Maurices Testimony

As I lie here feeling my life ebbing away. I can't help but find myself recalling back to when times were simpler. Though now it feels like a full lifetime ago I find myself remembering back when I was still I'll just an ordinary orangutan living in the jungle. Before I was known as Maurice. I think my name was called Tinkerer and Thinker. Because I was always tinkering around and thinking about things.

My mother doting on me. We orangutans usually living a part because of the scarcity of our preferred food. But when we dig it together it was a time of great socializing. Though while other orangutans we're basically grooming each other and converse scene in our own language it's about what we had experienced the last and we had all met. I usually spend my time drawing. I draw on anything. I could draw all day.

My father the big cheek of our clan Thought that was a very odd habit of mine. He tried to teach me what it meant to be a male he wanted me to be protective brave always put in the group first. The second part I understood quite well but the first part about being in what he thought a male ought to be did not come naturally to me. I think I was considered a steep learning curve individual. But my dad still loved me.

The only other thing I enjoy as much as drawing and spending time with my father was playing with the other youngsters. Especially the one I simply called chase. Because she loved it when I tried to chase her. Sometimes she would successfully get away and other times I really in a clever ambush and pounce her when she leaves suspected it. We always had a good time and great laughs out of it.

I also spent my time observing humans as they observed us. Never interfering with us and just writing on their papers. Not sure exactly what they were writing about, but as far as I could tell it was harmless. I even interacted with a few of them on occasion. Still as far as I could tell life was good. It was simple and pure.

But then came that day that changed everything. Other humans came, but my mother sensed that they did not mean us well. She tried to get me to safety but then one of them pointed a gun at her and shot her. We fell out of the trees and my mom did everything she could to keep me safe. She broke the fall with her own body.

When I opened my eyes, I saw my mother's eyes lifeless. She was gone. Then those men who killed her took me. I was so scared I couldn't even scream. I was frozen with fear. They put me in a cage and took me away from my home. The last thing I saw before it was only darkness. Was the jungle, my home, fading away and my father calling out for me but I could not answer back.

I never saw my old home again. To this day I wonder, did my father do everything he could to find me, and what about the other young orangutans and Chase? I'd like to think they missed me terribly and that Chase went on to live a great wonderful life and became a mother much like mine.

After that it's pretty much a blur until I found myself in a circus. The circus owner had me put on display because I was cute. Then I met the owner's daughter. I learned that she couldn't speak because she was mute. So she could only talk through sign. After the shows she would teach me how to talk in sign. Slightly different from the sign language that we orangutans used to talk to each other, but I figured it out and we were able to talk. She let me out on occasion to stretch my limbs. We'd talk and have nice conversations. She was a very good human. She was kind, compassionate, and full of life.

When her father found out that I could speak in sign language. He tried to use that to increase circus attendance.

It was kind of fun, but I still didn't feel truly happy. Then one day the girl stopped coming. I learned how to read lips and I learned from the lips of the circus owner that his daughter Had come down with some kind of disease. He did everything he could to try to save her but it was to no avail. She died at the age of 14.

Once again, I had lost the only other person I had ever loved. After that the circus was shut down and eventually, I found myself sent to this so-called ape shelter. Though honestly it felt more like a prison for apes.

We weren't even given real food. Just some tasteless slop, and the humans who ran the place made it clear that they did not like or tolerate smart apes. And there were no other orangutans in the place. I felt like an outsider just looking in but never actually connecting with any of them. The shelter group was led by the grey chimp known as Rocket. Before Caesar he was a bit of a bully, getting his way through fear intimidation and fighting. I just chose to avoid him.

But then a new chimp was brought in named Cornelia. She was the first chimp who actually tried to understand me. She also knew how to speak in sign. Though Rocket always wanted her near him with the other females waiting on him, but she made it very clear that she was not interested in being part of his Haram. Nor tolerated advances and his attempts to mate with her.

That was until the day Caesar came to the shelter. He seemed so out of place. He was wearing clothes like a human and didn't know the first thing about how to interact with other apes. Rocket immediately saw him as a potential rival. Though Cesar clearly showed he had no previous experience and did not recognize a threat. Rocket struck him and they fought until they were both put down by the tranquilizer gun of the man who owned and ran the shelter.

Though we both realized he was not an ordinary ape. Cornelia was hesitant to try to talk to him. So, since I was across the hall from him. I was the one who established communication between us. Telling him to be careful about not showing how smart he was around humans. Though the other apes and I also lived in constant fear about what the humans would do to us. Because some of us were just shot and then sent off to someone named Jacobs at a place called genesis. Where Cesar said that the man who raised him worked. Their fates were unknown to us.

