Chester Parsons is Not a Gorilla

by Martyn Ford

  Whatever.

  It was 2.30 a.m. but I wasn’t tired, not after my sleep.

  I drove and drove for ages. Again I looked at the clock. It was 3.30 a.m. And yet I still didn’t recognise these roads. I didn’t even recognise the signs. None of the names of places meant anything to me. Even a huge main sign … which was pointing towards somewhere called London.

  London? Never heard of it.

  It was like I was in a foreign country. A rubbish one at that. How far had these animal-control guys taken me? I was … I was driving somewhere.

  Where though? Where was I driving?

  Hang on, why was I driving? That’s weird, isn’t it? I shouldn’t be driving. Who am I anyway? I looked up at myself in the rear-view mirror. Whoa. Wait. I’m a gorilla. That’s not right at all. Do gorillas drive?

  Do gorillas ask questions like that in their head?

  Very strange.

  I had an urge for something. Something important. Something …

  Something caught my attention. A shop. A supermarket. It was closed but a few lights were still on. I pulled up at the front, turned the engine off, clambered out and waddled over towards the window. Licking my lips, I leant forwards until my head stopped. Donk. I grunted.

  What was this? Stupid invisible wall of some kind. I hated it.

  What do I want? Come on. You know this one. What do you want? I want … I want … some … some …

  Food.

  Some food! Yes. That’s it. Of course. It makes sense now. That’s what this feeling is, I thought. I’m a gorilla. A hungry gorilla. Phew. Well, this was an easy enough problem to solve.

  I decided to break into the supermarket and eat everything inside. It was a good plan. Maybe the best plan ever. What else in this world could possibly matter? Literally nothing, I thought, as I lifted a nearby bin and, with a spin, threw it through the window.

  *

  Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls to … Gorilla Time. Fun and chaos in the middle of the night. Picture the scene – a gloomy supermarket, lit just by faint fridge lights and green fire-exit signs. It’s quiet. Peaceful. No one is here. Everything is still.

  We pan round, we see all the empty tills, the baskets all neatly piled. Then we see a window. It’s been smashed – oh no, who did that? Outside it’s dark, the wind whistles through the car park. Silence …

  And then the intro music starts. Bad-um, bad-um dum-dum, dum-dum-dum. A spotlight comes on with the beat of a drum. Boom. Then another. Daaah. And another. Dooo. They all meet in the supermarket’s fresh-food aisle and sweep up to the broken window.

  Weighing in at one hundred and fifty-nine kilograms, he’s the hairy, scary, jungle monkey who’s not actually a monkey, it’s TIIIIIIIIITO THE GORILLAAAAA-A-A-A-AAAAAHHHHH.

  Rock guitar – BRAAAAAAAALLDRAAAAUUUUM. And there he is. Bam. A black mass leaps inside the supermarket. The crowd goes wild.

  The commentator leans into his microphone.

  ‘Here we go, it’s the main event! Now, not many people know this but Tito the Gorilla once had the consciousness of an eleven-year-old boy in his brain,’ he says. ‘You remember Chester Parsons? Ha ha. No, me neither …’

  No, wait, ignore all that. Maybe better like a nature documentary?

  Cut the lights and music. Back to silence.

  Imagine a quiet supermarket. Night-time. Totally empty apart from a gorilla. Just Tito having a mega feast – apples, custard, sandwiches. He’s loving it. He burps and throws a can of fizzy drink over his shoulder.

  ‘Here we see the silverback far from its natural habitat,’ the voice-over says. ‘He has free rein of the shop. He can go anywhere, do anything. We can see that the gorilla is troubled. Something is on his mind. What is he doing here? Wait. Quiet now. He has spotted something. The magazines and newspapers. He’s drawn to the television and film section, curious about showbiz. He surveys the wide shelf of glossy magazines. Primates are intelligent but still, this is unusual behaviour.

  ‘And what’s this? He has found something of interest. TopFilm magazine. An article about the upcoming Sword of Steel and Stone movie. Oh, he doesn’t appear to be a fan. Over his shoulder it goes. Another has caught his eye. This next magazine has a feature all about Amy and Chester, the celebrity siblings pictured on the front. Why would a gorilla care about such a thing? It looks as though he is attempting to read the words, but they clearly mean nothing to him. Let’s try and guess what he might be thinking about, shall we?’

