She didn’t have a name, and that didn’t bother her considering she wouldn’t have even known what such a thing was were you to ask. Well, she had a sound. Most things in the zoo that she knew answered to sounds, but only few had a sound that was uniquely their own. Her sound was high-pitched and whooping. Chu, Chu, Chu, Chu, Chu, her family would often chant when she arrived in the enclosure, using the Stander entrance she had learned to navigate. Only her family called her by it, and they seldom did during the light of day. Light time meant the Two-Legged Standers would be around, and within the chimp tribe their remained an unspoken rule, one which did not need to be spoken to be followed; that their sister’s sound remain from their hollering mouths within such noisy, uninteresting company.

Tonight, Chu bounded from rooftop to rooftop with ease just as the chimps had taught her. The metal canopies layered in decorative vines and decayed leaves barely squealed underneath the weight of her petite, calloused feet. At first such leaps had been difficult for Chu, her body being not as full of hair, her arms not quite as lanky and flowing as her chimpanzee friends that had invited her into their family so long ago. Chu saw herself in their eyes, if not in their bodies so much. As she grew older, these differences became more glaring, and Chu often worried that one day these differences would be too much; one day she would belong in her own metal home.

It had taken Chu a while to realize that it was their eyes, the same eyes that she shared with her family, which allowed her family to make most of the jumps that they did. It was eyes with a belief that their body would follow, eyes with trust in a soft landing that hadn’t happened yet, eyes with confidence, which let them make the daring, graceful jumps work.

She landed soft upon her glass roof destination. The landing sent a few bats fluttering from their clasped holds below her. Their terrified screeches were muted by the thick see-through slab beneath her feet. Chu smiled at the small result of her pounce. Bats were not very strong conversationalists, and as far as the animals whose company she enjoyed within the many homes varying in size, shape, and vegetation, they were some of her least favorite. Due to this, she enjoyed that she had startled them, and walked a bit more heavy footed the rest of the way before dismounting by grabbing unto the horn of the frozen, rock rhino.

The rhino did not move when she swung from it before falling to the ground. Chu had been sad the first time she had seen the rock rhino, since she counted the Rhinos as one of her closest friends, even though they rarely sounded to talk with her. They were a quiet sort, and preferred to talk to her with their bodies. But this particular rhino had been different. Chu had learned long ago that the rhino was more than just dead. In fact, she had begun recently to suspect it had never been alive at all, although she did not know the proper sounds that would allow her to broach such a topic with her family.

The rock rhino contained Two-Legged Stander symbols in front of it, large and looping. During the day Standers could be seen all over these oddly shaped rocks, hanging and playing in it as her brothers and sisters did a tire swing. The elder standers would watch and poke a flashing box, mostly reveling in their offspring’s amusement. Chu wasn’t sure what the rock symbols meant, but she sometimes liked to look at them when she was by herself. She stared a moment at them now. They shone too shiny in the moonlight, making Chu think that perhaps they were more metal than rock after all. When a cloud passed over the moon, throwing its shadow over the still rhino and the symbols it stood watch over, Chu decided it was time to move. Chu was on a particular mission, as she was nearly every night.

Chu placed the rectangular grain cracker she had stolen from the wooden food shed earlier in the evening right next to the purple plastic bag of water. The bag was on the metal slab where Two-Legged Standers often sat and ate during the day, just as the purple bag always was. Chu knew the container held water because she had investigated once, and accidently spilled its contents on the dirt floor. She had panicked and ran for cover without leaving a cracker that night. She had felt incredibly guilty, fearing she had done irreparable damage to the small watering hole, but the next night it had been back, and filled with water once again.

She rested the grain cracker against the purple pouch, and scampered into the adjacent tree, as was her nightly ritual. Chu positioned herself behind the metal sun that sprayed light on the scene below. It was a trick she had learned from the leopard, who used the tactic to hunt its prey. All anyone would see if they looked into the tree would be the light trickling down, not Chu hanging, hidden within the leaves and branches.

As he did every night, the Two-Legged Stander came around the bend, his mouth contorted in a funny manner in order to make a soothing sound. Its rhythm reminded Chu of the birds, and she wondered if he did it in order to attract a mate or if it was just for himself. Whatever the meaning of his song, it seemed to make him happy, as he stepped with a bounciness that Chu rarely saw in Two-Legged Standers.

He was a Stander of medium age, with hairless skin just like Chu. His hair was brown like the cougar, but it had a certain shine to it, which was evident tonight as he came under the barrage of light from the metal sun in the tree. He had a metal stick that hung at his hip, looped into his removable skin that only two-legged-standers cared about as far as Chu knew. The metal stick could shoot light from it. She had seen him use it before, but under the current circumstance where extra light was unnecessary, he did not need help for his poor-sighted night eyes.

This was Chu’s Two-Legged Stander. The one who seemed contently lost within the zoo, unwilling or unable to leave for his own home at night like the rest of his kind.

The Two-Legged Stander came upon his purple bottle and saw the cracker rested up against it. He bared his teeth, which Chu had come to see as happiness and appreciation, not the aggression that it meant in her family. Of all his shortcomings, Chu was able to forgive him for this one. Communication could be difficult sometimes.

He spun as he always did, waving the cracker as a baby chimp might wave a stick. The wave meant gratitude, and although it happened each time, Chu basked in its meaning again tonight. He didn’t know where his secret helper was located but he hoped they would know his thanks. The Two-Legged Conductor would then finish his twirl, pull his cracker baton to his face and take a small bite. Chu would watch him chew it for several minutes, slow and methodic, as the cracker turned to a pasty clump of brown in his mouth. The saltiness could be a lot, and it showed on his face intermittently, but Chu knew he would learn to love it as she had.

It was always a small bite, too small for a meal. Her Two-Legged Stander, in his immense survival ineptitude, didn’t seem to grasp this. But Chu didn’t care; thanks to her, this bite would sustain him for another night and day.

Chu unconsciously bared her teeth in a show of happiness. Her work was done but she watched him longer, until he left the lighted area and turned the corner toward the home of the reptiles. Chu was silent as she made the leaping journey back to her family.

The Two-Legged Stander went about his business as always, not thinking twice as a chorus of CHU, CHU, CHU leapt from the chimpanzee enclosure and into the New York City night that surrounded the Bronx Zoo.