Clever Magazine,Fall '07 " Monkey business " (www.clevermag.com)

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Monkey Business

by DeAnna Knippling

DeAnna is a mother and part-time freelance writer who also happens to work for the government, taking advantage of temporary loopholes in a Catch-22 system to accomplish actual work on a daily basis.

"If evolution really exists, why aren't monkeys turning into humans?" Dr. Bagstrom demanded. The other scientists on the panel, Dr. Arnold and Dr. Cheever, regarded him with sadness: like T. S. Eliot, he'd succumbed to religion later in life, after losing his young daughter Valentine to bone cancer, high vivid intellect seemingly replaced by a creaking antique overnight.

"How do we know monkeys aren't evolving?" Dr. Arnold asked. Dr. Arnold's research papers tended not to appear in scientific journals; she was well-known as a practical joker. "After all, Dr. Cheever here was raised by chimpanzees at the Rio Grande zoo."

"You're joking." Dr. Bagstrom noted patiently over the rumble of audience reaction. Some of them were chortling; others had turned bright purple.

Dr. Cheever shook his head. "Dr. Arnold exaggerates. I only spent a few weeks in the chimpanzee area. You're a good deal older than most of us, Dr. Bagstrom. Surely you must remember seeing it on the news as a young man."

"Hardly," said Dr. Bagstrom.

"I was five. I managed to hide myself in the chimpanzee area late one afternoon; the chimpanzees helped keep me out of sight for a few weeks. I can still speak a little basic chimp."

The audience was louder now, impatient with the joke.

Dr. Bagstrom pounded on the folding table with his fist, "You two should be ashamed of yourself! You are doctors! And scientists!"

"Ashamed?" Dr. Cheever rose to his feet, his long, lithe limbs allowing him to loom over Dr. Bagstrom. "I was proud to have seen what I saw, and to have lived what I lived. But your assumption that chimpanzees would evolve into humans is erroneous! The chimpanzees have seen, Dr. Bagstrom, what has happened to their cousins through their iron bars and glassed-in enclosures. Humanity is an abomination! An abomination!"

In the commotion that followed, Dr. Arnold slipped out of her chair and laid her head on Dr. Cheever's shoulder. "Dr. Cheever, do sit down. It's no use getting angry about it. My apologies, Dr. Bagstrom. I had hoped to achieve a humorous interlude to our over-serious discussion."

Dr. Bagstrom gave her a foul look while she ruffled her fingers through Dr. Cheever's hair. He shoved his folding chair across the linoleum with a metallic grunt and lumbered out of the room, muttering, "Too old for this...need an overhaul..." as Dr. Arnold picked a bit of fluff out of Dr. Cheever's hair and absent-mindedly popped it into her mouth.