Can Gorillas Run 5Ks?

Gonga grunted with the effort of lifting his foot for the next running step. Sweat poured down his face inside the rubber mask, stinging his eyes and making him squint all the more. The sun soaked into the black fur on his head. This was misery. Sheer torture.

He should have asked himself whether gorillas were designed to run 5Ks before agreeing to this hair-brained idea. But the girl in the pink shirt with the signup sheet had been so cute and persuasive. He hadn’t been able to tell her no. It would have crushed her. And it was so good to see such liveliness!

Now he was in the middle of a surging crowd of bodies, creeping along a strip of asphalt, wondering if he would ever make it to the end.

Stankowskie field, and the finish line shimmered in the distance.

“Come on Gonga, you can do it,” Dereck popped up at his shoulder, grinning broadly.

Dereck had stumbled across Gonga playing his accordion last week and after a lively conversation about accordion styles and mannerisms, they had become instant friends. Now Dereck seemed to pop up all over campus.

“Need---water,” Gonga croaked.

“Oh, be right back,” Dereck disappeared, dodging through the pack of runners and taking off down the track. In a minute, he was back jogging beside Gonga. This time he had a plastic cup of water in his hand.

Gonga blinked. Had he just imagined that? He accepted the water and poured most of it on his head and down his shirt. A few drops made it into his mouth.

“So fast!” he grunted.

“I ran a marathon last week,” Dereck said. “This is just a little relaxer, I’m not racing.”

Gonga rolled his eyes and stumbled on towards his goal. The Stankowskie field track felt good under his feet. It felt even better on his hands as he collapsed on the other side of the finish line. No, he decided. Gorillas were not designed to run 5Ks.

Almost Lost That Job

When one goes riding on the MKT trail, or the KT trail, (or any trail for that matter), one must remember that coming back often takes longer than going out. So you should turn around a little before halfway through your allotted time. More like a third of the way through, if you plan to stop and smell the roses on the ride back.

Gonga learned this the hard way.

After biking for five days straight, he realized that spring break was over the following day and he just might need to return to Columbia in time to get to work the next morning.

He thought about turning around and biking all night in an attempt to make it home on time. But he at least had the sense to realize that one night of frantic peddling would not make up for five full days of leisurely biking.

Thankfully, he had the bright idea of climbing up the embankment of the next bridge he met and begging for a ride from passing motorists. He had no idea what road he might be on, or if it would take him closer or further from Columbia. He just hoped he could figure out a way to contact his boss and tell him where he was before he turned up missing the next morning.

Semi-truck drivers can occasionally be compassionate to weary sojourners. And since Gonga looked particularly woe-begone with his bike crumpled on the shoulder next to him, one driver finally pulled over.

He laughed hard, and long when Gonga finished his story. And he kept laughing the entire drive back to Columbia. (Thankfully Gonga had stumbled upon a road which really did lead home, and thankfully the driver was going that direction.)

Gonga tried to ignore the laughter. He finally decided that it was the price he had to pay for his own stupidity and suffered through the remaining hours of the trip in silence.

When he stumbled through the door of The Textbook Game early Monday morning, he decided not to tell his boss exactly what had happened. Just let him think he had stayed up late enjoying his last scraps of break. After all, that’s what he had done, right?

Gonga’s Spring Break

It was spring break, and Gonga had absolutely nothing to do. No work. No school. No friends to hang out with. No-where fun to go. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Any other week of the year, and Gonga had plenty of friends. But this week they had all decided to abandon him. Bye. See you later. I’ll bring a T-shirt back for you.

Oh yes, they were friendly. But remote. No one offered to let him tag along on their crazy adventures to Pensacola, or Denver, or Boston, or Europe…

So here he was, stuck in Columbia, Missouri. Good ol’ CoMo.

He spent the first morning buried in the library, pouring over old vacation magazines, and pulling down every picture atlas he could find. He even read half a dozen travel guides to various destinations both in and outside the U.S. By the end of the day he had enough travel ideas and plans to fill an entire month. But still nothing to do the next six days of break.

The second morning he decided that he had his fill of just sitting around Columbia.

