“the first family”

The Literate Humor Magazine, November 2019

Below is the world wide premier publication of a journal entry recently discovered deep in an Ethiopian cave. Enjoy what we believe to be descriptions written by a member of the first family to ever walk on the face of our planet approximately 250,000 years ago. 

Dear Diary,

I have a bit of a rant for you today. Now, I’ve been on this planet for quite some time, and seeing as it seems I’m one of the few members of the human species to live on this rock, I feel it’s time to question what the hell is going on. Today’s topic: Family. These five other humans I spent a great deal of time with growing up. Boy, there are plenty o’ times where I’ve hated those guys. But there’s always been this feeling, a sort of bond I have with them, that tells my brain that they’re my humans. For some reason they’re always there for me and I’m always there for them– but when the hell did I sign up for that?

I mean look at my “siblings.” These guys really know how to annoy me to the core of my being. There are many instances in which we’ve beaten the crap out of each other, sometimes just for the fun of it. When I think of my little brother, my mind immediately goes to such descriptions as “doofus,” “knucklehead,” or “little shit.” And yet, the thought of him not having a perfectly happy life gives me physical anxiety– props to those biological instincts!

  And don’t even get me started on the random moments I start to worry about their deaths. I’ll be in the middle of hunting or creating this awesome cave painting of a woolly mammoth and suddenly I’m depressed as hell over the fact that my mother is going to die one day. I have to say it: our brains are a prison and emotional bonds have enacted our life sentence. 

It’s been about two years now since I got old enough to part from my family and go explore the planet on my own. For the most part I’ve been heading south, and let me tell you, these birds I like to call flamingoes are a whole other can of worms. Why do you exist? You are just the long, pink version of a toucan– go find some originality. This is besides the point. I spent eighteen years growing alongside five other humans and simultaneously believing that the day I left them would be the day I’d actually have a chance to figure out who I am. Now that I’m gone, I’ve realized those humans played every role in making me into an independent human that I hope they can be proud of. And now I’m stuck with this stupid instinctual bond to them, wherever I go, that manifests in random urges to call up my dad just to tell him what I had for lunch that day. If only there were an invention that could allow me to talk to them from far away distances… for now, I think I’ll just reminisce about my family, those humans I was essentially programmed to love, and be grateful for the fact that somewhere out there, there are five other homo sapiens who are probably thinking about me too. 

L. Jerse