The letter from the past

I was enjoying a morning shower, when I suddenly got a call from my boss. He's always in the office before the work starts. Barely do we see such hard-workers nowadays. I picked up the call and heard a very excited voice of the boss:

- Paul, Paul, do you hear me?! I've got such a peace of history today! It's a replica of a paper letter from an archaeological site in the Europa City! Come fast! You must see it! Amazing! We'll put it on the first page! Come!

- I'm on my way, Mr. Hudson! - answered I, wiping myself with a towel.

All the way to the office I was anxious to see how the letter looked like. In the last k5 years archaeologists had found only seven paper letters. And this find promised to bring shocking news; and I wanted to be the one who would write about it.

It took me a while to get to the office, and when I finally met Mr. Hudson, he was already reading the letter.

- Paul, come in, come in, my friend! What a wonderful day today! See this? - he showed me the letter and the photo, - Have a look and read it. This photo was in the letter! Extraordinary! The Europa University says its age is k6 370 years. I haven't seen such a peace of history in my entire life, ever. And once again, I'm glad our company has the ultimate right to publish scientific achievements!

I took the letter from the table and quickly looked over it and the picture. Although it was just a replica of the original, to us it had the same value. The text was written with neat calligraphy, and the picture was well preserved. Perhaps the paper technology they had used then allowed it to be in such a good condition. I asked for some time to read the letter through, and went to my office, opened the paper and urgently started reading.

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Hello Jetu,

How are you?

Haven't seen you for like 28 years!

How is your life in the Australia Zone? How is your beautiful wife?

Lots of work recently, I guess?

Are you in the team fixing the Australia - Africa tunnel? I heard that shakewaves from the Antarctica Research Centre damaged it. Yeah, the climate control doesn't work well. Those homos can't do the things properly!

I have this week off, and a few days ago came to Sevilla, the Espana Zone, to relax and forget about the work. I was at the second Africa - S.America tunnel. They've been enlarging its traffic and housing capacity. More growth, they say.

And you know what, Jetu? Recently I had a terrible experience working with homos. I just can't put up with them anymore. They disrespect us. They have to accept us as we are. Evolution made them and us! We have our rights to live freely on this planet, together. We are part of society! I hate it when homos say we're just monkeys. They are wrong! Monkeys live in the rainforest! Why do we work only as a workforce? And we also want to have an access to education, medicine and recent technologies. I definitely don't like that they restrict our population growth and keep us in ghettos. I often wish I had enough money to run to another planet and start living there. Perhaps the Earth's becoming too small for us and them! I hope our representatives in the planetary union could make the difference.

How about you, Jetu? What do you think about it all? Lucky you! Your wife is unique as I've known only of a few chimpanzee-human marriages. She's very brave, I'm sure. Is she still facing so much criticism?

My friend, along with the letter, I'm sending you a picture of me and my loyal pet Duzy. Behind us you may see the Mediterranean Sea. Jetu, it's so beautiful here by the sea! Oh, I didn't introduce Duzy, did I? He's from the Sidera Multa galaxy, and as it's common there, his planet doesn't have nighttime. Imagine, among all planets in the planetary system, there're 4 stars orbiting the biggest star! And Duzy has a plant-like growth, that's why his skin is fairly black, to gather more starshine. So I always carry a UV-box, because without its constant light he will die.

I'm glad there's still a company accepting paper letters and postcards. If you happen to be by any chance in the Western Africa Zone, let me know and we will meet.

Warm wishes from the Europa City!
Your friend,
Zuzu.

Date: m1k7 076*
Place: Sevilla, Espana Zone, Europa City.

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I turned my eyes away from the letter and thought for a while about the life k6 years ago. I could not believe that at that time chimppeople were in such unfair conditions compared to homos. Since then, our society has changed dramatically, and now homos and chimppeople live and work so close to one another as if it's always been this way. I never considered my chimpfriends as something strange.

Coming back to the reality, I got even more excited to write about the find. I also got curious why the letter had never left the Europa City...
With this, the upcoming issue of our scientific newspaper must be extremely interesting. Not to waste any time, I headed to see Mr. Hudson, who is an actual chimpman.

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*m1k7 076 = 1 million 7 thousand and 76.