Wuhan Bat Meets The AIDS Monkey

Wuhan Bat Meets The AIDS Monkey, by Lex Jurgen, published by Decorum International, 2021.

Wuhan Bat looked out over the valley from atop Mount Huo, the tallest peak in the mountains of Central China.

Wuhan Bat had lived in here his entire life. But now, so much had changed. And it was time to leave home, forever.

“Take flight, little bat, when danger comes,” his mother would repeat to him as a child.

But Wuhan Bat had an injured wing that he could not flap. He could not fly off the ground. He needed to jump off something very high so he could glide to where he was headed. Wuhan Bath had hopped and jumped his way up the slope of Mount Huo in a very difficult journey.

Wuhan Bat grew up a free bat. He lived in a cauldron of bats in the jungles of Hubei province, eating berries and insects and always listening to the advice of his mother. “Take flight, little bat, when danger comes.”

But Wuhan Bat had ignored that very lesson the day the humans came into the jungle looking for exotic mammals. The local people liked to chop up the bats at the wet markets next to the camels, beagles, and pangolins. All the better to make a tasty Hubei soup.

Wuhan Bat was curious bat. And very curious of the humans who came into the forest. While his bat friends flew away, Wuhan Bat got close to peek. That was not a wise decision.

SNAP. Down came a net around Wuhan Bat.

“Oh, fuck,” thought Wuhan Bat. Who struggled for a moment before realizing it was useless.

“Mom! Mom,” yelled out Wuhan Bat, but his mother and his family were far away now. He was alone. And he was in big trouble.

Wuhan Bat was brought by truck to the wet markets in Wuhan. The big city was incredibly scary for a wild mammal. All the loud noises and video poker houses and millions and millions of Chinese people. Wuhan Bat knew his fate. He was going to be cut up and stuffed into the mouths of someone who eats powdered rhinoceros tusk to get full and lasting erections.

Wuhan Bat arrived at the wet market. It was every kind of horrible he could imagine. Animals from around the region, around the globe, butchered for buyers. He saw a toy poodle half-gutted, begging for his own death. Next to the blood soaked non-sporting dog, an emu was being plucked alive. It was a horror show.

Two men in white coats pointed to Wuhan Bat in his cage and handed money to the owner of the wet market. Wuhan Bat thought this was the end. But he would soon come to wish he had ended that day in a bowl of golden retriever and bat pudding.

These two men were wearing lab coats. They were not hungry diners, they were scientists from the nearby Wuhan Virology Lab. And they came to purchase Wuhan Bat to use in experiments.

As Wuhan Bat prepared to glide off the peak of Mount Huo this very morning, he could hear the voices of humans in that awful lab where he was poked and prodded with needles and knives for months on end. Every day, more blood draws, more injections of something they called Covid, more tests. This is how his wing came to be so badly damaged.

While Wuhan Bat had ignored his mother’s lesson in the forest, he had not missed its general meaning. Get away. Run. Hide. Escape. The very thing Wuhan Bat plotted from his first day in the Wuhan Virology Lab.

Three months later, the day had finally come. His handlers were in the next room playing ping pong and drinking hard seltzer. Like every mammal, Wuhan Bat instinctively knew Chinese scientists can’t hold their liquor.

Wuhan Bat used a tool he had crafted from pencil shavings and his own dung to open the lock on his cage. He crawled from shadow to shadow, behind the improperly sealed deadly virology cabinets, camouflaged behind the recreational opium bins and ping pong ball collection tubs.

Wuhan Bat jumped at the screech of a cat in a nearby cage. It was Tubby Cat. Wuhan Bat wanted to free Tubby Cat. To free all the animals in the lab, minus that cocker-spaniel who was such an ass the other animals rooted for him to fall into the acid bath. But Wuhan Bat knew this had to be a solo project or else he’d surely be caught.

“Take me with you, Wuhan Bat,” pleaded Tubby Cat

“I’m sorry, Tubby Cat, but you must stay here, quietly,” replied Wuhan Bat

“But they’ll eat me,” lamented Tubby Cat

“They will, but it’ll be quick, and painless, and when you are all gone, you will come back as a great cat spirit in the sky,” consoled Wuhan Bat.

