Love and the Gorilla

I couldn’t stand it anymore. The emptiness of my existence was becoming clearer to me every day. Yes I was earning a decent living with my old job but I wanted more, especially in the so called ‘job satisfaction’ department. To make things clear right away, let me introduce myself. It doesn’t matter what my real name is. I am mostly referred to as the ‘cartoon’ by kids at the mall, where I dress as a “cartoon” by wearing a fluffy suit and jumping around entertaining people. One of the reasons why my life had become pathetic was because I had a professional identity crisis. They could have made the suit of any well-known cartoon and given it to me. At least kids would then refer to me by that cartoon name. But the mall management didn’t want to take any risks with the trademark issues and so, I was not made to look like any normal cartoon. I was just “the cartoon”. I would sometimes stand in front of the mirror for half an hour trying to figure out what exactly I was, and my closest guess was that I looked somewhat like a gorilla – a pink one!

Initially, around ten years ago, I found it to be an interesting job. I got to study people and their behaviours around a pink cartoon gorilla, tall and hefty and fluffy. There were two feelings that people got when they saw a giant cartoon like me – fear OR cheer. And then it all got saturated, in the sense that there was nothing much to it. That’s all the insight that I got in my ten years of career as a giant gorilla. There was no talent training and career growth and human resources and other similar myths that people count on. There was nothing - just plain old work and money. No drama, no action, nothing. I didn’t even have a life. I thought I did. But then I went through a divorce. She thought that I lacked the patience to hear her out and that I was no longer the sweet gorilla that she had fallen in love with at the mall. We had a painful time fighting and finally, when I made a comment which ironically compared her and her family to gorillas, she left. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Ever since the divorce, she made it a point to come to the mall once every weekend with her friends to have a good time right in front of me. I also found from a mutual friend that she was seen with a man on a date. She dismissed it saying that he was just an “old friend” of hers.

I went through trauma after the divorce. I thought of the life of a joker, who would have to keep smiling to perform even after going through a tragedy. I didn’t have to be that way though. I could simply cry inside the suit, and the gorilla would still smile and spread cheer and, in some cases, fear. I cried and cried inside my cave and it seemed to be like an eternity there. I slowly grew into the suit, never wanting to come out of it, never wanting to see the real world, never wanting the world to see me. My mother would visit me sometimes and I would be sleeping, inside the suit. Only she, who had seen me in my purest form since I was born, had the right to see me without the suit again. This continued, for a very long time. I had lost purpose, and my job wasn’t helping. The emptiness of existence took over me and I didn’t find a single argument from my mind strong enough as a reason to live anymore. And then I decided to let go. I hoped that the next life that I would get, if any, be a better one. If not better, I wished to at least be reincarnated as a real giant gorilla of the jungles which enters a city, tearing everything apart in its way – houses, gardens, roads, “old friends”…….

And then, “the incident” happened.

Being the self-centered person that I am, I wanted a lot of attention to be paid to my suicide. “The end of the age of the pink gorilla”, I imagined the next day’s headlines to read. I would attract the most attention by doing it right in front of everyone, especially in front of my ex. I decided to find the most appropriate route to put my master plan of my demise into action. I needed a solution in which I could make a final statement to my ex and then announce my death before killing myself. I thus needed a way where nobody could stop me if they suspected something. And then it struck me. I came up with the most dramatic demise. I would go to the top floor of the mall, which is mostly abandoned. The mall has a hollow rectangular shape. The shops on three floors are aligned with the four edge walls, with corridors running along the perimeter, while the central part of the mall is open to direct sunlight, with a glass roof on the very top of the building. So I decided that I should stand on the railings of one of the four corridors of the top floor and right when my ex enters the mall, I would make my statements while she is looking up at me and then I would jump off, to fall right in front of her, dead. I precisely estimated that the mall wasn’t very tall for my sound to not reach her on the ground floor. But it was tall enough to kill a person.

And finally the weekend arrived. I met all my loved ones and without their knowledge, hid some letters in their houses, which they would find later. It would hurt them terribly, but indifference toward them would be even more painful for them. All the calculations were made. I went to the mall. I looked at my suit - my shelter, my life. I had grown so attached to it that the fear of death did nothing to scare me but a separation from my suit gave me a chill. The suit defined me. It had seen the real me, my suffering, my happiness, my life. And I decided to put it on. The dramatic person that I have always been, I walked to the mirror, touched the suit with my hand, which was also inside the suit and I said, “It’s been an honour”. Little did I know that a janitor had seen this and would later report it to the police.

