RAMBLINGS OF THE MIND
TWELVE YEARS AGO
It was quiet, and the people started leaving the park as the crickets started getting louder and louder as if announcing that in a few minutes the sun would hide behind the tall trees. Suddenly the silence was interrupted by a long loud scream, like a persistent fire alarm, followed by a frantic sobbing of a young boy who was running wildly to his father’s arms.
The boy continued to scream as he pointed out to the trunk of the tree which has just been cut a few days ago. The father ran toward the place where the boy was pointing at. What he found shocked everyone around - a dead monkey.
It was lying lifeless just behind the stump of the trunk. Partially covered by the dead branches lying all around the place, it was almost impossible to see the dead body of the capuchin monkey whose eyes were staring blankly right ahead, seeing nothing as if meditating like a friar to which they were named after.
The father looked up and saw a monkey on top of the tree.
There was sadness in the primate’s eyes, the man can almost feel it.
About half a mile away, to the east side of the park, five elderly capuchin monkeys were having a serious meeting. Each of these five was the leader of their own “troop” of 10 to 20 monkeys. Of these five, Tubby was acknowledged as The One, the Leader of the Leaders, Capo di Tutti Capi, The Godfather.
Not only was Tubby the most dominant of them all, he was also
the wisest and the most intelligent. His decisions were always fair and just.
Capuchin monkeys were known to be the most intelligent specie, but Tubby’s knowledge was unquestionable, not that the monkeys were dumb, but because he had travelled a lot and his perspective of things was wider than any other monkey who ever lived in this park.
“It can only be Spikes,” one of the leaders said. The others nodded in agreement, referring to the monkey who was expelled from the troops because he proposed to follow the owl monkeys in their practice of monogamy.
Almost all capuchin monkeys hated Spikes for even suggesting that. Some speculated that he was a half breed from a father who was an owl monkey.
Although others somehow did not necessarily disagree with Spikes, but they had kept their mouth shut because they didn’t want to lose their rights to mate with any female in the troop, after of course the leader who has the “primary right” to mate. Nobody wanted to accept it, but there was an obvious division among the troops about the issue.
Nobody knew whether Tubby agreed or not.
"Why would Spikes do that to one of his few followers?” the youngest of the group asked.
“Maybe Tubby’s son got Spikes’ mate. Who knows? These things happen, you know,” another one whispered, low enough not to be heard by Tubby.