Families

Written 54-K07 [2023-05-03], Edited 56-E05 [2024-11-14]

Image credit: Twitter Twemoji

The monkey held her child in one arm, while using the other three limbs to scale the wall. The wall was hotter and smoother than any tree the monkey had ever felt, but there were plenty of footholds and gaps making it possible to climb.

A pigeon sat on a ledge above and cooed at the monkey. The monkey screeched in response, climbing faster than before. But when she reached the pigeon’s ledge, the pigeon flew away almost effortlessly, as if mocking the monkey.

The monkey sat on the ledge at looked at her child briefly. The baby monkey’s hands small and delicate, and its limbs weren’t long enough for jumping between treetops and rooftops.

The baby was hungry, and to support her two-monkey family the mother had to find some food. All the nearby fruit trees had been plucked by much lazier monkeys. Those mediocre mammals, they didn’t understand where the real loot was.

The mother monkey looked to left and downwards. The was another ledge, and below the ledge, a window. But this window was an odd one out, a banyan in a forest of neem. Because this window, out of all the dozens of windows the monkeys had passed, was open.

The mother put her long limbs to use, she jumped from the high ledge to the lower ledge, then scrambled down the ledge to the balcony, then into the apartment.

Open window, no humans.

Jackpot.

There was a good smell emanating from a shiny item on a platform. All these confusing things humans built. But the monkey knew the smells. She climbed onto the table and opened the metal container. Her prize: ten chapattis.

The monkey took one bite of each chapatti, and so satisfied, made her way out. Two families of primates found their fates intertwined.

Notes

This was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing meeting.

Feedback from The Joy of Writing group

• the one bite of each chapatti is a nice touch (and realistic)
• Banyan and Neem are different types of tree
• reminiscent of the Panchatantra
  • I probably read some of these stories in the form of comics by Amar Chitra Katha