EIGHTEEN: Ohglo Medium

20.

Baboons don't reckon time in years. At the equator, there's two seasons, rainy and dry, both hot. The sun is a baboon that come out in the day and sleep at night.

Baboons measure time when they need to by months. The changes of the moon in a month bigger than the little shifts of the sun in a year. And there's the monthly flow of blood that baboon females, like gluggs, are famous for. But they rarely count more than the eight months or so of a pregnancy. Age is reckoned in general by size: small, medium, and large.

For her own cub, a mother might refine the measure more closely, with stages, like baby, infant, cub, youth, and adult. Even so, Smak do notice that Ohglo taking much too long to grow up. Often she sneer to Ohglo, "Gluggs can stay babies forever. We not rich like the gluggs. I got my own cubs to mother. I got no time for you, Gluggikins. You have to mother yourself."

So she push Ohglo away from her and make him fend for himself when he only about eight glugg years old -- about medium for him.

His buddy Gok about six in glugg years, he nearly grown. He not as big as the adult males, but he can do all the things that they can do. Smak and the other grown-ups treat Gok and Ohglo more and more as if they were adults.

But Gok and Ohglo still play like cubs.

One day Ohglo and Gok wander from the oah. They hunt Leopard, ek-ek-ek. Secretly, they hope not to find him.

They do find a leopard cub up in an umbrella tree at the edge of one of the many small forests near the oah-oah-oah-plotz. The leopard flash his eyes in silence, all ready to pounce on Gok. The leopard snarl. Gok holler "ek-ek-ek!" and also "Smak!" like little cub.

Ohglo talk to the leopard. "Hey Leopard!" Ohglo shout, waving his arms. "You stupid fool! Don't you see I am meatier than my buddy here? And, if you pick me to eat up, you won't have to leap down from the tree and risk hurting yourself. I will come up to you!" Ohglo scoot up the tree, screeching and hooting all the way. When he reach the limb where the leopard perched, the leopard squeal like a kitty cat, leap off the limb the wrong way, and vanish into the forest.

Gok glad to be alive, but he look at Ohglo funny. That not the way you are supposed to hunt leopard.

To show how brave they are, Ohglo and Gok chase the leopard through the forest. But they know this leopard only a cub and have a fierce mother close by. So after awhile they lose its trail.

They rest beside a stream. The stream seem familiar to Ohglo, but he don't remember why. They splash in the cool water.

They la-la-la.

la-la-la: to groom, grooming, story-telling, dream-sharing, painting each other's dreams.

They lie close together, almost -- but not quite -- touching, an electric-arc gap between them. Gok gently stroke each of Ohglo's hairs. Ohglo stroke each of Gok's hairs. The Dream ooze out of their pores in rainbow-hued tendrills, and rise up between them. The tendrils join in a cloud, the colors combine. What each of them see is a golden flame engulfing their bodies, slowly, slowly consuming them in light. Ohglo-Gok disintegrate into shards of light, merge together, and dissolve into the fire, which is warm, but not hot. Their souls rise to the sky in wisps of violet smoke. A dream of love. A dream of joy. A dream of death.

Ohglo notice that out of a pocket of fur under Gok's belly, his little red penis poke out. Ohglo rub. Gok purr, eyes go glassy.

Ohglo's penis also grow stiff. Gok giggle and twist around to lick it with his tongue. He close his mouth, and Ohglo feel Gok's dagger-like teeth against him. Ohglo jerk away. Then Ohglo stick his rear-end up in the air as he seen Smak do so often. Gok pant and slobber. Gok mount Ohglo from the rear, slip his penis up Ohglo's asshole. Gok-Ohglo la-la-la-la-la.

la-la-la-la-la: fuck.

Afterwards, they lie quiet in the sun. Ohglo thirst. He reach down to drink from the stream. Water turn to blood. Blood, blood, 1-2-3 blood. A rumbling come on up from deep in the stream bed. The earth shaking. Ohglo-Gok start to run. Before they know it, Ohglo-Gok find they on opposite sides of the stream. The stream open up between them. Their hair stand on end. From out of the depths come swarms of insects: whiteflies, white ants, white termites, white moths, dragonflies, mantises, cicadas, locusts, rising to the sky like souls of the dead. End-of-world.

Gok hear the thunder first. Ohglo take longer to hear, but soon he hear it too. This not thunder from the bed of the stream. This not thunder from the sky. This thunder from the hoofbeats of horses charging through the underbrush.

