reckonedabandon.

There exists an animal known as the ‘tape ape’. Despite alleged sightings in every continent on Earth (bar Antarctica), it is exceedingly rare and only five have ever been caught on camera. For the most part, they resemble humans, though they are a little more squat and hairy. The most important distinction is, of course, a large cassette player where their heads should be. It is not known how they perceive the world, as they do not seem to possess eyes, mouths, noses, or ears. Despite this, they are known to be hyper-alert and are thought to possess a sense of hearing thirty times stronger that of the average person’s.

Two tape apes have been successfully captured by humans. The first one was spotted in the Ozarks by a pair of elderly hikers named Al and Edna Hyde in 1984. They took photographic evidence and, as quickly as possible, returned to civilization where they alerted local police of the sighting. The report went up the chain of command until it reached the federal government of America, who dispatched the military to the location of the reported sighting. The tape ape was found wandering a mountain path at leisure. It was captured without initial injury and, according to one witness, raised its hands in surrender upon seeing raised guns.

The tape ape was sent to a top-level laboratory for experimentation. At first, scientists observed its behaviour in captivity. The ape, though unable to speak, was able to communicate with simple hand gestures, waving hello and goodbye and throwing out thumbs ups and downs. Despite its capture, it was initially rather friendly, and often showed excitement upon seeing staff members it had grown attached to. (On one instance, it achieved erection, displaying what seemed to be embarrassment.) 

Of course, the most fascinating part of the creature was its inexplicably tape machine-resembling head. It appeared to be playing a tape at all times, with a vague internal whirring noise emanating from it constantly. Despite the ape’s otherwise affable nature, it would grow irritable and even aggressive whenever a staff member tried putting their hands near the buttons on its head. Unfortunately, this would lead to a violent incident five months into the experiments, when it would tear off the index finger of one scientist who attempted to push its eject button. After this, the ape was held down by several staff members, while one pushed its eject button by force. The tape popped out and the animal died immediately.

Despite public outcry and heavy protest from animal rights activists, experimentation on the tape ape continued after its death. Dissecting its main body revealed that much of its anatomy was largely identical to that of a chimpanzee. Its head, on the other hand, defied all commonly accepted notions of mammalian biology at the time. It was entirely mechanical, no organic matter to be found. Its spine ended in its neck and the head was inexplicably held on exclusively via connection to the outer flesh. Though it had lungs that breathed (As observed whilst it was still alive), it was impossible to tell from where it took in oxygen, due to the complete lack of connecting holes and tubes between its head and body. Modern theorists suggest that the species possesses tiny, nearly inobservable gills in their armpits. As for the tape itself, it was unplayable due to its size. It was impossible to turn the beast’s severed head back on and, though several replicas were made, still none of them were able to play it. It is often speculated that the tape acts as the animal’s brain, though no one has been able to find concrete evidence of this. While the rest of the ape’s body decayed, its head is still on display at the American Museum of Unnatural Animals.

The second tape ape to be captured was first sighted in the southern French countryside, roughly twenty kilometres from Nice, on June seventh, 2003. It was spotted in the cow pen of a farming family at 9:30 P.M. Though it did not so much as touch any of them, the cows were severely disturbed by its presence; one of them died the following day, despite showing no prior signs of disease or injury. Upon noticing the cows bellowing, sixteen year old Jean Lyons, who was out on an evening stroll through her family’s farm, approached the pen and noticed what she first believed to be a human squatting among the cows inside. Though, when the beast stood tall, it was clear that it had a large tape recorder for a head. They stared at one another for a moment, and then it bolted into the country.

Authorities were immediately contacted, and, upon hearing of an elusive tape ape potentially living just outside their city, the municipal government of Nice created a search party of fourty-five police officers and twenty civilian volunteers to sweep the grasslands and forestry surrounding the farm. They worked in shifts, ensuring that at least fifteen individuals were searching the area at any given time. After ninety-three hours of relentless scouring, one of the volunteers, a young Algerian immigrant by the name of Omar Yacef, discovered the animal’s den deep within a nearby forest. The tape ape, sleeping inside, was successfully captured.

The tape ape’s den took the form of a dug-out borough, about the size of a shipping crate, under a grassy bank by a thin, winding river in the forest. Curiously, though, the interior of the den was filled with a number of man-made objects. A small mattress covered in fluids and stains lay upon the floor where the ape was first spotted sleeping. There was a bucket of chocolate bars and potato chip bags sitting in one corner and several empty bottles of booze rolling about the floor, which was decorated with a Persian rug. There were no signs of urination or defecation within the den; the ape seemed to tend to those matters outside, in the interest of keeping its home hygienic. Perhaps most interestingly, there was a fancy glass chessboard laid at the foot of the mattress. Though the ape had no one to play the game with, the pieces were delicately placed upon the grid in such a fashion that it would seem it had been practicing openings.

Due to the enormous public outcry surrounding the last tape ape to be captured’s treatment, rather than being detained in a government facility this one was placed in an exhibit in the Zooparc de Nice so that its interactions with visitors could be studied in a ‘humane’ fashion. Demonstrably female, she was given the name Simone. 

  Despite her large enclosure, it was difficult for visitors to see Simone due to the massive crowd surrounding it. It wasn’t uncommon for visitors to spend multiple hours waiting to get up to the glass. The number of annual tourists in Nice doubled in the year Simone’s exhibit opened, and has remained high since. Plush dolls and t-shirts featuring Simone are sold at the zoo and all across the world. They tend to sell very well. 

Those who get the privilege to approach the glass while Simone is awake and feeling friendly have given radically polarising reports. Some have called it one of the greatest experiences of their lives; others have called it deeply disturbing. When she is energetic, Simone has been known to dance complex dances from across the world, such as Irish legdancing, Omaha-style grassdancing, and the Flamenco. Other times, she has been known to simply sit in front of the glass and ‘stare’ (Though tape apes do not possess eyes, many have described an undeniable sensation of being looked at.) at a given visitor. When this happens, visitors describe hearing the whirring of her cassette player head clearly through the enclosure’s glass. However, no song or other type of audio has ever been picked up. Zooparc de Nice faced minor controversy after one visitor who had experienced this phenomena hanged himself in his hotel room later that day. Simone does not like children and infants brought too close to the glass have been known to burst into tears.