Able, Unwilling

Unwitting, unwilling Able (given name lost to time), born innocent, like all of us, and expendable, like some of us, was a rhesus macaque monkey of Kansas sent by NASA into the void to test the effects of space flight on mammals. The Russians had sent a dog. Those Russians.

A martyr to Cold War science, human flight envy, and America's need to win the space race, Able, perhaps suffering the profound empathy of the foxhole, found love in flight partner Miss Baker of Peru - a squirrel monkey who, like Able, survived the flight, but unlike Able, lived to enjoy celebrity for many years.

In the end, Able, unwilling Able, who asked nothing more from life than the relative freedom and modest accommodation of the monkey house, was subject to an injustice crueler than rocket trauma - the inexpressive medium of taxidermy as a platform of protest.

Song, track, and movie by Joe Christiano