So he rented a bicycle at Walt’s Bike Shop and struck out on the MKT trail. By mid-morning, he had reach the KT trail proper and was riding along the Missouri river.

It was peaceful. Wind in his face, and no one else around for miles. In the afternoon, he began passing small knots of people walking on the trail, enjoying an evening outdoors.

Gonga stopped for water at several towns along the way. It was getting dark when he suddenly realized that he would need a place to spend the night. He kept riding for a few minutes, wondering if there were any more towns this direction. Then a solution popped into sight. The looming shape on the horizon which Gonga had subconsciously identified as a cloud turned out to be a bridge.

He spent the night under the bridge, tucked up in the tightest crack he could find, with his arms wrapped around his bike.

The next three days were sheer bliss. Gonga rode all day long, stopping for water frequently and bartering odd jobs for dinner in the various town scattered along the trail.

It wasn’t till the morning of the last day of spring break that Gonga suddenly realized he had failed to account for something. How was he going to get home?

The Stacks III

Silently, Gonga stood to his feet, listening as the hoodlum crept down the aisle between the books. He was on the third floor of the stacks, in the inner part of the library surrounded by cages. He knew he had heard that sound before; the sound of the safety on a Ruger clicking off.

Gonga crept along the stack of books, tracking the sound of footsteps.

“Hey pal,” he heard someone say, “know where I can take out a loan?”

The voice sounded friendly enough.

“What?” a sleepy sounding voice responded. A sharp intake of breath followed.

“Yeah dude, I really need to get another student loan. Something came up, and I need some cash,” the friendly voice continued. “Got any idea who I can talk to? Maybe you can help me.”

Gonga slid down to the floor and poked his head around the base of the stack, knowing that people would be less likely to look to the floor to catch someone spying on them.

A figure stood silhouetted from the neck down against the light of the cage. The plastic shower curtain on this cage was folded back just far enough to leave his head in complete shadow.

“I-I don’t know,” the grad student stammered.

“Oh, you can help me,” the figure said, “I know you can.” He spoke confidently.

Gonga noticed his elbow twitch slightly as he gestured with his outstretched arm.

“O-okay,” the student reached toward his backpack.

“No rush,” the figure added.

Gonga stood to his feet quickly. This had to stop. In two quick steps he was around the stack of books and flying through the air towards the attacker’s knees. The silhouette went down like a rag doll under the onslaught of 200 pounds of gorilla.

In a second, he had halfway twisted around, but Gonga’s fist connected with his jaw, knocking him unconscious. The gun clattered to the floor. It failed to fire.
Gonga swept the gun into his hand and clicked the safety on.

The student sat frozen, his hand halfway into his backpack.

“Do you have a phone?” Gonga asked. He shoved the pistol into an unoccupied locked cage two doors down. “Call the police.”

With that, he turned and slipped out of the library.

There. Mission accomplished! He smiled to himself.

Now maybe he could think about Spring Break.

The Stacks Part II

What was the mission anyway? Why was he here?

The thought had begun troubling him again even as he wore his gorilla costume and assumed the personality of Gonga. He knew he had received training specifically to accomplish the goal he had been sent to Columbia, Missouri to achieve. But after playing the part of Gonga for so long, he sometimes had trouble differentiating himself from the gorilla who spent his days advertising for a bookstore and whose family was in Africa.

The mission had seemed so clear when he was back in training. Protect people. Keep the world safe. Thwart the evil forces. It almost sounded like something a superhero would try to do. And back in training he had felt like a superhero.

But now…

He hunched over a little more, remembering that he was supposed to look like a gorilla. A gorilla in the middle of the library stacks, watching a National Geographic documentary of Congo. He snickered. It was all so surreal sometimes.

The door on the other side of the library stack opened and shut. Another weary studier shuffled into the room. Something metal snicked.

The hair on the back of Gonga’s neck stood up straight. The last time he had heard that sound was as he snapped the safety off on his Ruger handgun.

All his instinct snapped into high gear as he stared at his computer screen, clicking the mute button on his headphones and willing himself to see what was going on behind him through sheer sound.

Nothing moved.

Absolute silence.