“Really, really, is that true, Wuhan Bat,” said Tubby Cat.

“It sure is, Tubby,” promised Wuhan Bat

With that, Tubby Cat cried out to all the other remotely conscious animals in the labs, minus the pigeon couple who had killed one another in a murder suicide pack only hours before.

“Guys, guys, I’m gonna be a great cat spirit in the sky!”

“Who are you fucking kidding,” came back the response from one of the other lab animals.

“And I’m going to be a race dog,” smirked the terrier with one front leg and one back leg removed, such that he was standing on two legs, but not in the way you think.

“Wuhan Bat, did you lie to me? Did you lie to Tubby Cat,” lamented Tubby Cat.

“Gotta go, Tubby,” replied Wuhan Bat.

Wuhan Bat leapt from the shelf top to the floor even as Tubby Cat let out an inconsolable screech to the world.

“YEEEOWWW!”

Several of the Chinese Communist Party virologists put down their hard seltzers in the break room and tuned to see the commotion in the lab. Wuhan Bat knew he didn’t have much time.

Wuhan Bat hobbled away with the best speed he could muster, given his right wing was badly mutilated from coronavirus experimentation and one unfortunate episode of bestiality by a lonely lab assistant in the overnight shift.

Wuhan Bat was surprised, but thankful, at how wide open all the doors and windows were in the deadly virology lab. It’s like anything can escape from here, he thought to himself. Then Wuhan Bat scurried right on out the door.

Wuhan Bat made his way across the city, leaping from shadow to shadow, lest he be spotted and returned to the lab. Or put into a noodle dish.

Wuhan Bat knew staying anywhere in this area would never be safe. He had heard the humans in the lab say many times how he was filled with Covid and how valuable his blood was for taking over the world. Wow, thought Wuhan Bat, taking over the world. That was serious. He better get as far away as possible if he was to be safe.

So it was that Wuhan Bat found his way to the forests outside of Wuhan and up that long climb up Mount Huo.

Time to go, said an exhausted and injured, Wuhan Bat.

Wuhan Bat thought of his mother and his friends and the other bats in his cauldron he would never see again — and he leapt off the high peak of Mount Huo.

Wuhan Bat struggled mightily with his injured and torn wing. He plummeted at first, but with such a high takeoff, he had enough time to adjust his wings so that the air provided lift. Half way down back toward the valley floor, he began to glide on the warm air rising from the ground below.

Wuhan Bat shuddered. Was it because of the scary flight or leaving behind his homeland. He didn’t know. But off he went Southwesterly toward somewhere far far away.

Now, an interesting note about bats. Despite being expert fliers, bats don’t usually fly very far. They are mammals, not birds, so they don’t migrate long distances in the cold weather to fuck and eat, but rather hunker down in their caves or sheltered homes. They are known to fly up to 50 miles a day to new feeding locations, or even as far away as 200 miles at times away from their homes. But Wuhan Bat knew that that wouldn’t be nearly enough distance away from danger.

Wuhan Bat had made a camel friend while in the virology lab who had come from this place called Africa. It sounded wonderful and remote and warm and the kind of place a bat could hide out from the rest of the world.

This was a very long flight. Many thousands of miles. Wuhan Bat brought along berries in his clutch for eating and intended to stop along mountain ranges for rest. The difficult part of the journey would be over the Indian Ocean, with no place for a bat to land. Wuhan Bat had never flown over an ocean before. The scene below was breathtaking, but he focused on maintaining his altitude. Bats can swim a little. But an ocean, well that’s no place for a bat.

After many days and many nights, Wuhan Bat sighted land, but he didn’t stop there. He kept his tired body flying farther away from danger, as his mother had taught him. He flew until his good wing and his broken wing were both beyond exhausted.

Wuhan Bat spotted a tree in the dense jungles of central Africa. A place to stop. Finally. A place to rest and consider his future.

