"Oh, Com'on Pan, won't you have little bite?
It's your favorite, mashed mangos". Poor Emily, she's
sweet but not too bright. She thinks mashed mangos are
my favorite food because I eat them first.
I eat them first because I'm old. My teeth are bad. Mashed food goes down easier.
I suppose the girls will eventually figure it out. They mean well.
I've been incarcerated here at JungleWorld Gardens for my entire life. I guess I was born here. Can't remember my mother. Can't remember much of my early years. I do remember day-after-day of smothering motherliness by kindly intentioned lady keepers.
They're all trained zoologists. They do their very best not to anthropomorphize.
They do it, anyway. They can't help it. They're women. Every creature they care for becomes a child in need of motherly attention. They can't help it.
That probably sounds cranky. I don't mean it that way. I appreciate the caring care I get every day, though
I could do without the infantile coo-cooing. Not that it matters all that much.
It doesn't really matter at all.
I'm just harumphing like every other tiresome old man.
I spent my first two years in the chimpanzee enclosure before the keepers discovered I was a bonobo.
I guess my lack of socializing with the others was a tipoff.
It's an easy mistake to make.
The only big difference between a chimpanzee and
a bonobo is that bonobo's are handsomer and smarter.
Anyhow, that's how I got the name, Pan; because of the pan syllable in chimpanzee. Even so, both chimpanzee and bonobo belong to the scientific genus, Pan Troglodyte.
I ramble
None of that matters anymore. I'm dying.
Gonna to take a little nap now. The mashed mangos can wait. Gonna let my dreams take me back to the green jungle home I never knew.
Even though I never lived in jungle, I did learn about jungle. I learned from overheard conversations between keepers and curious visitors, and I also learned from the telepathic images projected by the other apes.
I've noticed the gorillas are particularly given to musing about a long-lost Eden. They're always visualizing sunbeams piercing green jungle canopy and delicious fruits within easy reach.
Humans don't seem to have any sense of telepathy.
I suppose that's why they misunderstand so much.
No matter.
Old Pan is tired. Dappled light is flickering around me. It's the light of forest. The air is getting moist and warm. What a wonderful smell of flowers. So many birds. The birds are singing. They're calling to me.
I have to go now.
I hope Emily gets a husband worthy of her, and has daughters as nice as she is.
Someone else can have the mashed mangos.
I'm going home.