  What was I thinking? It was impossible to tell. Can you imagine what that might be like? Think about it. How often in your life are you totally focussed on whatever task you’re doing? How often are you just watching TV, or reading, or talking, or being angry, or being happy, or being hungry, or being whatever? How often are you lost in thought? So lost that you become those thoughts. Probably most of the day – maybe even most of your life.

  This can be very troubling, especially if you’re stressed. Take me for example. Sometimes before an audition I used to get so worried that I actually felt physically wrong. My stomach would be tight, my chest would ache. All this because of stuff that’s happening in my brain. And it gets so powerful that I’m not Chester Parsons, I am just a little shuddering lump of nervousness.

  Wait, wait a second – the trick is to stop and think. To be aware of your thoughts.

  But that night at the supermarket, I was truly lost in Tito. Every part of me was pretty much gone. My thoughts were the thoughts of a gorilla. This made keeping track of them very difficult.

  At the time I didn’t know any of this, but it was happening – exactly what Vladovski and Carlos warned me about. I was forgetting. I was dissolving.

  I remember opening a big bag of crisps – I pulled it apart with my strong hands and they exploded all over the place. They were crunchy under my fists and feet. Then I climbed up on top of a shelf and walked along, knocking things off as I went.

  ‘Oh, look at that,’ the voice-over continued. ‘It seems as though the creature is searching for something in particular.’

  I leapt down into a new aisle, weird products all around me.

  ‘He seems curious about this place.’

  Looking up, I frowned.

  ‘Wow, he’s looking right at the camera. Which is strange because it doesn’t exist – all this footage is being gathered from inside the gorilla, from inside his very mind …’

  Thud, thud, yeah, yeah, la, la, la, la. Being a gorilla is fun, fun, happy, happy, happy-happy times. Dooby-do. Eating all the foods. Hey. Eating every food. Get the food and mash it in my mouth. Nom-nom-nom-nom-nom-nom—

  Wait.

  Here, he seems to be getting to grips with his own thoughts. Come on, Tito, you can do it.

  Voice in my head? Hello?

  Who is that?

  Could he possibly crack self-awareness at this late stage in the game?

  I carried on walking.

  What’s this? Boxes of stuff. More food. Flakes of things. Ooh, square ones and round ones. A corn on the cob on the front of the packet. I grabbed the box and threw it away. Not what I want. Another box. Inside I found a bag. I sniffed it.

  Carefully this time, I opened it and grabbed a fistful of the food inside. It was crunchy. It wasn’t nice, not really, but I felt like I had to eat it. As though something was guiding me here. Maybe it was fate. What does fate even mean?

  It was hopeless … I was gone.

  I carried on strutting through the supermarket, eating this stuff.

  Something yummy, I thought, turning around and checking over my shoulder – there was a trail of crumbs following me.

  Something yummy with smiles?

  There, covered in food and frowning, I started to dance. Grunting a slight tune, air coming out of my nose.

  ‘Gurh, ga, gurtle gile gah gah uff eat … uf?’ I hummed. ‘A oooohwl. Gah. GAHSHINE.’

  Gum gum … uff uff? What is wrong with me? I need to see a vet. I’m going mad. Wait. Do gorillas go ma
d?

  WAIT.

  I stared down at my hand. There, in my palm, loads of little yellowy-brown circles were looking up at me. Each with a tiny smiley face on the front. I ate them. Chewing. Chewing. Thinking. Remembering.

  Come on, come on, come on …

  ‘Gum gum uff uff?’ I said with wide eyes.

  YUM YUM PUFF PUFF.

  ‘GUM GUM UFF UFF!’

  I remembered everything. And I slammed the cereal on the floor and bolted for the broken window, now really in a rush. This was bad. Hold on to your memories, I thought, as I skidded outside. Back at the animal-control van, I stopped and tried to concentrate. I even put my hand on my forehead, as though I could keep my thoughts contained that way. Remember, remember … the fifth of November?

  No. Remember who you are. Chester Parsons. Thoughts. Thoughts. COME ON.

  Don’t let them wander. Don’t get lost. Don’t … don’t …

  A loud thwuuuck sound – something pinged off the bonnet. I flinched and turned around. The police were here. Oh good. Another noise and the van’s passenger window shattered. They were shooting at me. Bullets this time.