Cornelia was apprehensive about trying to talk to him. Since I was the only other one who knew how to speak in sign language. I was basically the only one Ceasar talked to. Caesar showed his intelligence and how quickly he learned how to establish himself. First by swiping the knife from one of the humans. Using it to unlock his own cell. Then he released and befriended the gorilla, Aldo. Then he drew Rocket out and he and Aldo got him to submit. Then in a surprising twist when he offered Rocket cookies, he made sue rocket did not take all the cookies for himself but share them with all the other apes.

I ask Cesar why he gave Rocket cookies just so that he would then share with them with the other apes. He told me what we came to realize was the only way any of us could actually have any chance of living a good life. And the seeds of our freedom. The central teaching that keeps apes going when all seemed against us. "Ape alone weak. Apes together strong." It was true but unfortunately the other apes just did not have the intelligence to truly grasp that concept.

Then one night as I the other apes slept. Cesar escaped the shelter and told me later he went to go get what he was told was medicine that somehow was introduced to his mother and made him what he was through her. He brought those canisters back to the shelter and used them on us while we were sleeping. When we woke the next day, I and all the rest of us were forever changed. The stuff had somehow mutated us, evolving us, evolving me. As if suddenly everything just clicked and made sense at last.

He and I then began to teach the other apes how to speak in the same sign language. Thanks to the medicine he introduced to us. The way it was to him. All the other apes were able to learn as quickly as he did.

Then one night. After Cornelia and other apes were taken the day before. Cesar had had enough of being tormented and mistreated by the bad human who was the son of the head of the shelter. He grabbed that humans arm as he was holding his shock stick. The human shouted, "Get! Your damn dirty paw off me you damn dirty ape." Then he shocked me and everyone when he did the one thing none of us ever expected an ape could do. He spoke with his mouth and shouted. "No!"

He then proceeded to free the other apes. When the other human came in, they attacked him and were going to kill him. Caesar stopped them and simply put him back in his original cell. The bad human who attacked Caesar. Who called him a dirty ape. Took up his shocking stick. Shouting he would skin every single one of us. Then Caesar shot him with a stream of water from the hose but because he had and his shock stick still on the water along with the electricity instantly killed him. It was the first-time Ceasar had actually killed a human. We then all proceeded to escape.

Caesar then directed us that we had to get to the forest beyond and the bridge. But before that, we needed free all the other apes in the cities that were in the zoo and at Genesis.

I went with Cesar to Genesis. It was there we were able to find and free Cornelia but we also freed the scarred Bonobo named Koba. Learning many years later to our regret what a mistake it was to free him.

Still when we regrouped with the other apes it was a delight to see other orangutans again, but it was short lived because we were then under pressure from humans that were going to attack us because they saw us as a threat.

So, Caesar directed me and Cornelia to lead the other orangutans and along with the mothers and children underneath the bridge. We orangutans went swinging across on the bridge beams. While Cornelia and the other chimp mothers and children went along the girders above us.

During the ensuing fight bullets were coming from the machine that flew called a helicopter I believe. Aldo jumped in to save Cesar. He ended up dying as a result held in Caesar's arms.

Ceasar then later told me in private that the man named Jacobs who was the one in charge of genesis when he asked for help. Ceasar didn't save him. Because he knew he would not change his ways because he had no moral fiber. So, he let Koba push him to his death.

When the man who raised Caesar offered to bring him home to keep him safe. Caesar was thankful for the offer but he told him he was already home. I understood as all humans should have. Freedom is the right of all life.

After that we struggled for a couple years to figure out how to survive without the humans. We were in the forest but it was not our natural habitat nor was the climb that very considerate for us. But we showed we could adapt and found a way. In time even building a functional society. And Ceasar appointed me as teacher to the children of tomorrow and his chief counsellor. They were the best years of my life. I really enjoyed teaching children. Especially our highest laws. Abe must never kill ape. Apes together strong. Knowledge is power. Though now I should have also taught them that while it is great to be smart, it's more important to be wise. For to the have knowledge is to know things, but to be wise is knowing how to make good choices.

We found that out to our shock and horror when Koba ruined the peaceful alliance that Ceasar was trying to establish with human survivors of the simian flu. The same thing that made us all smarter than we were before.

And then he broke our sacred law that an ape will never kill another ape when he attempted to murder Ceasar, and then later killed Rockets son and Ceasar sons Blue Eyes best friend, Ash.

