text: The day before your birthday, you find out you have to fight a gorilla and you have to win. This is certainly news to you, but your parents say they’ve been talking about this for months, don’t you remember, and while you don’t, you just nod and say oh yeah I do because you’re afraid you’ll get in trouble if they find out you weren’t listening to them. Then you ask why you have to fight a gorilla, and your parents look surprised and say don’t you know? Everyone has to fight a gorilla when they get to be your age. They did it, your older brothers and sisters did it, your neighbors did it, even the nice old lady who works in the candy shop did it. You’re not sure if you believe them, but you ask your older brothers and sisters, you ask your neighbors, and you ask the nice old lady in the candy shop and they all tell you, yes, when they turned the same age you’re about to turn, they too had to fight a gorilla and win. You’re shocked, but think maybe they’re all playing some sort of prank. So then you ask some of the older kids at school and they say yeah they fought a gorilla on their birthday and look at you kind of weird for even asking. At recess you ask your teacher whether she ever fought a gorilla when she was a kid, and she says of course, everyone does. She points to a scar on the side of her face and says that was where her gorilla bit her, when she was about your age. You go to the library and ask the librarian, someone who always smelled like the old sweaters in your basement, and he grins and says it looks like someone’s got a birthday coming up soon. You’re showed a book that explains how people have been fighting gorillas on their birthdays for generations, supposedly starting with some guy named Sir Francis Nanergrab, though the book says there’s a lot of doubt he was really the first. It showed a picture of this Sir Francis Nanergrab, and he was missing an eye, an arm, and his entire lower jaw. You slam the book shut and run out the library without even putting it away. You cry for a while, both because you’re scared you have to fight a gorilla, and you feel stupid for apparently being the only one who didn’t know you had to fight a gorilla. At dinner you ask your parents again why you have to fight the gorilla, and they tell you again that it’s because that’s what everyone does when they’re around your age. You say, no, no, that’s not what I mean, and then ask why is it the thing that everyone does, and they tell you it’s just how things are, so then you say why do kids have to do it anyway, it seems stupid, and then your parents get really mad at you and say that if they had to do it when they were young, you have to do it now. One of your big brothers says he doesn’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of it, and to quit being such a baby about the whole thing, and your parents actually agree with him, even though they say he should be nicer about it. You can’t sleep that night. As you lay awake, staring at the ceiling, all you can think about is how big and scary gorillas are and how you never ever want to have to fight one but everyone is going to make you tomorrow. Eventually, you see the sun rising through your window and realize you got no rest at all. Your parents come in a little while later and say it’s time to get up. When you come to the kitchen, the table is piled high with all your favorite breakfast foods. You’re not hungry. Your stomach hurts from being so nervous. But then your parents get mad at you again, saying they worked really hard to make this meal special for you, and you’re really hurting their feelings by not eating it. You take a few nibbles here and there. Your parents say you should eat more, you’ll need your energy for later, but that makes you even less hungry and you tell them sorry but you can’t eat anymore. One of your parents asks if this is still about the gorilla, as if they expected you’d forget about it overnight, and when you nod they say you must stop being so silly about this and that this is a big day for you. Instead of going to school, your parents take you across town and at first you think you’re going to the grocery store, but then they turn and you realize you’re going to that big boring building next to the grocery store, the one you always saw but never really thought about when you’d drive by it. You refuse to leave the car at first, grabbing onto whatever you can to stay where you are, but your parents are too strong and they drag you outside, then drag you across the parking lot, then drag you through the door, then drag you down the hall to meet someone they call Mr. Talbot, who they say is the town Gorilla Master. Mr. Talbot doesn’t look like the kind of guy who’d force kids to fight a gorilla. He has kind, gentle eyes and a warm smile. He kneels down and holds your hand in his, which you find to be warm, dry, and a little rough. He says he knows exactly how you feel, how he was nervous too when he was your age, but was just fine, and when he gently squeezes your hand you notice he’s missing three fingers. You yell and scream, saying please, no, please, no, over and over again, louder and louder. Mr. Talbot shakes his head and smiles, says there’s always one every year, then with surprising strength drags you into a dark room in the back. It’s a little bigger than your garage and smells like a petting zoo. You look up to the man and beg him to please let you go, that he doesn’t really want to do this, but he just puts a whistle to his lips and blows a shrill piercing cry. At the other end of the room you see a pair of blinking eyes shimmer in the dark. They get closer until, out from the shadows, steps the gorilla. It’s huge. It opens its mouth wide and lets loose with a mighty roar as it beats its chest with fists as big as your head. Mr. Talbot shouts “FIGHT!” and the gorilla charges. The next few hours are not your best. You never, ever try to fight the gorilla. Instead you just run and dive and duck and dodge and do everything in your power to avoid it. Mr. Talbot yells at you from the sidelines, saying to be tough, to face your fear, telling you that all the kids at school will make fun of you if you don’t fight, but you’re still running. The gorilla keeps chasing you in circles around the room and your heart is pounding against your chest and your breath is coming out like fire and your legs are feeling like jelly but still you try to get away, you are not going to let this gorilla catch you even if you have to run forever. But you can’t run forever. You get tired. You get slower. And the gorilla is getting closer. Right when it’s about to catch you, Mr. Talbot blows the whistle again and the gorilla stops, then returns to the shadows, leaving you gasping and wheezing on the floor. Your parents come in and cross their arms and say they are VERY disappointed with you. Every single kid when they get to be your age fights the gorilla and wins, why can’t you? Between deep breaths you say there was no way you’d ever beat a monster like that, especially when you don’t have any weapons at all, but your parents say they both fought gorillas even bigger than that when they were your age and they had no problem. Mr. Talbot said the gorilla he fought when he was your age was ten feet tall and he was still able to kill it in just a few minutes. Why can’t you? Everyone else can, after all. Your parents say maybe they’d understand if you were, like, dying of cancer or were born without arms or legs, but you’re a healthy normal kid, so why can’t you just kill that gorilla like a healthy, normal kid would? You don’t know the answer. All you know is that you can’t. You wonder what’s wrong with you, if it’s really supposed to be so simple. You can tell your parents, in their heads, are wondering the same thing. Still, it’s over. For today at least. In the car ride back, they say they have never, ever seen someone act so immature. You’ll never get anywhere in life, they say, if you can’t kill one little gorilla in hand to hand combat. It’s very important to your development. So that is why, they say as you pull into the garage, you will be returning to Mr. Talbot tomorrow, and the next day after that, and the next day after that, on and on and on, until you’ve slain that gorilla like a proper young person should. And until you do, they say, no more video games.