Apes

"The family Hominidae consisting of gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and humans collectively known as the "great apes".

APES; fellow travelers, uncles, caricatures, demons. They look out of the same eyes, see each otther as we see each other. Of all animals, the creatures we have perhaps the best chance of understanding. Closest. Kissing cousins. But Different, their faces twisted, their bodies warped, like us, but reflected imperfectly. All of these words for Different mean, somehow, Inferior. And, like the mentally retarded, it takes more cognitive machinery than most humans posses to understand them, irremediably separate, but Equal. Fellow voyagers clutching at one another's limbs on the edge of the cliff gazing out over the inexplicable universe. Can you name the four living species of ape (five, counting homo sapiens)?