Transformation

My boss, Scott, is reversing into an ape like the other managers in our department.

“Don’t be silly,” he says when I point out that his chin has glitters of gray hair, “It’s my daughter’s gel pens, she likes to draw.”

His brow ridge has edged out like an awning since Monday, his jaw muscles crack as he stuffs two apples and a banana in his baboon-like snout, his skin now the color of charcoal Earth. He spits seeds all over the floor; casters of his rolling chair crack and spew sticky speckles that pockmark the walls. On Thursday, he treads in on his knuckles and hind legs, full bonobo, and joins the other two gorillas, Bob and Chung, for a round of grooming and chest-beating.

My coworkers Billy and Marcy shrug. “That’s just how things go,” they say and pretend to write their holistic goals for their mid-year review, when they’re browsing Amazon for back-to-school deals.

“No — a human cannot “reverse into an ape” says ChatGPT. “Evolution doesn’t work backward” the sentence highlighted in bold, “genetic changes aren’t reversible in that way.”

Clearly, ChatGPT is wrong.

Bob and Chung growl at us in our weekly meeting. Something about lack of productivity in between their angry grunts. There isn’t yet a gorilla speak for corporate language. Bob jumps on a ceiling hanging LED fixture. Tim and Scott follow him. They leap from one flickering light to another. The room shudders. I feel Marcy’s hand grooming my hair. Billy hops on Scott’s back who slaps him down with his powerful bonobo hand. I push Marcy away. I want to stay human, I mumble and escape to the bathroom. My head thumps. In the mirror, I spy two round bumps sprouting into horns above the crown of my head.