I pushed myself upstairs and waited there. And she finally turned up. The moment I saw her I sprang into action. I climbed on the railing. A huge pink coloured gorilla standing on the railing so dangerously was not easy to miss. People suddenly began to turn their heads upwards and the gasps started echoing, until finally it reached her, and she looked up. Half of my efforts paid off when I saw her expression. Everything was mixed – fear, care, love, awe and to my satisfaction, a little bit of guilt. And I looked back at her. It was as if the suit didn’t even exist. We shared our last moment on this good Earth, with a look at each other. That look said much more than what we had said to each other in our years together. A tear trickled down my eye. It was time. I shouted, “FOR YOU, MY LOVE”, and I knew everyone had heard it. It was terrible that the suit maintained its smiling face through this emotional exchange.

And then I let go, and jumped off. Gravity was stronger than what I thought it was. I closed my eyes to see the white light, lying there in my suit, waiting for the agony to start. I hit the floor, before I expected. I braced myself for the pain of death. But it didn’t come, yet. The suit compressed, and the next moment, I was launched back like a kid on a bungee! I opened my eyes again to see what happened, and to my shock, I saw that I was moving up. I came till the second floor and was clearly able to see the people looking at me, more shocked than ever. And I fell down back again. And was launched up again, this time to a lower height! The disbelief and gravity were working their way into my head, and finally I passed out.
I woke up in a hospital, not a single scratch on my body. The fluffy gorilla suit had been too fluffy and had acted like it was supposed to, bouncing me back into the air every time I hit the ground. They told me I bounced twelve times until I finally came to a halt, and that I covered the entire floor area of the mall. My ex was in the same hospital, for she was going through trauma. I couldn’t believe it initially. But I accepted it. The cartoon had saved me, by taking me on a bumpy ride.

Life changed after that, forever. Nothing looked same anymore. I was put under home arrest for two weeks, with a psychologist visiting me every day. The letters that I had written to my loved ones, in the hope that they would provide solace to their grief after I was gone, were recovered soon and it was decided that I had a mental problem and it wasn’t safe for my own sake to be kept anywhere alone. It was decided to move me to a mental asylum. The newspapers were crazily behind the story. They wouldn’t have cared so much had I passed on. I was the infamous star of the new era. They referred to me as “the crazy gorilla-man who was planning on bouncing to death”. The janitor found his way to the police and reported what the newspapers published as “gorilla man was seen talking to himself in the men’s room before ‘the incident’ and mumbling non-sense.”

Frankly speaking, I really didn’t care about all of that, for I had found something greater in life. In the face of death, I had seen that the emptiness of my existence was simply my failure to see the bright side of my life. When I bounced back up for the first time till the second floor, I saw in people’s eyes two things at the same time – fear AND cheer. And I realised my failure right there and then. I had failed to appreciate the depth of these two simple feelings. At that moment, I wished for nothing more than to be able to see the people entering the mall again, through my suit. Indifferent when they enter, I gave them either cheer or fear. And, in the face of death, I realised that I was not an unaccomplished person. I invoked feelings in people and that, by definition, made me an artist – comparable to any other artist who ever walked on this planet. And I realised that right there, at that moment, when I bounced back in the air, was the performance of a lifetime. I wanted nothing more than to just go back to my life, my job, and explore more of these feelings. I am a real artist, Mr. Joy. And now, I have got another chance to live a fulfilling life. But I am unable to begin it without making amends. I, through my acts, have brought a lot of sadness to my ex and you. I would want to ask for nothing more than forgiveness. But I have something more to ask for. I want you to cherish the time that you spend with her. You will find nothing more pleasing in this world than to see her happy. Take it from me.

Also, Mr. Joy, don’t think of her referring to you as her “old friend” a fallacy on your part. It was rather her method of preventing me from doing something stupid because of our divorce. I think we will both agree, along with the entire nation, that the method didn’t work.

Yours most affectionately,
Crazy gorilla-man