"they're only human," says leading chimponaut
"in hindsight, yes it was definitely specist. we inherited this trait from our great ancestor, the Darwin Ape. but we needed to know that it was safe for us to leave our planet, which was due to be swallowed by a huge cosmic gust, known to us as Hurricane H1-NO-1. we didn't know a lot about these creatures. but even though they seemed to be scared of their own shadows, at least in captivity, they were there for a reason & that reason was to save chimpkind. they did it for us all. to be honest, they fought each other quite a lot. so, in a way, we did many of them a great service by testing the limits of their suffering & survivability. we were good to them too. we bestowed honours such as handshakes & chocolate medals on those who survived the centrifuge. they were caged heroes, those humans, living on dog biscuits & free to run around screaming & pulling their hair out in approximately 1m x 2m of the best turf. the space flights were a bit cramped, it's true, but we had very little time & so much to achieve. we fed them scraps from our dinner plates, but only if they were quiet when we ate. we lost count of how many we actually used, but we had enough of them to make a difference. those surplus to inventory were given parts as extras in landing simulations, although they were certainly not given speaking parts. any extra who actually attempted to speak (although we did not understand their language) was given a jab containing avian contaminated viruses, formaldehyde & mercury. some of them were even tortured. only those who came into accidental contact with our bioweapons went on to develop unspeakable diseases. we conducted tests for as long as the dictates of our governing body deemed it necessary. it turned out that the hurricane missed our planet. in any case, we would like to congratulate all captive humans for their brave efforts. we are in the process of constructing a new disneyland paradise for them & their delightful, though slightly traumatised & mutated, offspring."
2 comments:
let me quote something a bit more real from one of my favourite writers, Franz Kafka, a man who understood torture only too well:
"Every man lives behind bars, which he carries within him. That is why people write so much about animals ... It's an expression of longing for a free natural life. But for human beings the natural life is a human life. But men don't always realize that. They refuse to realize it. Human existence is a burden to them, so they dispose of it in fantasies."
[from 'Conversations with Kafka', Gustav janouch, trans. G. Rees, Village Press, 1971, pp.22-23]
& from the same author (p. 57):
'The civilized world depends for the most part on the effects of successful training procedures. That is what culture means. In the light of Darwinism, man's evolution looks like a monkey's fall from grace. but an organism cannot completely divorce itself from its existential basis.' I answered with a smile: 'A bit of the old monkey's tail still remains.'
'Yes,' agreed Kafka. 'The desire for a clear-cut definition of the stage which has to be overcome always leads to intellectual exaggeration and so to repeated disillusionments.Yet this particularly is the most striking expression of the hunger for truth. Men only discover themselves in the dark mirror of tragedy. But by then it's already over.'
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