Have you ever looked at the book, and immediately turned your face away? Have you ever judged somebody based on what clothes they were wearing? I certainly have, but it’s only until you look back: that you see something special and purposeful in everything.
Seeking the Monkey: A narrative story
The sun was shining, about eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit to be exact. I was encircled by a jungle, a vast set of trees and animals alike. To my left was a tiger, to my right, a bright, orange monkey. I continued to walk on the dirt path ahead of me, cautiously watching my step because I could fall at any moment. Luckily for me, the monkey seemed to be preoccupied with his meal: fresh, yellow papayas and some sort of leaf. The tiger was asleep on a bed of rocks; I could hear him snoring from where I stood. Ahead, the path diverged. I could hear the sound of monkeys from the left, and that of birds on the right.
Monkeys had always bored me, being so similar to human beings they resembled immature children, which I was not very fond of. They were not fierce, deadly, beautiful or weird, so I automatically strayed away from them. I decided that I would follow the chirping chorus of sounds erupting from the path on the right and go visit the birds.
After walking down the path on which I heard the sounds of birds, I noticed something was wrong. The path was blocked by a big, wooden gate that seemed impossible to climb. My heart dropped, for I realized that I couldn’t continue down the path of the exuberant birds, but was forced to take the path of the monkeys. I retraced my steps back to the intersection between the two paths and, with a regretful mind, slowly walked towards the sounds of the branches braking and laughter resonating in the air.
The noises coming from this path were rasping to my ears. I wanted to turn back, to hide, but there was nowhere to go. Five minutes had passed since I had taken the path of the monkeys and I could now almost make them out with my eyes. The sun was still beating down at the same temperature, but it seemed ten times hotter than before. My head steamed with anger, but I begrudgingly kept moving toward the annoyances.
This monkey was small and black with a face that was nearly bald. Seeing him made my fears slightly diminish, and I suddenly felt the sweat evaporate off my forehead. This monkey was pressed up against the steel bars, separating it from the outside world. Its face was sorrowful, looking as though it was about to cry. He looked as though he desired freedom from his cage more than anything in the world. He could go nowhere, I could go anywhere, do anything I wanted. The monkey was holding something in its mouth: an elongated leaf, taken from the plant inside its habitat. It extended it to me in a friendly matter, stretching its small arms through the cage.
Of course he didn’t just give it up without a fight. He and his little monkey friends laughed at me as he, time and time again, pulled back on the leaf when I was about to grab it. I felt humiliated, but it was a good kind of humiliation, the kind that livened up my spirit and evaporated all the steam still floating around my head. I grabbed the leaf again, this time with the intention of winning the tug-of-war competition. I pulled at the monkey with all my might and, to my surprise, I won. The monkey went back to being sad and all, but I had just become the happiest person ever.
After spending five hours at the zoo, my mother had to drag me away from the monkeys. I had been playing tug-of-war with this monkey which I called “Tugs” for a little over two hours. We traded wins and losses, but I think I came out on top with thirty wins as opposed to his twelve. We were having the time of our lives.
I visited the zoo a month later to find that Tugs was still there. He remembered me instantly, and looked at me with the same glare as when we first met. At the time, there was a zookeeper in the cage. She told me that this monkey was special, one out of only a thousand remaining on Earth. “There is a lot you can learn from a monkey,” she said, “you just have to be willing to seek.”
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