In what sense is the ape nature still with you?

Well, I cannot rid myself of knuckle walking, nor can I find enough consistent balance to claim that I have two feet and two hands. I am still teetering as a quadruped. My fingers are not in my full command, the anatomy of my thumb seems inflexible. I do maintain as a whole, the skeleton of an ape. My past exists in my skeleton. I have merely adapted many human behaviors and have developed the organ which already existed in my skull. As for the lack of hair, it still wants to come out, but every morning I shave. At night, I dream.......

But as I have clearly demonstrated, my ape nature, that is the wilderness of the jungle is has been successfully eliminated. How else could I be here with you fine people, discussing such fine things, over such fine wines? By the way did I mention that I shared many bottles of such finery with the very leader of the hunting expedition that shot and captured me?

It is from him, his name is Shultz, that I have pieced together the timeline which led up to my own first memory!

Have your feelings and impressions of humans changed since "becoming" one? What are your feelings about apes since becoming human?

I had no real impressions of humans before I became human! That is to say my first impressions of humans coincides exactly with my first stirrings of humanity and likewise with my first losses of apehood. And so I can only have impressions of humans insofar as I am human. An ape does not have impressions. It is hard to say, everything grows blurry at this line.

My impression of humans is certainly changing as I grow old. Whereas I first saw them as comical beings, whom moved ever so slowly, did silly things, made silly sounds, now I see them as also being quite dangerous and smart....smart to the point of being quite even dumber than I ever first thought. I first saw them as helpless morons, frozen in behavioral loops; now I understand that I, like them, have a strange ability to perceive those very loops and to play jumprope with them. This ability some perceive better than others of course.

As for apes, I read about all the apes in our society in the newspapers and on the news channels, and I feel sad for them. They remind me of myself, they jolt me into an awareness of where I came from, just at the moment when I have seemed to finally erase every last trace of it from my mind.

Humans cannot get along with apes and vice versa, but not for lack of trying. Humans do not see the creature in front of them. They see only themselves, they are virtually incapable of seeing anything else. It is like the adage of the savages on the island who could not see the ship coming into shore and so could not prepare and so were taken prisoner by surprise. And of course, it is not clear what apes see. I cannot for my part remember what I saw when I was an ape. I do not even have images in my mind. My memories, to use this human word, are in fact only “represented” in the behaviors which live on with me and which emerge at the most unexpected times.

Rotpeter, what is your worst fear?

A return to a cage with no hope for release. An end to my progress. To stop learning.

Are you married?

I am not technically married. I have an arranged partner: she is a chimpanzee, significantly smaller than I am, unable to speak. She waits for me. She doesn’t do much. Lays around, eats....Frankly, there is very little stimulating about her, but she does appeal to my physical nature, that is I am sexually attracted to her, hormonally, just as I am to human women.

Have you tested your DNA?

No, I have not. Many requests come my way, from scientists such as yourself, and I throw the invitation in the garbage with my browned banana peels.

Rotpeter, have you ever had a sexual relationship with a human female?

I have not, although I will not deny that my imagination has developed to such a point where I can.....and I have wondered. It would probably be a disaster. When I imagine such an encounter, and this is private information, I only reveal it to get you off of my back, you are like an irritant, like a pesky flea that gnaws at my flesh, I will say that...human men could not follow in my footsteps, so to speak. The woman would undergo a certain journey of transformation. The results would be drastic and the effect irreversible.