The two of them run and run away. They meet again on the same side of the stream and scamper up a tree, an umbrella tree. They see several horses ridden by gluggs, glugg-gluggs.

The Farmer! The Farmer whose cattle Ohglo stole moons and moons ago! In the distance Ohglo-Gok see the farm with so many yummy things to eat. Ohglo and Gok freeze behind the leaves and pretend to be plover nests.

"Let's go back to the oah," Gok whisper, fear in his eyes.

"Mmm," say Ohglo, thinking.

When the rustling of the horses through the brush stop, Gok pick one of the capparis fruits that grow on a vine inside the umbrella tree. The capparis fruit look like an apple with a tough skin.

"Look!" Gok cry. The skin of the capparis slightly shrivelled. This mean the fruit inside fermented.

Ohglo and Gok eagerly suck up the mushy capparis wine. As the tree sway in the afternoon breeze, they filled with new courage.

"You think what I think?" ask Ohglo.

"Huh?" say Gok.

"The Farmer up here. The Farmer not at farm."

"Huh?"

"Le's go to the farm, Gok, see wha we can see!" Ohglo slur.

"You crazy, Ohglo." They stumble down the tree and steal down the horse trail, too drunk to be sneaky. They hide in the tall elephant grass.

They sneak up noisily on the house. The house still. The house huge, white, made of the insides of trees, with columns in the front. Many windows. Around the house is a gl green clipped lawn. Around the lawn, a white fence made of pointed sticks like spears. Ohglo and Gok hide behind the fence and peek through with wide-open eyes.

gl green: wet, medium green. Monkeys have 1-2-3 words for the color green.

Just inside the fence is a pink-faced, plump baby glugg, crawling on the grass, digging in the dirt all by himself.

Ohglo can't take his eyes off the creature and sneak up as close as he can. The baby see him, smile, and crawl over to him. The baby press his face against the fence right under Ohglo's nose.

"Isn't he cute, Gok?" Ohglo say.

"Cute? Cute?" Gok mock. "Shit face baby glugg cub. Let's get out of here, Ohglo. Glugg like leopard when it come to cubs."

Ohglo can't resist. He pick up the baby in his arms and hug him. The baby look, smile some more. Then the baby scream. Scream so loud he scare Ohglo. Ohglo drop him in the dirt. Baby scream some more. Dark-face female glugg just inside the door run out, see baby, Ohglo, Gok. She scream. Ohglo and Gok high-tail it out of there.

They run like the desert wind, sober now, through the grasses along the horse trail, past the range cattle. It not long before they hear the roar of a putt-putt behind them. The Land Rover get so close Ohglo can see a pink-faced female glugg driving. Then she stop. She shoot a gun at them. Blam! Blam!

The shots miss, and Ohglo and Gok reach the the forest in time to watch the Land Rover give up, turn around, and go back.

They stop to catch their breath. "Whew! That was close!" say Ohglo.

"I wanna go back to the oah!" Gok whine.

"It be all right. We safe now," Ohglo tell him.

"Oh yeah? What that, then?"

"What?"

"That noise, Ohglo. Can't you hear?"

Ohglo listen. "Dogs! You win, Gok, let's go. Uh...which way?"

"You don't know? You can't smell?"

Ohglo hang his head.

"You a stupid glugg, Ohglo. You can't hear. You can't smell. You only good for trouble. Follow me."

They run until they tired, rest, and run some more. The dogs keep coming and coming.

Soon the dogs are upon them. "Dogs can't climb trees!" say Ohglo.

"They can't?"

Ohglo and Gok scoot up the nearest tree and wait. The lead dog, a red setter, stop to sniff at the base of the tree. Ohglo- Gok drop on the dog's neck. Gok bite. Ohglo reach around and grab the dog's balls. Then he pick up a rock and crack the dog's skull. Blood gush out all over them. The dog shudder, and die.

"You not so dumb," Gok say. "Shall we eat it?"

"Naw, we better go. More dogs coming, then gluggs on horses." Ohglo and Gok run on. They hear the other dogs squeal and whimper over their dead comrade.

When they reach the oah, it is dark, and the dogs silent at last. Each of the thirty or so baboons is sprawled out on its own branch of one of the fever trees in the grove. Some already asleep. Some moan softly at the moon.

Smak snarl at Ohglo and Gok. She climb off her tree and sniff at them. She look like she trying to think of them as grown, can't, give up. She clap each of them sharply behind the ear. Gok stagger. Ohglo fall over.