Gonga leaned back in his chair, letting it squeak loudly as he stretched and yawned.
Beneath the sound of his own movements, he heard the rewarding sound of steps sidling away down one of the aisles between the shelves of books.

~To be continued.

The Stacks

The sun bit into the edge of the African plain, trying to burn a hole through the dust with the fury of its glow. The very effort seemed to make the sun grow larger before finally disappearing into the ground in rage.

All nature paused to consider the outcome of the nightly contest. Somewhere in the distance a hyena laughed when the last orange rays disappeared into the darkness.

Gonga shifted in the creaky metal chair and reached forward to adjust the sound coming out of his lap-top. The glow from the screen lit up his face in the semi-darkness of the library stacks. His chair squeaked again as he settled back.

Something hit the ground across the room from him. Someone swore, and the plastic shower curtain fluttered as the prisoner bent down to retrieve his book. The door of his metal cage clanked softly.

Only the most desperate of graduate students rented out these chain link shielded prisons. Things the librarians euphemistically called “carrels.”

Carols? Wasn’t that something happy you sang at Christmas time? How in the world did these rooms of torture, these chambers of brain masochism become mixed up with jolly songs of “ho-ho-ho”, presents and hot cocoa? Perhaps the idea of the ruler of the world coming to join the rank of humanity as a tiny baby in one of the lowliest families on earth had something to do with it. Surely those who imposed the strict isolation of the carol on their studies had similar ideas of long term benefit.

At any rate, Gonga was here as well; but without the benefit of a chain link gate or shower curtain to shut out the sight of his fellow isolationists. Instead, he used this quiet chamber on campus to allow him to travel. To revisit his child-hood’s favorite vacation spots and hear the sounds of home.

Even the laugh of the hyena that night had been comforting. It was true that Missouri had coyotes, which were similar in size to their African cousins. But they lacked any ounce of jollity in their howling. It usually degenerated into a crazed mass of yipping which had no comparison to the hilarity of Africa.

Gonga sighed, peering deeply into the screen of his lap top, willing himself to be home for once, surrounded by the crazy mass of family, relatives and friends-who-deemed-themselves-related. It had been months since he had experienced the joy of close companionship. And even the mission had begun to lose its appeal.

What was the mission anyway? Why was he here?

If You Give A Gorilla A Banana

If you give a gorilla a banana, he will snarf it down in three bites. Unless of course, that gorilla happens to be Gonga. If you give Gonga a banana, he will want a ‘Nilla Wafer to go with it. As he’s thinking about where to find a ‘Nilla Wafer, he will carefully peel away the skin and look around for a trash can.

While he’s looking for the trash can, he will realize that his trash at home is overflowing and will want to go home to change it. On his way home, he’ll see a person riding a skateboard.

Naturally, he’ll want to try riding on the skateboard himself.

When he offers his banana as a trade for a skateboard rider, the rider will laugh at him and race away as fast as possible. Skateboard-riding teenagers do not eat bananas or anything else resembling health food. At least, not in public.
Feeling the sting of rejection, Gonga will look at his banana contemplatively, wondering what can be done to improve it. Which is when he will remember that the only true complement to a banana is a ‘Nilla Wafer.
So Gonga will head towards home once more, intent once more on finding his ‘Nilla Wafers.

When he gets home and finishes pulling every single box out of his cabinet, he will discover that his box of ‘Nilla Wafers is empty. After turning the plastic inside-out and licking every last crumb, he will regretfully drop the cardboard box into his trash bag. At which point he will see that his trash is overflowing.

Gonga will carry his trash out to the dumpster, still clinging to his banana in with one hand. But in his herculean throw to get the trash bag on top of the dumpster heap, he will drop his banana among the refuse. In his haste to find his banana, he will stumble backwards and squash the banana firmly into the ground.

And if he squashes his banana, he will have to find some sort of replacement.

The store across the street sells icecream, so he walks in, hopefully.

“Do you want a Sundae?” the owner will ask, seeing as he is a gorilla.

A smile spreads across Gonga’s face as he takes the banana bathes in chocolate sauce and smothered in icecream. But of course, he’ll still want a ‘Nilla Wafer to go with it.