Wuhan Bat smelled the air. Many animals live nearby he thought to himself. He explored a hollow in the tree trunk. No critters. But perhaps perfect for him. He crawled inside the burrow. Wuhan Bat could stay awake no longer. He fell fast asleep.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Wuhan Bat sprang awake. How long had he been sleeping? An hour? A day? A week?

BANG. BANG. BANG. Rapped a noise on his tree hollow.

Wuhan Bat cautiously stuck his head out the burrow.

“What the fuck are you doing in my hole,” yelled an older voice.

Wuhan saw a rather angry, rather elderly red capped mangabey monkey.

“I’m not going to ask again, what the fuck are you doing in my hole,” repeated the monkey.

“I’m tired. I’ve flown six-thousand miles to get here. I’m sorry, Mr. Old Monkey, sir”.

The elderly monkey took a pause. He sized Wuhan Bat up and down. He paused again. Then the mangabey monkey broke into an enormous laugh.

“You flew six thousand miles to get to The Congo,” screamed the mangabey monkey. “You must be from an insane asylum.”

“No, China.”

“Oh, fuck, much worse. Ever seen a human fuck himself with an elephant horn?

“What? No,” responded Wuhan Bat

“Lost an elephant friend to poachers a few years back. Rumor was they killed him for his horn so humans in your country could stab their own pucker holes,” said the monkey, as he poured out some of his drink off the tree branch.

“They do like eating lots of weird shit. It’s creepy as fuck,” lamented Wuhan Bat.

“That’s sad and all, but you still can’t have my tree hole”.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take your bed,” apologized the bat.

“Bed, Jesus, bat, that hollow isn’t my bed, that’s my shit hole”.

“Oh,” said Wuhan Bat, smelling his wings.

“I’m old and I can no longer run. I need to hide my shits so those nasty ass chimpanzees can’t track me down and eat me.”

“Christ on toast. Monkeys eat monkeys here,” inquired Wuhan Bat.

“Chimps aren’t monkeys, you flapping moron. They’re apes and they eat.. Jesus, this is awkward, do you really not know who I am,” stammered the mangabey monkey.

“A very old cunty monkey,” guessed Wuhan Bat.

“I’m The AIDS Monkey. The last of them anyhow. Way back, long ago, me and my mangabey monkey mates were having a good laugh and a lurid romp, when we all came down with this virus. It was horrible. Made us real sick. And slow. Slow enough those carnivorous chimpanzee fucks came and ate most of us. Then they got sick, and some local tribal human fucks caught them and hacked them up and ate them. And then they got really sick. But when those human fuckers get sick, they don’t curl up and die like the rest of us. They go out to have sex at truck stops on the lowdown.”

“How come you’re not dead,” Wuhan Bat asked The AIDS Monkey.

“Immunology is a random bitch, my winged mammal friend.”

Wuhan Bat coughed nastily all over The AIDS Monkey.

“That’s some nasty shit cough. You should see a doctor,” offered up The AIDS Monkey.

“I just fled doctors,” said Wuhan Bat. “They filled me with this COVID. I don’t even know what it is. But it’s going to make the whole world buy Nike products.”

“Damn humans. There were decades when they were hunting me down too. Sure, blame me because you can’t bang Doug without a condom,” opined the elderly monkey.

HOOH! HOOH! HOOH! Blood curdling sounds of pack animals on the hunt echoes across the jungle.

“Fuck, it’s the chimpanzees,” noted The AIDS Monkey.

The AIDS Monkey looked in all directions as the hungry cries of the meat-eating apes echoed through the trees.

“They must’ve smelled your Chinese. Fly away, Wuhan Bat,” screamed the old monkey.

“But I can’t. I’m too… “

The AIDS Monkey pushed Wuhan Bat from the tree limb. But what Wuhan Bat didn’t finish saying was that he was too injured and exhausted to fly. Wuhan Bat cried out as he glided roughly to the ground.

Wuhan Bat rose slowly from the jungle floor, dazed.

Before Wuhan Bat could gather his senses, he was surrounded by a group of maniacal chimpanzees. And they looked very hungry.

Now, before you think that Chimpanzees are anything like you see in Disney movies, they are anything but. They are some of the world’s most vicious creatures, carnivores who will hunt and eat most any living creature smaller than themselves. Chimps are crazy motherfuckers who want to fill their bellies with meat, any meat, including a disabled Chinese bat.

“What do we have here,” said Harry Chimp, the haughty leader of the chimpanzee hunting party.

“I’m Wuhan Bat. And I’ve escaped a Chinese wet market, a Communist Party sanctioned experimental virology lab, a 6,000 mile flight, and a nagging dry cough. I’m not scared of you,” boldly proclaimed the beleaguered bat.

“Good,” said Harry Chimp. “Fear makes you critters taste sour.”

Harry Chimp and his troop circled tighter on the now shuddering Wuhan Bat, who despite all his recent life threatening events, now really felt like this was the real end.

POUNCE.

The AIDS Monkey landed right inside the hunting circle, next to Wuhan Bat, shielding his little new bat friend with his own, old monkey body.

“Lay off my friend,” proclaimed The AIDS Monkey.

“Holy shit, it’s The AIDS Monkey. Jesus, old timer, I thought you died thirty years ago.”

Harry Chimp laughed. The rest of his chimpanzee goon squad followed suit.

“More meat for the taking, right Boss,” said one of the chimps in the pack.

“Nah, we can’t eat The AIDS Monkey. He’s got, well you know, his name.”

“And you can’t eat me, because I have COVID,” squeaked Wuhan Bat.

“What the fuck is COVID,“ remarked Harry Chimp.

Harry turned to one of his deputies, Mumford Chimp.

“Never heard of it, boss,” responded Mumford Chimp

“That’s because it’s new and awful and Chinese and going to destroy the world, like TikTok or Zoom,” explained Wuhan Bat.

“He’s lying, boss” said Mumford Chimp. The chimpanzee pack moved in.

Wuhan Bat used his remaining bodily energy to leap into the air and sink his fangs into Mumford Chimp, who reeled backwards and fell to the ground, more shook than injured by the small bat’s fangs.

“He bit me, Harry. He bit me,” said Mumford Chimp, from the ground

“And now you have COVID, bitch,” said Wuhan Bat, with little understanding of genetically modified upper respiratory tract infections.

The AIDS Monkey leapt forward toward the downed chimp, and quite deftly for an old Chimp, inserted his penis forcefully into the rectum of Mumford Chimp.

“And now you have The AIDS,” proclaimed the elderly mangabey monkey.

The AIDS Monkey lifted Wuhan Bat in a quick retreat and pulled him up into a nearby tree.

“Jesus, Harry, they ruined Mumford,” screeched one of the other chimps.

Harry Chimp turned to see The AIDS Monkey and Wuhan Bat up in the branches.

“You know we can climb too, stupid monkey,” shouted Harry Chimp.

“Then climb on up here and get a nice COVID-AIDS cocktail, dumb ass ape family half-breed motherfucker,” retorted the fiery mangabey.

The AIDS Monkey prominently displayed his genitals. Wuhan Bat bared his bat fangs.

Harry Chimp thought for a moment. He thought long and hard. He didn’t know much about virology, being just a simian, but he knew that he wanted to die like his father, and his father before that – being macheted to death by local tribesmen.

“Forget those losers,” said Harry Chimp turning to his team. “Let’s go hunt some flamingos down by the Ebola River. Somebody help Mumford up.”

And with that, the Chimps leapt away in a cloud of dust.

“Jesus, The AIDS Monkey, you saved my life,” cried Wuhan Bat.

“I’ve got lots of lives to save before I get back to zero, Wuhan Bat. You’ll see someday.

Wuhan Bat thought about that for a moment.

“Can I go back to sleep in your shithole now,” asked Wuhan Bat.

The AIDS Monkey chuckled, wrapping his arm around his new friend.

“Woo-ey, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” said The AIDS Monkey.

The End.