He had me and Caesars other loyalist imprisoned because we would not renounce our loyalty to Caesar.

Koba was a menace. He was the one who started the whole war with the humans.

Caesar was then forced to battle him and when Koba asks for him to help him after killing so many other apes. Caesar was left to kill him by dropping to his death after declaring, "Koba not ape anymore." For he was now no better than a human and, in a way, unfortunately revealed we were not either.

Like the humans he had knowledge but he was not wise and in wisdom one knows killing no matter how justified only results in more senseless killing.

Despite what we had all hoped to accomplish in the great dream. Koba's actions had undone everything we had strived for. Peaceful relations with humans, but because of Koba's actions we were forced into having to learn the ways of war. Knowing fully well that humans would only see us as a threat to their dominance upon the Earth and they're very survival. That was not our intent, but that's what they would think.

The war went on for years and many apes were lost. Caesar showing mercy even to the soldiers and the apes who served them, who they called donkeys. Those who followed Koba who were afraid of what Ceasar might do to them. Urging them to tell their commanders to leave them alone and the fighting and killing will stop. I asked, "Should we send them a message." "They are the message my friend," he later told me. "They think we are savages we must show them we are not."

Ceasar confessed in me how wrong he was to have freed Koba. Saying, "Why couldn't I see that he could not forgive humans for what they had done to him." I tried to comfort him and told him that none of us could have imagined how much darkness was inside of him.

Blue Eyes and Rocket returned from an expedition to find a safe place for us apes to live. Saying we would need to cross a desert in order to get there but with so many of us we had to first find a safe route out of the forest.

Unfortunately, that night would end in tragedy. For the Colonel, the leader of the soldiers, had come and found our shelter. Because the white furred gorilla named winter out of fear betrayed us. The Colonel came and he killed Ceasars wife Cornelia and his son Blue Eyes. Fortunately, as if by the grace of fate. His youngest son Cornelius was still alive. But it became clear that we could not stay there anymore.

Caesar resolved to find the Colonel first and stop him before he could threaten the other apes. I rocket and the gorilla Toton came along. He said he might not come back. That is why I told him that is why I am coming. To make sure you come back.

Though nothing could have prepared us, least of all me, for what came next. We encountered a soldier deserter. He tried to pull a gun on us but Caesar shot him first. We entered the house he was in and that's when we found the girl, I came to call Nova. Caesar point his gun right at her, but I stopped him from firing reminding him she was just a child.

When I looked in her eyes it was like looking into the eyes of the same girl, I had known back in my circus days before she died. It was almost as if she had come back, and just like her she was now mute, unable to talk.

I pleaded with Ceasar that she had to come with us because without anyone to support her she would die. Caesar saw her as unwanted baggage. The years of war and fighting soldiers who are trying to kill him and all the apes had made him forget that not all humans were bad.

Nova tried to reach Caesar but he was reluctant to let her in. Then we encountered bodies of soldiers. One still alive. They were soldiers but like Nova the one soldier was still alive have was not able to talk.

Then by another twist of fate we encountered another but hairless ape who called himself bad ape. He spoke like a human but did not know how to talk in sign language. He told us he came from a place called the Cincinnati Zoo. A very long distance from where we were. Telling us that humans got sick at the same time he and other apes got smart, but then soldiers came and killed the sick humans and the apes. Including his own child.

I then told the others that it was amazing and it meant that there was hope. That the same disease that nearly wiped out the humans that also made us apes the way we are. Meant that there could be many others other apes like ourselves all around the world. I told him we should try to reach out to them. But he reminded me that we needed to make sure our family was safe first. Then when bad ape came back with snacks, he told us that he had gotten them from a very bad place which we later realized was an abandoned military base on the border.

Realizing that must be where the Colonel was going. Bad Ape reluctantly agreed to help us get to the base after giving Nova a metal piece of art that held the name, I later gave her. I told her, after she learned how to speak in sign that I chose Nova to be her name because Nova means new which to me meant hope.

Though when our gorilla friend was killed. Caesar was almost overcome with vengeance. I warned him that now he was starting to sound like Koba. He went in alone to face the Colonel. Only to discover to his horror he had already captured all of our tribes mates including the children, and Ceasars son Corneilius.

Using the apes to help build a wall with the apes labeled donkeys as overseers. Later learning from Caesar. That the Colonel is doing this because as the virus had mutated into a new form. That if it ever spread would wipe out humanity for good. By effectively turning them into mindless beasts like they thought we were before we evolved. Ceasar later realizing that what the Colonel said. That if vengeance really meant that much to him. That killing the colonel meant more to him than the lives of his own people. Then without saying anything more basically saying, 'congratulations now you have joined the human race, because now you're no better than we are.' That struck Caesar to his very core.

