FICTIONS for WEIRD PRIMATES

By Caleb Pennington

I’m a weird primate, half hairy, named Caleb. I have the mystery of my existence to solve. I’m scared that there isn’t a purpose.

One day I picked up a fruit of sorts. It was the letter A. I asked: “The hell is this?” I said: “It’s the letter A.” I then knew that it was real. Like bedrock to a mountain. Hardly ever changing. It made me feel good. Comforted. The world has real things in it. Things I could piece together.

So I wrote: The letter A is a standalone fact. It is objective. There is not one literate half hairy primate on this big life ball planet that won’t get it. It is a tool. It can create something. I couldn’t argue with it. I told myself: I think I just learned something real.

Promising, the realization was. I started typing. I wanted words in sequence to be real like math. But a math of the spirit. My spirit doesn’t seem to be half primate. Sometimes, maybe it’s a human and thinks about all the problems of not having a purpose. My human side wanted to read a book. It did. It then said: These fictions and myths have a reason for living. The letters that makes them is as objective and durable as the bedrock on this planet.

So, I started introducing myself to fictions and myths.

After a while, I said to myself: I made a friend, today. Fictions meet myth, myth meet fiction. My name is Caleb.

Fiction said: Nice meeting you. I don’t get to meet many people, these days.

Myth said: Yes, likewise.

I asked was: Why are you here?

They both said: To answer.

I asked: What? ‘Cause I have some questions.

Myth said: Hypotheticals pertaining to your survival, the reasons for the natural world, the reasons humans must adhere to a natural order. They die when they don’t. They suffer.

Fiction said: Hypotheticals pertaining to your spirit in the context of your experience.

I said: Damn, that’s pretty deep fellers.

They said: No shit. You must not be too educated if you didn’t already know that we’re deep.

I said: I’ve read Nietzsche.

Myth said: He made me feel relevant, again.

Fiction said: He breathed life into my lungs.  

I thought that was pretty cool. Fiction did too, so he made me a recommendation. He gave me Richard Bachman, or Stephen King in disguise. His writing is crisp, but it felt like someone was just trying to put me in a demonic world that scared me as a half primate. I wasn’t feeling too human. I still wanted a purpose for being here. So fiction handed me 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I realized I was going to die at the end of it. That I couldn’t escape time. My family couldn’t, either.  

After I read that, I had to go over to my mom’s house because she is my mom. She was on the couch, watching T.V. Gabriel Garcia Marquez made me realize she was going to die. I told her I love her. It felt good. For thirty minutes, I wanted my purpose in life to be loving my mom. It felt good.  

So I said to fiction: “You know, that book made me want to spend time with my mom.”

Fiction said: “Understandable. All loved ones pass away in that fiction you read. As they do in life.”

I decided to pose some questions to him. Because he gave me some answers when I was with my mom. I asked: Could we come to the weakest’s rescue? Would we if they were a dog? A cow? A fetus? Are you too good to save a fetus?

Fiction and me are trying to answer them. I think that’s the reason I try to know him. He helps me figure things out.