  ‘I’M CHESSSTTERRR PAARSUURRNS!’ I shouted. ‘STOP SHOO—’

  THUMP. I spun round, yelling in pain, falling flat on the ground. My shoulder felt like it was on fire – I grabbed it. Blood – glossy and dark on my black palm. They had shot me. It was a graze, the bullet hadn’t gone in, but still, it did not feel nice.

  Carefully, keeping my head low, I clambered back into the animal-control van and started the engine – I couldn’t use my left arm, so flopped it on my lap as best I could. Armed officers were all lined up behind a couple of police cars – luckily, they were so confused to see a gorilla at the wheel they didn’t shoot as I drove towards them, faster and faster, honking the horn and roaring. They just stared, chins dangling, heads shaking.

  The front of the van smashed two police cars out of the way. One skidded in a circle, the other rolled over completely – a haze of dust and metal and glass, men in helmets running, diving into a nearby bush.

  Swerving back out on to the main road, I checked the rear-view mirror and saw the destruction I’d left behind – flashing blue lights and steam chugging up into the air from a broken engine.

  Tito kept groaning in pain – I felt I was losing control, fading again. He panted, making angry, shouty sounds. I needed a distraction. Something to keep him at bay.

  As I drove away I paid special attention to my thoughts, noticing that I wasn’t sorry, or scared, or even hungry any more. There was only one thing in my mind, and it was on a loop. That incessant, infuriating, beautiful jingle. Hands gripped on the steering wheel, I sang it at the top of my gorilla lungs – bellowed it out, screaming with the windows down and my chin held high.

  Usually it’s annoying when you get a song stuck in your head. But that night, those four simple words may well have saved my life. Yum. Yum. Puff. Puff. One more time, Tito. One more time.

  The animal-control van rolled to a stop at home. It was dawn – the low sky was red, purple, then blue above, the brightest stars fading out, as though they’d given all their light to the sun. Tito seemed to like the sunrise, the comfort of daytime, the warmth on our fur. I could feel he wanted to sit and stare. But the clock was ticking.

  Come on, I thought, let’s go inside.

  Holding my injured arm, I limped up the path. Home was a good place to be, I decided – somewhere familiar, somewhere to keep my memories from drifting away again.

  Amy, Detective Pepper, Carlos and Silent Cameraman were all waiting for me. Up in Amy’s bedroom, I answered a ton of questions. Mostly about having the consciousness of a nine-hundred-and-ninety-year-old cult leader in my mind, which involved a lot of shrugging and the words, ‘I don’t know.’ I was still just as surprised as they were.

  Dr Vladovski had explained everything to them already (but not on camera – he refused to be part of the show), and this saved me some time. I asked where he was and Amy said he had gone to hospital. Oh yeah, car crash. Of course.

  At that thought, I apologised to Detective Pepper.

  ‘You wot, mate?’

  He slouched on Amy’s bed, propped up with some of her cushions, surrounded by fairy lights wrapped around the metal frame. I was sitting at the opposite end, the mattress springs beneath me completely flattened.

  ‘Sorry, for the car,’ I typed into my talky machine, which they’d rescued from the wreckage, then grunted as Amy pressed more bandages on to my shoulder.

  ‘Insured up to me gills, bruv, ya probably did us a favour.’ He yawned, patting his belly like it was a drum. ‘Get a saucy new one won’t I – maybe some furry dice, ah yeah very nice. Air freshener shaped like a tree, smells like marzipan, ya know the kind. Lovely jubbly.’

  ‘You said it was sentimental?’

  ‘Nah, nah, nah, don’t be a sausage.’ He waved his hand. ‘Only a motor innit. Either way ya jump off the roof looked top drawer. Like an action movie. You got all that didn’t ya, chief?’

  Silent Cameraman nodded.

  ‘Some naughty footage I bet.’

  ‘There you go,’ Amy said, when my dressing was finished.

  Closing the first-aid box, she rubbed her nose and let out a long breath – I could tell she had been crying. I guess the news that the star swimmers killed our dad hit her pretty hard. Don’t get me wrong, it made me sad too but she was old enough to remember. She saw him get ill and die. Definitely makes it worse to know it was murder. I also noticed the photo of dad had been moved. She’d obviously been looking at it, just like I had done in the dream.

