All I know is that I woke up metamorphosed into a chimpanzee. The bedroom was pitch dark, it must've been the middle of the night. "That's the vaccine, they warned us and I didn't listen." I muttered, surprised that I still thought in human language.

I had to be careful not wake up my wife or the dog. I put my arm, which was longer than my leg, on the floor, then a leg and another arm. I pulled my other leg and I was out of bed. I walked on all my four. I could hear the dog snoring, and that reassured me. Also, just in time I remembered a spot in the room that squeaked, I went around it, and as I passed it safely I had a silly urge to smile in victory, but I remembered the situation I was in and got serious again. I made my way to the vanity in a slow motion. The moonlight that shined through the window broke the darkness. I was still on all fours. I lifted my bust to reach the mirror and I recognized a chimpanzee, with a big head sitting on shoulders without a neck, looking solemnly at me. I felt nauseous. I reached to a medication bottle and swallowed two pills, or maybe three.

I sat on the floor, put my head in my hands in despair, and thought "why did I do this to myself?" I was distressed as I have never been before. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. I never knew that chimpanzees don't cry. Suddenly, I lost touch with reality and left my body behind on the floor and traveled in space at a dizzying speed. The scenery was so mesmerizing I wanted to slow down, but I couldn't. I was hallucinating. At some point I reached the gate of Heaven, or so I thought. I knocked and from behind the gate a voice said "Who is it?" I haven't given myself a name yet as a chimpanzee, so I just said "it's me." "Everyone is busy now with a surge of newcomers, come back later," the voice replied. I said "it is important, I was a man and look what I turned into!"

There was a little silence and then the gate opened just enough I could see one eye peeking at me through a thin crack. As soon as the gate was closed again, a hysterical laughter broke out. Within no time there were hundreds of others joining in laughter. Together, they echoed throughout the sky like a thunder. I stayed there feeling embarrassed and upset.

A hooded monk came out of nowhere and said, in a rather fatherly tone, "you're not supposed to be here. And also for your information this is the back door. Go back home for now, and when we call you come back to the front door." As he said that, he pushed me with his right hand on the middle of my back, but he did that gently I have to admit. I asked him "why are they laughing at me, this is so insensitive?" He said "worry not about these creatures, they are just low-rank gofers who, for reasons that are beyond me, have been permitted to not abide by the rules like the rest of us, although there is a pile of complaints about their behavior, which always get lost in the pipeline, surprise!" Then he grumbled "this is what you get when you have too much bureaucracy."

I was pleased the monk was talkative and I wanted to learn more from him. He added "you know what is even more interesting about these creatures, they don't look much different from you, I mean physically, and my guess is that what makes them laugh so hysterically. But in fairness laughter is contagious, don't you agree?"

As he was saying this, his pace accelerated and his hand pushed on my back with increasing force, which made me feel he wanted to socialize and vent but at the same time he was under some obligation to get me out of there quickly. At the point where we reached a cliff-like edge he pushed me with both hands, without warning, sending me into a free fall in that total darkness. My screams mixed with the thunderous laughter of those gofers and created a horrifying symphony. Fortunately, the horrific noise was brief and fell into a total silence when I found myself back in the same position I was in before I started hallucinating, my head in my heads sitting on the floor. "Great," I thought, "as if turning into a chimpanzee was not already enough, I will also have to endure these psychedelic hallucinations!"

The way back to the bed took every strength left in me, but I managed every move so artfully I made no noise nor woke anyone. I pulled the blanket up to my chin and took a deep breath. That was the last thing I remember.

"The dog is scratching the door, can you take him out honey?" My wife woke me up. I pinched myself, jumped out of bed, and run to hug the dog, who was least expecting so much love that early in the morning.

I called my republican friend and invited to lunch. He was pleasantly surprised as I have declined a few of his invitations since the pandemic started. We ordered our food and I jumped into telling him about my nightmare. "As a republican, do you really believe in these conspiracy theories about what the vaccine was designed to do?" He laughed and said "my friend you traveled in space and had it easy, but I did my travel back in time, it was much worse." He said in his dream, after having taken the vaccine shot, against the advice of everyone he knew, he retraced his growth journey back in time, so fast he couldn't take a moment to say "oh, I like what I looked like at that age." Before he knew it he ended up in his mother's womb. "I suffocated and started to kick hard and scream get me out of here now, caesarean please! My mom, who was oblivious of my tragedy, was boasting to her friends that I was kicking."

First we giggled, then laughed and continued laughing. We were not able to stop. We were banging on the table, slapping our legs, begging each other to stop. The waitress brought the dishes and asked what was so funny. We both alternated in telling the story. She couldn't control her laughter and dropped the dishes. The chef came to find out what happened. She told him the story, now the chef joined and the laughter took a momentum. The owner was next to join, then the customers one by one, all wearing masks, surrounded our table. Some were asking, while laughing, why everyone was laughing, others answered their questions in different versions or simply fabricated stories to feed the frenzy. There was a state of trance inside the restaurant, a spontaneous mass catharsis that took us by total surprise. Passersbys glued their faces to the windows to watch. The monk did not lie, laughter is contagious.

My friend and I had to squeeze ourselves out the place. "Just one joke and see what we got," said my friend. We shook hands and I told him "congrats on being born again." He squeezed my hand and said "chimp, next lunch is on me." We parted giggling. On the way home, for some reason all I could think about was why did the monk in my dream, who seemed to be someone I could trust, push me off the cliff?"