"I smell all the trouble you been up to, you rotten cubs! You been running scared a 1-2-3 long time. You better not of stirred up any gluggs, hear?"

"Oh no, Smak," say Ohglo.

Gok eyes droop.

Ohglo and Gok find a tree to themselves at the edge of the grove. They la-la-la, but all they picture is running, running, running, blood running out of the dog, could of been them.

21.

At sunrise the next morning, the oah startled awake by the barking of nearby dogs.

Alarms are sounded, "ek-ek-ek," all over the sleeping area. Ak bellow for disciplined retreat, but there is some panic. The smaks have to fetch their cubs and carry them clinging for life to the fur of the smaks' bellies.

Before the oah get under way, the horses come charging into their midst. There are three horses ridden by gluggs, the Farmer and two others. Ak howl, "Every monkey for himself," the only realistic strategy.

The strategy work. The monkeys disappear one by one into the dense upper branches of the fever trees where the birds live.

Shots are fired. One shot whistle past Ohglo's ear. But the monkeys too quick for the gluggs. After circling the area for awhile, the gluggs gallop away.

The oah re-form gingerly after some time. Smaks count their cubs. Suddenly the forest stillness shattered by wails of sorrow. It is Smak. "My cub! My cub!" she scream. Her youngest, Titi, missing.

The baboons search the area.

Ohglo himself find her. She all flattened by hoofbeats. Her guts hang out. He throw up.

Smak clasp the little dead cub to her bosom and lope away from the oah. The oah begin to retreat from the path of the horses. Smak follow along just inside the range of her smell. From time to time she climb the tallest of trees, still clutching her dead cub. From the top of the tree, she howl at the sky.

Ak stride up to Ohglo and glare at him with murder in his eyes. With one look, he let Ohglo know that he blame him for all the trouble, for the oah's having to move, to migrate, and for the death of the cub -- Ak figure he probably the cub's father. He gape a threatening yawn in Ohglo's face. His pointed teeth gleam. He could bite off Ohglo's arm, head, leg, or any part of him. Without words, he send the message, "You the cause of all this! You better watch out, glugg!"

22.

Ak spend his time again pissing on rocks to mark the new boundries of the shrinking oah-oah-oah-plotz. A bitterness take hold of him.

He forced to humiliate himself before his ancient enemy, Olly Big-ears, the chimpanzee and his gang of stupid, uncivilized thugs.

He go up to the chimps' smelly sleeping trees alone, he tell the oah later. "I stick my ass up in the air so Big-ears know I come in peace. I wait forever before Big-shit would see me. I simper and whine at him. 'Glugg, glugg, glugg,' I keep saying. He know what I want. He heard the guns. Me and Olly hate each other, but we hate gluggs worse. Olly raise his hand toward a little speck of his forest. We can hide out there if we need to. At least there's oah-oah-oah-oah-oah."

oah-oah-oah-oah-oah: water.

23.

Monkeys don't grieve for long. Not over cubs. Too many die. Moan a day, and that's it. Make another one.

It not so much that Ohglo is forgiven. It more like the incident with the Farmer and the dead cub are forgotten. Bristled fur still arise between Ak and Ohglo, but Ak hardly remember what his anger about. Ohglo do not remind him.

For himself, Ohglo begin to make up stories about his adventures to tell the younger baboons.

He add many stories to the basic lore of the oah. The stories start out simple, such as: tzzz oah-oah-oah-oah glugg pop. This translate into the images of la-la-la as an emotional autobiography -- what it feel like, by and large, to be a glugg living among the baboons. Stroking each of the cubs gently as he repeat his tale, he give them love, ambivalence, fear, confusion, humor.

By the time he get to the details, his zeal go to his head. The six calves he once stole become a whole herd of cattle. The Farmer he once managed to escape from and leave in his own booby trap is killed by Ohglo in the retelling. The glugg baby he once picked up is "kidnapped" according to the legend.

But even the smallest baboon cub know that all stories are lies, and all the more eagerly do they believe them.

Ohglo's fame as a story-teller come to rival his notoriety as a trouble-maker.

He might be even more famous, but now that the oah-plotz is smaller, the oah get to fewer 1-2-3-oah-oah-oahs.

1-2-3-oah-oah-oah: gathering of baboon troops.

But every other full moon or so, Ak's oah do make it to where the other oahs gather by the cliffs to argue.

