The Journey of Two-Handed Baboon: The Baboon with Two Hands

This is a work in progress - more to come

Two-Handed Baboon began life as any baboon begins life: a baboon pregnancy followed by baboon birth. By all accounts, Two-Handed Baboon was a regular baboon, with - as his name suggests - two hands, which is normal for baboons. It would seem to follow then that the name Two-Handed Baboon is meaningless, without a regular context for baboons with a number of hands different than two, and that he should simply be called baboon, like all other baboons, but making that assumption requires the observer to overlook one key detail: one day, while eating a mouse, Two-Handed Baboon came to realize he had two hands. After this realization, he tried to share his knowledge with his baboon gang. Not one of the other baboons cared or understood what it meant to have two hands. Two-Handed Baboon tried to go back to his everyday life, but in everything he did he was constantly reminded that he had two hands. He felt disconnected, and knew that the other baboons were not like him, and that he could not be happy as a baboon. Remembering from long ago, Two-Handed Baboon thought of the men who had walked through the forest. They had been different than baboons, and also had two hands. They wore coverings over their bodies, and carried objects of power. They knew many secrets. Two-Handed Baboon decided to find where the men lived, and to join them, so that he might know secrets also, and so that he would have the company of equals.

Two-Handed Baboon fashioned a skirt from leaves and picked up a leg-bone from a deer skeleton, to use as a cane, before leaving his home. He did these things because he knew that finding the men would only be half of the journey - between his old life and his future, and that when he found the men, he would need to be more than a baboon. The road was long and Two-Handed Baboon began walking.