Mandy, My love (607 hits)
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Submitted by QuinnTheEskimo (View user info) at 2009-06-08 09:09:53 EDT
I'm writing this letter so people close to me will understand why I have been so difficult to reach the past two days. I do not think I will become easier to reach anytime soon, dear readers, so in a way this is also a good bye. I fell in love you see, and I am running away with this girl to live a simpler life. Her name is Mandy.
I remember when we met, Mandy and I. The sun was going down, casting the world in the orange light of dusk. I was at the zoo, the smells and sounds of a hundred exotic animals surrounded me like a fog, and there she was. Her large brown eyes stared at me without blinking. She was eating something, though time has made it hard to remember exactly what. It may have been celery. Mandy's healthy eating habits were one of the first things that attracted me to her.
She reached a hand out towards me, and I made a cautious approach. When we were within hearing distance, I said, "Where have you been all my life?"
Cheesey, I know, but there was something about her that made me want to be cheesey. I felt like it was love at first sight, her huge brown eyes intense and unblinking communicated the same emotions. I spoke to her for a while, she was mostly quiet, perhaps shy, but I promised her I would see her again, and when I did she tossed me a piece of celery.
I returned to the zoo the next day as soon as they opened. It may seem foolish, but I had no other way of getting back in touch with her. We had not exchanged information, and so the only way I could have hoped to see her again would be to return to the place where we first met, by the gorilla enclosure.
And there she was again. I laughed when I saw her, and she laughed too, a hearty, husky, breathing laugh. I spent the day with her there at the zoo. I watched zoo keepers come and go, I watched tourists and vendors and tour guides all with Mandy as close to me as I could get her, which was about fifteen yards away on the other side of the dry moat that surrounded her enclosure.
And so I admit it to you, dear reader. Mandy was not a human girl I met at the zoo, but a gorilla. I was enamoured by this gorilla, something in her movement, something about her made me feel something that I have never felt for a human being before. This gorilla was my first love, and she loved me too.
I don't expect you to understand this love, I don't understand it myself sometimes, but I am drawn to this beautiful creature, and she to me. I can't imagine a life without her even after such a short time together. It is not a physical attraction. I am not such a lunatic that I want to mate with the ape, but some kind of magnet draws me closer to her constantly. I cannot, dear readers, resist her pull.
I watched Mandy at the other gorillas all day on that second day. I studied their behavior as closely as possible, watching every subtle gesture and action, trying to understrand Mandy and he family. I understood gorillas are very social creatures and I saw this play out in everything the apes did together. Mandy was treated differently from the other apes, though I wasn't sure why. She ate last at the meals, and was never allowed to use the toys scattered around the enclosure like the tire swing, or some peices of driftwood that the apes seemed to enjoy.
When I went home I did hours or research on gorilla behavior. As I did I made a startling realization. The other gorillas I had seen, the other gorillas treated Mandy as they treat the lowest ranking gorillas in the social heirarchy. She was the low man on the totem pole, and my heart hurt because of this. She deserved better. I would give her better.
I continued to research these creatures. I learned their diet, their social cues, and their physiology. It wasn't until just past two in the morning when I read about how fiercly the silverbacked protector of a group of gorillas can charge. They can bear their teeth, break limbs from trees, beat their chest, and scream before finally charging their oponent. However, as I read on I discovered the trick to surviving such an encounter.
On the third day I came to the zoo with a bulging backpack. It was ratty and dusty from years of being forgotten in a closet. I paid for my ticket and entered the zoo slowly, noting the massive brick wall that surrounded the whole place giving it the feel of a prison camp in a vague way. I spent my day talking to Mandy, laughing and joking, passing time before the inevitable act. The sun began to drop out of the sky, and I left my gorilla's side to hide out in a different part of the zoo.
As night fell the zoo closed. Zoo keepers went about their nightly errands, feeding some of the animals one more time, one pushed a massive wheel barrow full of dung to who knowns where. I reached into my backpack and donned a ski mask and black gloves. It was a few hours before they were all gone and I could emerge from hiding to sneak across the park and reunite with Mandy.
When I returned to the gorilla enclosure Mandy was in the same spot she had been when I had left. She reached both her arms out to me from across the moat, her eyes filled with longing. I reached into my backpack and pulled out a rope ladder. I secured one end of the ladder to the fence around the enclosure and dropped the other end into the moat. The moat was designed to keep a safe distance between animals and people, not to trap the beasts, and so I wandered quickly around the moat looking for a way up and into the part of the exhibit where Mandy was sequestered.
I wandered from one side of the moat to another, but found no way up. I was beginning to lose hope when the tire swing I had seen before was suddenly dropped over the edge of the moat. I tugged on the tire once, twice to make sure it was secure, then I began to climb.
When I reached the top two shaggy arms were wrapped around me. I wrapped myself around Mandy as best I could, holding her against me. I was helping to lower Mandy down over the edge of the moat when I heard the terrifying noise of a fist on flesh.
I turned and the silverback of the enclosure was staring me down, his nostrils flared and his shoulders rose and fell in a quick rhythm. Mandy was down at the bottom of the moat, running on her knuckles to the rope ladder. The silverback rose onto his little legs and beat his chest, letting out a holler than froze me in place.
And then he charged.
Four hundred pounds of angry silverback gorilla, ripping grass from the ground and throwing it up, yelling and screaming, all as he charged me. His powerful muscles rippled and twisted beneath his coarse black fur. I did not move, my eyes glue to the ground. The sliverback was upon me, his nose only inches from my face breathing out little flecks of mucus that clung to my skin. I did not move. The gorilla and I held this pose for a moment before he suddenly lost interest and went back to the other primates in the enclosure.
Before the great ape could change his mind and return to kill me I was down the tire swing and up the rope ladder on the other side of the moat. I pulled the rope ladder up after myself and rolled it back into the backpack. Mandy was waiting for me outside of the enclosure. Mandy's knuckles were bleeding from walking on the harsh asphalt of the zoo so I gave her my gloves. Then I reached into my backpack and took out a heavy jacket and a pair of blue jeans. I dressed Mandy up as a human, trying my best to disguise her as I snuck her out of the zoo under the sharp glow cast by the floodlights.
With Mandy's help I easily scaled the wall surrounding the zoo. After I was over her lumbering form crawled over the bricks and mortar and when she landed with a muffled thud in the grass I had a wave of emotion crash over me. We were free. We had made it. My car was only a short distance across the parking lot. I hoisted my backpack and Mandy followed me as I jogged.
* * *
"I haven't seen hide or hair of the police since we left, Mandy." I say. Then, sheepishly I add, "Sorry." But Mandy was totaly passive and I'm not sure if she was offended or not.
The seals around the doors of the truck are falling apart, and the wind sounds loud in our ears. I turn up the radio to try and drown it out, but Mandy must not have liked the station I put on because she begins to fumble with the radio and after a few awkward pokes she manages to turn the device off. The night sky is dark, the street lamps are like swollen stars floating quickly over the windshield, making the whole truck light up and then casting it back into darkness.
"We made it, Mandy." I tell her over the sound of the wind. "I'm taking you to the wild, Mandy. We're headed to the green mountains of Oregon." Mandy looked over at me blankly. "It's the closest thing we have to a rain forest here in America." She nodded and seemed pleased with the idea.
I reach over and give Mandy a pat on the shoulder. She is wearing my jacket but even through the thick coat I can feel her powerful shoulders. She looks at me and reaches out her own hand to touch my face. In this moment, speeding down the road in the earliest hours of the morning I am sure we love each other.
And that, dear readers, is why I will be out of touch. I don't ask for you to understand or condone my decision, however I do ask for you to respect it. I do not think I'm crazy, though I certainly could understand how one could draw that conclusion from my actions. As far as I am concerned my behavior was totally logical. You see, I have found what most people spend their lives trying to find. I have found someone who loves me.
User Reviews
Submitted by pandora (user info) at 2009-06-10 03:57:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by QuinnTheEskimo (View user info) at 2009-06-08 09:09:53 EDT
"I'm taking you to the wild, Mandy. We're headed to the green mountains of Oregon." Mandy looked over at me blankly. "It's the closest thing we have to a rain forest here in America."
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What about the Olympic National Forest? Oh well, she's just a gorilla, she'll never know you lied.
Submitted by RoadSong (user info) at 2009-06-09 16:42:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"And so I admit it to you, dear reader. Mandy was not a human girl I met at the zoo, but a gorilla. I was enamoured by this gorilla, something in her movement, something about her made me feel something that I have never felt for a human being before. This gorilla was my first love, and she loved me too."
OhhNoooo.
ps
Oregon is already full of skunk apes.
Submitted by haikumikoo (user info) at 2009-06-09 03:23:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Also, congratulations on writing a post in the first person and not having it mistaken for your autobiography.
http://www.ubersite.com/m/122346#2901820
Submitted by sir_cowman (user info) at 2009-06-09 02:30:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Hey, i know that band! those guys are AWESOME!
Submitted by haikumikoo (user info) at 2009-06-09 01:49:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Reminds me of this one song, I don't know, kind of similar I guess:
http://www.last.fm/music/Squelch+Gun/Ate+Track+Villains/Mandy+the+Gorilla
Submitted by sir_cowman (user info) at 2009-06-09 01:06:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
no, Roper. i just wrote a story about a man and his platonic love with a gorilla.
Submitted by Michael.T.Roper (user info) at 2009-06-09 00:43:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I'm curious to know if you had any particular expectations in terms of member's reactions to this post?
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2009-06-09 00:21:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 Zoo Post!
Whoring my own zoo post: http://www.ubersite.com/m/116854
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2009-06-08 16:07:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by SullyThePirate (user info) at 2009-06-08 13:30:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
All the zootalk and gorilla describing reminded me of a post of my own, http://www.ubersite.com/m/118206
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2009-06-08 11:17:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by SgtHartman (user info) at 2009-06-08 10:44:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
HAHA @ below
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2009-06-08 10:20:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Needs more ape.
Submitted by SgtHartman (user info) at 2009-06-08 09:47:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
OH MANDY, YOU CAME AND YOU GAVE WITHOUT TAKING....
Submitted by w_t_a_y_s_t_r_m (user info) at 2009-06-08 09:32:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Zoo = +2
I just skimmed over it, but I saw the zoo was mentioned, so I'm going to assume there were penguins and otters.
Submitted by sir_cowman (user info) at 2009-06-08 09:28:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
i will gladly smoke the reefer with any of you uberites.
except caul
hes a homo
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2009-06-08 09:25:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
my ass is grass and your invited to smoke it
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2009-06-08 09:24:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I'm glad I amused you. :)
Submitted by sir_cowman (user info) at 2009-06-08 09:23:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I laughed really hard when i read that review.
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2009-06-08 09:20:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
This is some weird ass shit.