Saturday, November 5, 2011
Saturday, November 5, 2011
A Chubby Little Monkey
“kwiri-u-u” was all I heard.
The bird’s wings flutter with commotion, the screeching sound of their song was piercing my eardrums. The radiation from the sun hitting the ground, it was a sweating afternoon. There were no sounds of cars and no sound of foot steps either. All the attention was at the birds. I was sitting under the big mango tree, branches and leaves blowing all around. The breeze pass through, the flying leaves and the wing brushing my face. I kept my eyes half moon trying to wait for Joseph, my cousin to come and knock a couple of mangoes down, a promise that he made as a payment of his sneaky behavior of eating all my popcorn without my permission.
“I was waiting” I said as soon as I could see Joseph coming towards where I was sitting. My eyes looked straight at him standing beside me as he was looking up the tree. “What made you wait?” he said while folding his sleeves getting ready to climb up on the tree. “you said that you were going to knock some down for me, remember Jose?”
“I will knock you head first before I knock any mangoes for you, how many do you want?”
“mmmm...any number less than three, you choose”
“Four?”
“Not more than three you dummy. I mean one, two or three”
“Three” I said as soon as I could hear the last number mentioned, in my mind I guessed it was the biggest number”
“Watch as I am climbing up, tell me which one” Joseph said when her was putting one step after another on the tree.
He was brushing the leaves out of his sight take a branch and bending it on his opposite side so he could pass through, while his other hand holding tight on the other branch and his legs, both of them, were rounding the tree on the opposite sides with his body leaning against the tree.
“That one, the one attached to the other one” I pointed up with the stick I was holding towards the mango. “The yellowish one. Yes, that one”.
“Puu” on the ground the mango bounced on the red sand, just a few steps from where I was. “That’s one, right Jose?” I said to be sure that he wasn’t tricking me because I knew much about eating mangoes more than to count them.
“pu,pu,pu” dropped the other mangoes.
I bent down to pick the mangoes which were all full of red dust from the ground. I started wiping the sand away with my t-shirt, leaving my big belly button hanging in the public. In that time Joseph was moving one step at a time from the tree.
I saw his scratched legs which hung out of his pants which were not long enough to touch his shoes...(a.k.a. Don’t touch my shoe pants).
“give the big one” Joseph said. His face was all squeezed together.
“Now stay here, never go to the road side. If you wanna go home I will meet you here when I finish playing soccer”.
Joseph started marching towards the bushes. “Bye” I waved as I was pushing my big fat bum on the ground beside the tree. I took one mango from my t-shirt which for that time it was on my arms and I pealed it with my teeth. The juice was drooling from my mouth, my wet hands pushing the mango in my mouth to get a big bite...”mmm”.
After four, five minutes of enjoying the two mangoes, I took a breath before I moved to the last one. I saw a gorilla coming from the woods. It was dragging it’s hands down and skipping around coming aiming to where I was sitting.
“u-u-u” it sounded
I stayed still, not blinking, breathing slowly and looking straight at her coming until there next to me she stopped.
“U-u-u” she sounded again while picking on my head. It moved much closer to me and put her huge hand on my waist and leaned me against her chest. She raised raised another hand to the nearest branch and pushed herself up while trying to reach quickly to the next branch while her feet on the other two low branches, one up of another. She skipped some of the branches until on the upper big branch she stopped and with her huge hands grabbed me on the branch. Then she just sat very close to me.
My mouth was shut all that time. My eyes were just blinking after every few seconds. She grabbed a mango from the nearest branch and gave it to me.
“U-u” sounded when she was passing the mango to me.
“U” she insisted.
I took the mango and put it straight to my mouth. I didn’t rub it on my shirt, I just took a bite right away. I felt the scratched feeling of her hands when she scratched my back and passing her hands on my head looking for any preserved bugs. I stayed quiet, trying to act normal.
“U-u-u” as she was flipping my lips to see my teeth.
I tried to keep my lips tight but still her big fingers could penetrate through into my mouth and flip my lips inside out.
“Puu-pu” a stone bounced on her arm.
Looking down was Joseph throwing stones at the gorilla. The the gorilla took a bunch of mangoes from the branch and thew one by one at Joseph.
“stay there. You hear me. Don’t move” Joseph yelled when he was trying to walk after being wounded while playing a hero.
I saw him quickly making his steps aiming to the roadside. All I heard from him was “Dad, Dad” as he was screaming his lungs out as much as he could feel the pain while trying to make some quick steps.
When Joseph disappeared on the other side of the road and I couldn’t hear him anymore, the gorilla with it’s huge hands grabbed the nearest branch and swung it’s legs to the other branch of the opposite side of the tree. She dropped on the lower branch where she let go of her hands and “puu” with the strength of a gorilla landed down.
I saw her looking at the road side and turn her head aiming to the woods. She swung her hands and step after step walked in the woods. I followed her with my eyes until she completely disappeared in the woods.
My hands were shaking. I could feel my heart beat going fast “pum,pum” it sounded. My face was all rained out waiting for Joseph to show up again.
After about five minutes I saw my uncle quickening up his steps from the other road side aiming to where I was. Joseph was pointing to where I was.
“Queen, Queen” Uncle called
“Queen don’t move I am coming up”
No word was coming from my mouth, the breeze was brushing my face and as cold as I get, the weaker I became.
“Are you ok?” Uncle asked in a worried voice when he was raising his hand reaching for my waist while the other hand was holding tight on the tree. He pulled me down with him, landing my short feet. “Joseph give her a hand” he said to Joseph whose eyes were all red and getting smaller than normal size.
“It’s ok now, it’s all over. The monkey thought you were her child and that’s why” Uncle said gently.
I rubbed the tears from my eyes then asked Uncle
“Do I look like a monkey?”
Uncle gave me a half smile and then said
“a chubby one” then he pulled me up with his hands and landed me gently on his shoulders and then said, “Do you want any popcorn?”