Ohglo and Gok dream of busting out of Ak's oah and building one of their own.

They listen to the chatter now. Some of the other young adults are thinking too.

There is a tough female name-of Min who is collecting a following. A female baboon leading an oah, is rare, and usually happen only when the male ak suddenly die.

Min call her idea the Germ theory. She preach that at the center of the mind is a teensy-weensy spark, the first and last germ. Ping! is the word she squeal for it. She believe that this germ in each living thing, the center, live beyond death and pass through the food chain from one being to another.

"The spark at the center of you is a teensy weensy hole that time pass through," Min sing with a far off look in her eye. "You pass through it yourself whe you die. You burn up in a slow fire. Your become dirt. Then you reborn as something else. The spark at the center live on. If a worm eat your spark, you become a worm. If a flower suck it up, you become a flower."

Ohglo and Gok gaze at her in wonder. Min have bright grey eyes that beam like moons from under her deep, heavy brow. Around her hot pink face are tufted side-burns of the softest fur, white, speckled with gold and olive brown. Her snout slope gracefully down to her nostrils, delicately flared. Her mouth have a thoughtful tension to it. Her neck is soft and cudly, like the feathers of a baby bird.

Ohglo and Gok both fall out of their heads over her. Her ideas are like a splash in a spring-fed stream.

One pre-dawn morning when the sun is just a pale memory at the edge of the sky, while the 1-2-3-oah-oah-oah still snore on the crags of the cliff, Ohglo wake up thirsty from a dream about sand. He climb down from his perch next to Gok and go down to the water-hole for a drink. The full moon is setting, blue and elephant-sized. Ohglo stare at the moon. "That's no face, that's no baboon," he think to himself. "Ak wrong."

He gaze at his own reflection in the water-hole. "She'll never love a flat-faced freak like me," he whine.

Then suddenly a fine long face appear just above his reflected in the moonlit water. Ohglo start. He lose his balance. He almost fall in, but the baboon grab him.

"Min!" he yell.

Min giggle and slap her sofly calloused paw over his mouth to shut him up. She hold him in her forelimbs. Ohglo hesitate, then hug back. It feel fine to be close with Min. "La-la-la?" she coo.

"La-la-la" Ohglo answer.

They hobble forelimb in forelimb into the brush away form eyeshot of the other nosey baboons.

Ohglo feel Gok awake at his perch, watching them.

Ohglo-Min la-la-la.

They lie together in the grass, almost -- but not quite -- touching, an electric-arc gap between them. The wispy, rainbow- hued tendrils of their dreams ooze out of their pores and intertwine. Ohglo and Min as separate beings drift out of their bodies and scatter in the breeze like the head of a pregnant dandelion. At the very end of each of their dreams are the two sparks at the center of things, the first and last germs, the teensy weensy holes.

"Fireflies!" Ohglo laugh.

"What?"

"Fireflies! Your sparks look just like fireflies."

"Oh. They do., don't they? I like that. Fireflies! The firefly at the center of things. You so clever, Ohglo!" She give his flat face a lick with her tongue.

As the two fireflies flutter above it, the bottom fall out of the water-hole. The fireflies suddenly sucked into the dark cavity and Ohglo-Min dream web sucked and sucked down with them through the earth.

End-of-world.

Cringing with terror, they keep on falling through. Down, down, down they go, faster and faster. Just when they about to vanish in the hot molten core of the earth, they land with a soft plop on a cool, quiet rock, the moon. Ohglo-Min awash in cool white fire of moonlight.

End-of-world-but.

They cling togther in the unearthly quiet. Ever so softly, their joint being flutter back to earth. A rush of warmth charge them up and re-ignite the fire that burn warm inside their bellies.

Min stand up and stick her fiery red rear in the air by Ohglo's face. Beaming below her ass-hole are the magnificent blushing red callouses, smooth, hard and hairless, bulging lips to her vaginal mouth. Ohglo press his face against the swelling, tasting then lapping up the sweet and juicy nectar.

All-over trembling, Ohglo mount Min from the rear. Min turn her head, bite his shoulder, and scramble forward, giggling. He try again. She bite again, her fangs drawing blood this time. Again he jump her. The time she gnaw him gently, but she let him stay and slip and slide inside her.

Ohglo-Min la-la-la-la-la. By the pale light of the moon, Ohglo-Min fuck.

They lie together as one being and watch the sun rise.