Meanwhile Rocket, Bad Ape, Nova, and myself found a secret escape tunnel and began working on figuring out how we would free the other ape prisoners. Then Nova actually went into the base to help bring Ceasar food and water. I was scared because the humans would know she has infected and that she would be killed. So, Rocket went in as a distraction and allowed himself to be captured and beaten up by the gorilla donkey.

While the apes worked during the day building the wall. Bad Ape and myself were working on the tunnel. Ceasar signed how far it would be to the adult pen and how far it was to the children's pen. I told Nova that what she did was very brave. She then asked me, "Am I ape?" That's when I gave Nova her name.

I got Bad Ape to get on my back reluctantly to poke his head through the ground into the adult pen. Unfortunately, we discovered that our actions in trying to reach the children underground was flooding the tunnel.

Thankfully we were able to get one of the guards to come down and got his key. Ceasar and Rocket then proceeded to free the children and had them escape overhead.

I and most of the other adults were able to escape with the children under the cover of darkness. Ceasar then went back to the Colonel and found that he was now infected because of the doll that had Nova had left him in his cage that the Colonel handled earlier. The Colonel with whatever remained of his consciousness actually wanted Ceasar to shoot him. But instead of giving into vengeance. Caesar showed him mercy again. Showing he was not like Koba because he would not kill his enemy. Instead, the Colonel took his own life.

The battle between the humans began and Cesar tried to stop the soldiers who were firing on the escaping apes by throwing a grenade into one of the fuel tanks. But he got shot by the arrow of the Archer in his left side. But then to Ceasars disbelief the gorilla called donkey saved him before he was shot in the back of the head. But Caesar was able to throw the grenade into the tanks and thus stopped the battle.

After the battle when one of the human soldiers in white looked like he was about to shoot Ceasar. The snow on the mountain gave way and caused an avalanche. Burying the base and all the soldiers from the battle alive. Fortunately, we got high enough into the trees that we were spared.

We then proceeded to our new home, but upon arrival I discovered just how injured Ceasar really was. I knew he would die but he was content. For he had made peace with his past and he could see that the future was bright and hopeful seeing his son, Bad Ape, and Nova playing with the other children in joy. And I assuring him that his son and all those children would know who his father was, and what he had done and sacrificed for us. He then quietly passed away as though he was just simply falling asleep.

It hurt me very much to see another dear friend leavee me, but I know that he passed from this world happy and content with no regrets.

And now I am the last of our original group. I've been the only one who shall pass from this world not by battle or disease, but just because of old age.

If I have learned any great wisdom during my many years and if there's anything that can pass on to the children of tomorrow it's this. Always be humble. Don't give into hatred but love always. For hatred only leads to more hatred and senseless killing. Think for yourself and question yourself. One alone is weak and breakable. It is only when we stand together that we are strong. For if one receives hatred from another do not return hatred with hatred. Instead extend merciful love and work to change the heart of your enemy so that you will no longer be enemies. Let that love make them change their hearts. So that we'll become friends. That same love will unite us and make us stronger than we were when we were enemies.

Never stop learning to love mercy, seek justice and walk through life in true humility. And in that humility never be too proud to ask help from the ancestors and the great creator who made us all.

To help you to learn to accept the things you cannot change for which you have no power or control over. To give you the courage to change the things that you can for which you do. And the wisdom to know the difference. For it's good to be smart but it's great to be wise. For one can be smart, but still make bad choices and make poor judgments. One who values wisdom first can be trusted to always make good choices and will have sound judgment.

It's amazing how it's taken all this time for me to finally realize that we must all live by the golden law that humans have so easily forgotten. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Treat others the way you want to be treated and do for them as you would want them to do for you.

I know my name might not and will not be remembered by tomorrow's children after many years from now. But If my life has achieved nothing more than what I have already taught. Then I'd rather have everything else I have ever written and taught be forgotten and that these sacred precepts and the golden laws alone are the only things that are remembered. If that alone is what's remembered by those who shall come after me. Then it is a good legacy to be proud of. Thank you, all my friends. And my greatest hope is that my love will continue to shine brightly. To tell and guide those who need to see the light. Never give up on the hope for a better tomorrow for all of us. As long as there is a new day to look forward to, and as long as life continues moving forward. There will always be hope and the promise of life un-ending. Lived each day as it is given.