. He has a responsibility to fulfill. He surveys his surroundings, hoping for a fruitful shrub with fruit that bursts with flavor on the first bite. Perhaps an edible root or a crunchy nut. He can but hope.
His eyes, flushed red from yesterday and weary from exhaustion, remain alert. The forest floor is full of horror. He does not have the luxury of death; he has his own family to feed. He measures the distant sun due east. Regardless of his utmost diligence, procuring food always requires a full Ape hour. The shadows of the trees have barely moved, a full Ape hour has yet to elapse.
As he continues to dedicate himself to his responsibility, he remembers the stories imparted 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 dwelled in Paradise. A blissful place it was, full of innumerable trees, their green crowns reaching the clouds above. It was a sanctuary 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 copious abundance, resplendent colors, diverse textures, and flavors impossible to describe. Apes only had to swing to a nearby branch, for they knew nothing of what we 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 transpired within a mere Ape day, but they are united in their account of what transpired thereafter. The Great Elder Apes learned of the Doom from the songs of Birds and the trills of Insects, who heard the tale from the Fish. They retell the story of how the Doom came to the Fish. They recount their home—the Ocean, an immeasurable abode surpassing the magnificence of the Ape Paradise. The vast, infinite blue receded overnight, costing lives beyond counting. Neither predator nor prey was spared. In its place now stands a formidable 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 are now rather short. The numbing cold winds up north transformed the Paradiseto an expansive, dry, arid landscape, almost barren. An invasion of muted brown, devouring every green in its wake.The lavish bounty 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 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 foliage, every verdure, lurks evil: monsters with sloping backs and shaggy fur, those who stride with their heavy forelegs, mysteriously 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 red.He recounts the dread that pounces from the shadows. A gargantuan brute made of muscle, a maw full of savage teeth. Its villainous canines, eerily long, are the last thing you see before it feasts on your innards. Those who are careless, the desperate few who dare venture into the open, away from the protection of the sparse forestmeet the winged death. They know not its full appearance. He saw it many times, another Ape snatched away in a single beat of its wings, its fiendish 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 the horrors that haunt him every after dark. It was when the laughing fiends feasted on his Ape siblings.Two of the monsters, in their barbarity, tore his Papa Ape, who dared to fend them off, apart. 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. 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.
He shakes his head and pricks his ears, his eyes remaining apprehensive. He has his own Ape family now. None shall betray his senses today. Now is not the time to muse on Paradise, a place foreign to both him and his family. He resides in reality, not legend.
His nose twitches, catching a ripe scent that leads him to a shrubbery. A shimmering glow forces him to halt. A scale, hidden underneath the vegetation. It 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. Prey with no place in this world, deserving of death. He hears its low growl, followed by a high-pitched, airy sound. It warns: plucking this fruit will be the death of his family.
I am an Ape. A descendant of the Great Apes of Paradise, we who survived the Doom. A sharp grunt escapes his mouth. Neither of them moves. Should he take a step closer, the slithering evil will strike. If he flees, its elongated body remains within distance; its bite will end his life. It simply waits.
His eyes quickly assess his environs, absorbing every surrounding detail. In a blur, he takes a step; the hissing evil stretches forward. In a blink of an eye, he hears a crack and finds its evil head crushed by a stone, 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. His gaze fixates on his forefoot, clutching the stone, now stained red. The dreams that come every after dark haunt him momentarily. With a decisive shake of his head, he ambles onward, 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 fancies the fruit murmuring gentle whispers, a familiar sensation, like the rhythm inside his chest. He fights off the gnawing pain in his abdomen. His duty to his Ape family compels him to shake his head once more, disregarding the pulsating pain in his head and his growling stomach. He gives it 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. 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, like the rhythm in his chest from the fruit. Its scent invites their Ape children; a sudden burst of energy envelops them at the sight of the fruit. Then they all hear a sharp, loud growl—a powerful sound that silences them all. He meets her eyes once more.
