A story about a chimpanzee in space

2012
Risograph print on newsprint, stapled

This one went far! This booklet consists of a short story (you can read it below) and illustrations. The story was also published in African pulp fiction magazine, Jungle Jim. From there it ended up being used for a store front for a mall as part of Milan Design week. They turned the illustration into a 3D moving sculpture. You can view it below.

Part 1

I am watching over the animals that are being transported to a nearby space-station which is almost self-sufficient. It gets most of its raw resources from Earth, not food. It can grow its own food. It gets its workers from Earth. I am one of those workers. I am a contractor. I'm watching the animals to make sure that they don't get sick. I made it so that the chimpanzee can look out of the window as I believe it would appreciate it most. When I am in the room it usually watches me, so to find out if it likes to watch out the window I have hidden behind other cages hoping that the chimp will forget that I'm here. I'm watching it through a small slit. It has been a while now that it has not forgotten that I am here.

Part 2

I am on the space-station, waiting outside the transport-plane I arrived on one week ago. I'm waiting to be told what to do. The crew from the plane aren't here. For the last week I have slept in a tent in the large cage that the chimpanzee is now being kept in. This is to stop the chimpanzee from harming itself. When I leave the cage the chimpanzee acts violently and throws itself around. When I am in the cage the chimpanzee is much less violent. It throws food at me aggressively. I am waiting for the crew to show up so that we can leave. The instructions from a week ago say that we are to regroup outside the plane then board for our flight home. We have all been performing different tasks for the company that transported the animals to the space-station. I am waiting for the others so that we can go home.

Part 3

I am in my tent unpacking my sleepclothes. I am trying to be as quiet as I can so as not to wake the chimpanzee. I have been allowed to leave the cage to take my meals at the cafeteria. I met a female employee there and have been spending my meals talking to her. We are both excited when we see each other and both try get to the cafeteria early and leave late. Tonight one of the captains of the transport-plane said that I could borrow his entry card to take her to the company bar. Only higher-up employees are allowed to drink alcohol while on the space-station. We did not have enough money to buy drinks, even though we got into the bar. Luckily one of the men bought drinks for my companion. We shared the drinks when he wasn't looking.

Part 4

I am hoping to go home today. The contract that I signed when I got this job said that I agreed to stay on for an indefinite period if the company deemed it highly important that I do. There is no one to argue with about this. My instructions are delivered to my company phone. I've sent messages back, asking for more details, but I do not get responses. I don't eat in the cafeteria, even though I am allowed to. I fetch my meals there and bring them back to the chimpanzee's cage. I give the chimpanzee a bit and it sits a few meters away, eating it, watching me. Tonight I've set up a small table for me and the chimpanzee to share my meal, as I'm hoping I will be called to be in the group leaving later tonight. When I sit down with my box of food the chimpanzee rushes towards me and grabs the box, spilling most of its contents, and runs off. The chimpanzee can sense that I am leaving tonight and is upset. It watches me from a fake tree a little way off. The chimpanzee is not eating the food that it has stolen from me.

Part 5

We are going to transport humans back to Earth. They are being deported for trying to enter the residential areas of the space-station. I am told that they probably paid guards to let them leave their company's operations to look for jobs in the residential sector. The guy who told me this started laughing when he said this. He told me to imagine a contractor in cheap plastic clothes trying to sneak around unnoticed in a residential area. He said he used to get deployed to the residential sector to do industrial cleaning in the backs of restaurants and that one day one of his colleagues had smuggled their best clothes in with them and snuck off during the shift. He'd walked into a place a block away and sat down at the bar. Before he'd managed to catch the bartender's eye the police walked in and took him to jail. We laughed at this.

Part 6

The chimpanzee is now in a cage alone in the apartment of two of resident couple living on the space-station. It is tired, watching nothing in particular. Its cage is large, on the side of the resident's entertainment room. The chimpanzee makes a lot of noise, but the residents that have it in their home do not hear it unless they choose to enter that room. When they host guests they drug the chimpanzee so that it does not act violently. The chimpanzee's coordination is worse when it is drugged, and it often trips as it runs through its cage or falls as it swings on its fake trees. Last night, annoyed by its behaviour, the residents used a higher dosage to prevent the chimpanzee from falling over itself while the guests socialized with each other.

Part 7

I am cleaning the chimpanzee's cage. It's an exciting job because I am allowed to enter the residential sector. On the way to and from the apartment where the chimpanzee's cage is, I can see the massive structures that make up the residential sector of this space-station. I can also see from the chimpanzee's cage. The cage is next to a large window. I can't watch for long, but I can see people moving around in clothes I have never seen, sometimes in vehicle's I could never have imagined.  

Some of the original drawings: