Great Silverback Gorilla: An Autobiography
The walls were humid. My nose was already runny. Mold
started to grow on my already dirty fur and everything was as disgusting as always. It smelled like rotten food and excrement. It was 6 pm, only 1 hour left until my next show.
A routine that left me so tired that I couldn't move my limbs for hours at the time, but stopping wasn't an option if I wanted to eat. The only thing that kept me from total starvation was the small plate of food the guardians gave me after a show, if I deserved it, of course.
I knew that today was not going to be a good day. I hadn't heard many people, therefore it was going to be harder to get the applauds, so I had to make a greater effort. It was worth it nonetheless. I needed food... I needed the food so I could have the strength to someday escape from that prison... Someday.
I have lost my sense of time. The only hour of the day when I could actually see the sunlight was in the mornings, my favorite part. A little sunbeam sneaks into the dark, filthy room, illuminating a moldy wall for some minutes. It was nice, reminded me of home, family, and nature. It felt so right until it didn't. After that, the angle on which the sun hit the facility changes and then, it's dark again.
Sometimes I like it that way. It makes it easier for me to imagine that I'm somewhere else, that I'm free. That I'm back home. But then there come the men, the guardians. And with a whip, they take me out of my cell and put me in front of a crowd, for me to make tricks and jumps, and show myself so that more people come and so on and so on.
I rather think that the more I suffer, the more they enjoy it. It seems as if they didn't know this is not where I belong, not where I'm supposed to be. I've heard so many times that they are the most intelligent species on the planet. But I disagree, they either are not, or they just don't care. It is an inescapable loop in which I'm trapped in.
And after I finish my punishment, how I like to call it, they walk me back to the cell. The mere sight of that obscure cubicle would scare anyone miles away: So dark, so filthy, so lonely, so wrong.
And yet, that's what I have to call home. Because that is where I live, where they have put me, and that is where I will always be if someone doesn't rescue me.
The guardians are careless. Maybe too cynical. They look like me, but with less fur. They make everything complicated with their green little papers they exchange with each other. Causing so much war, so much conflict, so much pain. Only to prove to each other who possesses "the most".
I never understood it. Life was so simple back then. I lived in the ancient mountains of great China. No one would mess with me. I had a family, and I would see humans roaming around every once in a while, but they never hurt me. They were good. I know they were. Until one day, a group of people came into my home and destroyed everything.
They cut down the trees, destroyed the soil, burned it all down. After that, I woke up here, still horrified, with some blurry memories. I heard them talking about me being the new "Great Silverback Gorilla". As if I was an object to possess. A mere title to be proud of, like a prize. But I'm just an animal, and just like them, I feel.
Even though I have lost eveything, I'll keep doing my shows, because I have to survive. I know someone someday will come for me and take me again to my home, back in the great forests of China. I know that because there are good people out there. I have seen them, I know they are out there.
I really wished I could speak to humans. Make them
understand just how wrong their actions are. How screwed up their nature can be. Why can't they live in peace with other species? Maybe it's part of them. Well, not all of them, but most of them. Why are the good people so powerless? Why can't they rule as much as evil people rule?
My guess, it's probably ignorance. They just don't realise how much wrong they make to the world.
By Daniela Maya C., Step 11