  ‘Hey guys,’ Loser Amy whispered into the camera with a sniff. ‘As you can see, Chester made it back to us. He’s been shot so we’re just patching up this wound and then we’re going to confront Cold Rain again. This time, we’re not taking any of his lies.’

  Then she turned back to me.

  ‘Let’s expose the star swimmers,’ Just Amy said. ‘I want you to remember everything. I want them to pay for all they’ve done. I want the truth on the front page of every news site.’

  I nodded. ‘But first,’ I typed into my machine, ‘let’s find my body.’

  With a groan, I tried to stand, but collapsed. Tito had lost quite a lot of blood by this point – it was making me dizzy. Worse than wine, worse than tranquillisers, worse than staying up most of the night. But Detective Pepper said I’d be OK. Apparently he had medical experience from his ‘military days’.

  ‘You just gotta recharge ya batteries, ya reckless doughnut,’ he said, squeezing and shaking my foot.

  He was right. I was weak – physically and mentally drained. What was the time? The clock blurred, splitting into two swaying pictures when I squinted. It was 5 a.m. Five … five … And then it started happening again – Amy’s bedroom began to look totally unfamiliar. Even her face – like the face of a stranger.

  I shook my head and scrunched my eyes to get a grip on my thoughts – the main themes were fear, sadness and doom. Not good feelings. It felt as though, at this rate, I had maybe an hour left? And the Whispered Manor was well over an hour’s drive.

  ‘You all right there, monkey chops?’ Detective Pepper asked.

  ‘No,’ I typed. ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘That’s healthy,’ he said. ‘They say do one thing every day that scares ya. Eat a spider. Run with scissors. Climb a pylon. Fish ya toast out with a knife. Muck about behind a horse. Ya know. Face ya fears.’

  ‘I think you’ve misunderstood that saying,’ Amy said.

  ‘Yeah … maybe.’ He frowned.

  ‘Some things are scary for a reason.’

  Groaning, I stared out of the window – even Detective Pepper’s rambling nonsense couldn’t cheer me up. The sun was just starting to glow over the trees and I realised that today probably would be my last. No more starry nights. No more Chester Parsons.

  Carlos scurried across the duvet and up on to my belly, which lifted and fell as I
breathed. At first I thought he was trying to comfort me. But he squeaked, then waved towards himself, pointing at his scraggy brown head. I hesitated, remembering what Dr Vladovski said – every mind jump costs a bit of yourself. But, then again, so does time. And Carlos was insisting, now jumping up and down on my stomach, inviting me over. So I huffed, then leapt into his mind. The moment I did, I looked back to see Tito fall into a deep sleep. Once more, I felt so sorry for him.

  Chester, listen, Carlos thought. It’s now or never. Go. Face Cold Rain alone.

  It’s … it’s so far away. It’ll take too long to get there. (These negative thoughts, like all thoughts, were just arriving automatically – taking over like a bad mood or a catchy song).

  Not for the best mind jumper of all time.

  We scurried up on to the windowsill and looked out into the world with our tiny front paws resting against the glass. Outside, on a telegraph wire, a small bird sang a morning song.

  Jump, Carlos thought. Jump before you forget how.

  But I lose a bit of myself with each one …

  You’ll lose yourself if you just wait here.

  I turned back into the room. Amy and the others had no idea I was in the rat’s mind.

  But they … they need to film it … for the show, I thought.

  Who cares about the stupid show?

  By now I was sure the situation was hopeless – no matter what happened, I would fail. I was going to end up stuck in another body forever. Maybe a gorilla, maybe a rat, maybe that little chirping bird.

  But Carlos – he had a point. If I was going to forget who I was anyway, I might as well go down fighting.

  So I jumped.

  I flew straight to that bird on the black telegraph wire, then straight into the sky. From its mind I dived a mile ahead, down into a cow. I looked to my left across the valley at a sheep. Zip-whoosh. Then back up to another bird, from bird, to cow, to sheep, to dog, back up to a crow, down to a man driving a car, then to another and another, zigzagging along the motorway. I travelled at hundreds of miles per hour across the countryside, like an electrical charge, surging from one conscious creature to the next.