apes

I was sitting in front of a machine, much like a soft drink vendor, that had a list of questions printed down the front of the machine with a button next to each question. I scanned the list and found a question about the bikeways in Brisbane. I pressed the button, wondering if it would work as I had not inserted any money, and immediately, the tray at the bottom of the machine began to fill with A4 sheets of paper, answering my question. Sheet after sheet slipped out of a shoot and landed in the growing pile of papers, making a soft flicking sound. I was somewhat alarmed at the size of the pile – at least one hundred sheets high.

I turned to look out the window which was on the wall facing the machine. Out the window I could see the tops of trees and, in particular, a tree quite close to the window that had a deep chocolate brown trunk that rose up to form a tulip shape at the top. It looked like a nest. I looked at the other treetops in view, scanning them to see if I could see any more nests. I wanted to tell someone about what I could see, but the people in the room were doing other things. Suddenly, an apish figure crawled out of the top of the trunk of the tree closest to the window, swung on an overhead branch toward the window, and then veered to its left, out of sight. It looked much like an orangutan but with deep brown and dark grey hair, and was about four feet tall. Three other apes emerged from the tree trunk in succession: a large female, a small baby, and finally, a huge male with grey hair, yellow eyes and yellow streaks of hair around his face. He looked directly in the window at me, paused for a moment before swinging away. I had the impression that he was summing me up, deciding whether or not to interact.