MY PLACE s03:e16 - What It Means To Be Human

Isabelle really is the best secretary ever!
Today, she finally gave me that thing I’ve been asking for… a mug with my face on it! It made the coffee taste better, I tell you.

I also noticed that my desk had been cleaned. No more cookie crumbs inside the keyboard, all the dust swept clean, and all that paperwork that I’m supposed to be doing piled neatly… in piles! Some of it was even filled out as well, I guess she just can’t help herself sometimes.

But I should have suspected that something was awry when she turned her chair around to face me. Normally, when Isabelle wants to discuss something, she’ll make the effort to hop up and stand right next to my desk. This time, though, she was keeping her distance.

“Um, sorry to bother you, Mayor,” she said, twiddling her thumbs, “but could I ask you something?”

“Of course you may!” I grinned, kicking my feet up on such a wonderful evening.

“Well,” she began, “you know how I’ve always performed at my very best in this job? How I’ve exceeded the amount of hours I’m required to be in the office, taken it upon myself to complete some of your work when I’m ahead on things and how I had Cyrus customise that mug for you?”

“Y-you’re not gonna ask for a raise, are you?” I began to panic, “because I honestly don’t know how much you currently get paid. Or how to pay you. Do you get paid?”

“It’s not that…” she replied. “It’s just that I’ve always done so much for, um, the job that I thought it… um, it might earn me the… p-privilege of asking you a personal question…?” The words trickled from her mouth as elegantly as someone falling down a flight of stairs.

I gulped. “H-how personal are we talking, exactly?”

“Well, not to pry,” she said, prying, “but on your town card - the one I set up for you - I listed your species as ‘monkey’, correct?”

“That you did,” I answered. To be honest, I had forgotten about that until she mentioned it. It was one of those things from early on that I just sorta rolled with.

“...was that correct?” she asked. I could sense her anxiety from the other side of the room. I wasn’t sure what would have bothered her more. The idea of me being not-a-monkey, or her making a mistake.

But technically…

“Yeah, that’s right!” I said, confidently.
“...well, kinda.”

WHY did I say that?

“Hm? Kinda? What does that mean?”
Isabelle’s eyes were hardly judgemental but they sure did pierce under these conditions.

I made one of those noises which means that you’re thinking and/or lying out of your ass.

“Eeehhh you know,” I explained, “I’m one of those rare breeds of chimpanzee.”

“So you’re not a human then?”

Ah.

Just hearing that H word in her voice hit like a bombshell and I sat there for a moment, mouth agape, eyes staring through Isabelle as I tried to think of an answer.

It should be a relief to have Isabelle finally know what I am, for everyone to stop giving me funny looks as they try to figure out what sort of weird creature is in charge of their village, but there aren’t any other humans here. Would I be taken away to a lab to be experimented on? Would the mere knowledge of my existence cause a rift in time and space?!

Sod it. Here goes nothing.

“Actually yes,” I said. “That’s right. I’m a human.”

“Okay!” Isabelle smiled, the weight of the situation lifting. “I just wanted to make sure I had all of your details right. I truly am very sorry for the inconvenience caused and–”

“Hang on,” I interrupted, “how did you find out?”
I was almost annoyed at how casual this major reveal was.

“This morning, Digby was talking about the fossils he saw in the museum,” she explained. “Apparently Blathers was very excited to ‘discover’ you!” she said with a wink.

“So… you’re not freaked out or anything?”

Isabelle blinked. “No? Should I be? I mean, I suppose it is rather exciting to have such a rare species here in Place. And as my boss, no less! But new species are still being discovered all the time. I used to think the world was so small as a pup, in some ways I still do… but you’ve reminded me of just how much there is out there that I’ve never seen!”

“You’re welcome, I suppose.” I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or not, but wow, that was a lot easier than I expected. But I hung onto what Isabelle had just said, how she had never even heard of a human before today. Not to mention, Blathers, of course, was very excited to probe my mind as a “new” species not too long ago. Tom Nook, however. He’s known what I was since the beginning. Hmm. Maybe we are just rare and I’m not the only one in this world. That’s sort of comforting to think about.

Now, so long as nobody asks where I came from, then we should be okay.
Unless waking up on trains you don’t boarding is a common occurrence too.

~Author’s Notes~
I had a little bit of an epiphany before starting this season (if that’s the right word).
The last two seasons had always treated the Mayor’s identity as a human this really big secret, as if that when the other characters find out, they’d have one of those third-act break up scenes or something. Then I realised that this is based on a game where there’s a half-cake-half-rhino, an inflatable bunny rabbit and a unicorn exist amongst the regular animal folk so a shaven monkey man wouldn’t be such a big deal, even in My Place lore, where the Mayor is the only one.

As such, I used this chapter (and the previous Isabelle one leading up to it) to tie up this little plot thread and get it out of the way. Most characters will still just assume that the Mayor is a weird breed of ape, but it won’t be much of a concern anymore.