Again? Her eyes burn with frustration.His eyes fixate on the red stain between her legs. You bring only one fruit, again. You have five Ape children. 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; our eldest departed a moon past, as I was compelled to prioritize feeding our weak daughter. He hears her voice faltering, a testament to their grim reality. I am unable to endure another loss, she says. Tears fall from her eyes, her voice breaking with each hiccup of her sob. He is aware his consort refuses to nourish 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, his whole body trembling uncontrollably, all four of his legs weakening. He recalls the counsel from neighboring Apes suggesting the abandonment of their ailing offspring on a thicket of shrubbery. His head spins at such a thought. The loss of another child would assuredly result in the death of his wife, 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.
He hears a roar rise deep from his chest, louder than the smiling monster.It takes a full Ape hour to find food. 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 fail to distract his eyes wandering from side to side. He paces on all four of his legs between two shrubberies in restless motion. Unable to describe or express the uncontrollable urge building inside him, a raw, instinctive voice nearly rips from his throat. His sharp, visceral roar reverberates across the nearby leaves. Instinctively, in the corner of his eye, he spots a subtle glint in the distance. He furrows his brow, squinting his eyes further, striving to discern the hazard his instinct compels him to regard with utmost vigilance. 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, penetrating their respective beings. He hears it hiss, taunting him with its hideous tongue, yet it dares not raise its voice.
Its presence causes his nostrils to flare, his jaw clenched at the sight of it, yet the distance between them gives neither the opportunity to hurt the other, and he feels 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 adjacent to the scaled predator. It wriggles, 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. It eludes him why its presence causes a throbbing pain in his cheeks and throughout his face.
It hisses once more, long, exaggerated, and scornful, serving only to provoke his ire.
He anticipates the blur this time. To his astonishment, he discovers himself clutching a stone with his forefoot, still stained red from the earlier encounter. All of his long toes grasp the entire stone. His eyes follow the stone, his forefoot rising toward his shoulder. He casts his eyes to the opposite side, beholding another limb mirroring the other. He momentarily loses his balance as he glances downward, observing his hind legs. He fails to hear another hiss.
With the stone in his forefoot, he searches for the creature mocking him earlier, only to find the bough empty. The uneasy feeling stirring within confuses him. His fear and anger toward the slithering monster have changed him.
The children sleep in the warm darkness of the hollow. She smiles, eager to close her eyes, if only for a moment. Soft thumps catch her attention. 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, grinning from ear to ear, his eyes beaming as he giggles. She wishes to express her joy, yet her husband walks away, seemingly taller than before and faster than his usual gait, pacing away in a very unusual manner.
Before the sun dips below the horizon, all of their children, including them both, are sated. For the first time since they started a family, they rest with aching stomachs full. 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, in the canopy of darkness, at things twinkling in the distance. They cannot help but wonder what those things could be. Eyes closed, arms entwined, they shared a dream of a hopeful morrow.
Not long after, their small family expands; Mama Ape now presides over their thriving Ape family, mothering many healthy Ape children. Her children, who rarely survived their first two rains, have grown, assisting Papa Ape in foraging. A grown Ape can scavenge ten food in a full Ape hour. Papa Ape has grown efficient these past few rains. Papa Ape leads a sortie of ten grown Apes, gathering a hundred pieces of food every Ape hour. Mama Ape smiles, distributing the abundance of nuts crunching on the first bite, edible roots that cure upset stomachs, and berries that taste like their shared dream under the twinkling things many rains ago among their children.
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. Lamentably, 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 reach their first ten rains; they raise too many to count, and 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; having multiple broken bones, he has ceased 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 built together. The neighboring male Apes, fighting on empty stomachs, stand no chance. Papa Ape himself, with his gray fur, can fend off three-four-even six hostile young Apes at the same time, while leading his grown Ape sons against the growling stomachs of aggressive Apes. Every other male Ape aspires to mount Mama Ape, yet Mama Ape has no desire for companionship with anyone beyond the progenitor 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 imparted 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 peculiar manner, on two legs, not four. An unusual way of walking, resulting in the New Apes never knowing the horror of hunger.
Papa Ape died with a smile in the arms of Mama Ape. Mama Ape soon followed 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 its 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 recall the Legend of Tall Trees, of Paradise the Elders dreamed, yet everyone, all descendants of Mama Ape and Papa Ape, are aware of their shared dream.
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 children, sometime in the future, will fulfill the dream they both shared: to reach those very things that twinkle.
