Monkeys...Why Did It Have To Be Monkeys?

Sometimes I wonder why people call what I write “fantasy”. The world out there is a lot stranger than anything my pitiful imagination could dream up.

For example, the current crime wave in northeast India has local police at a loss. Not because they don’t know the culprits behind the rash of home break-ins, and the thefts of mobile phones and soft drinks. They do. The problem is what to do with the the crooks. The laws on the books don’t apply to monkeys.

Yes, you read that right. Monkeys. Monkeys who slap around their pursuers and mug tourists for their eyeglasses. You could even call them murderers. The deputy mayor of Delhi fell to his death when a gang of monkeys jumped him on his balcony.

I suspect Indian law enforcement officials secretly wish they were dealing with a real gang. At least with a human gang you could identify the perps from their tats. Monkeys don't give police sketch artists a heck of a lot to work with. When the description for all the suspects comes down to “hairy”, how do you tell the good monkeys from the bad? And even if you did, there's not a lot you could do about it. The Hindu religion considers all monkeys sacred to the monkey god Hanuman. So the military solution is absolutely out.

My plot hamsters are wearing out their wheels on this one, folks. In my head, the monkeys aren’t sacred--at least not to Hanuman. They’re his minions. I’ll figure out why mobile phones are such a hot item later. The death of deputy mayor was either a tragic error or the result of something a lot more complicated than accident. The glasses are no problem. Hanuman broke his, and the tourist’s happened to be almost the right prescription. After all, it’s not like he can visit the optometrist.

Or can he? He’s a god after all. Who knows what forms he could take? He might even be kinda cute. And his ability to super-size his tail…

No, don’t go there. Stick to the plot. Why couldn’t Hanuman go to a doctor?

Maybe it has something to do with the fossil of an eight-foot-long sea scorpion discovered in Germany not long ago. In theory, Hanuman should be okay with that. Scorpions are part of Shiva’s bag of tricks, and Hanuman is one of Shiva’s many incarnations.

Wait, I’d better tread very carefully here. The way my plot hamsters work, they’ll have Hanuman conspiring to pump up the world’s oxygen levels to create an army of giant bugs. Worse yet, the cockroaches will probably develop some kind of rudimentary intelligence and strike out on their own--“strike” being the operative word here. Oh, ugh!

But bad as that scenario is, it can’t compare to something I saw for real in the Crystal City Underground Monday afternoon.

The Boeing Company has apparently decided it isn’t enough to be the world’s largest manufacturer of airplanes. After all, the market for their products is so limited. Only governments, multi-national corporations and a few select gazillionaires can ever hope to find a Boeing under their giant redwood Christmas tree. To be truly successful these days, a company’s gotta merchandise. Forget “A chicken in every pot”. That’s so Twentieth Century. Make it an airplane. Then you’ve really got something.

So they did. Sort of. John and Jane Everyperson can now purchase models of Boeing planes and other memorabilia through the Boeing Store web site, various traveling stores and over a dozen fixed locations in the US. The Crystal City, Virginia, store opened last week.

That’s not the scary part. I admit I never felt the need to take home a souvenir of the countless hours I've spent hurtling across the stratosphere in pressurized tin cans operating on physical laws so abstruse they might as well be magic. I’m usually so pathetically grateful to arrive at my destination with body parts and luggage intact, I bow down in the direction of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and kiss the concrete until my insides stop shaking. Afterwards, my goal is to get as far away from anything resembling a flying machine until my return trip forces me to defy the laws of gravity yet again. But hey, if people feel compelled to take home a mini-plane or a logo-emblazoned pen or even a rolling briefcase like the pilots use, far be it from me to criticize.

No, the scary part was the store’s centerpiece: a big, red, fully functional airline seat just like the ones inside a Boeing jet.

The horror! My left eye started to twitch and my head began jerk convulsively as I stared at the monstrosity. Forget waterboarding, airplane seats qualify as the most prevalent form of torture in the civilized world. No one is safe, either. First class, business class, steerage--I mean, economy class--it doesn’t matter. They strap us in and we’re trapped between the infinitely reclining seat in front of us and the rock hard headrest behind. Bands of roaming tray tables strive to bisect us and repeatedly slam against our unsuspecting thighs.

Worse yet, I seemed to be the only one to understand the nature of the evil in our midst. Grown men climbed all over the awful thing like it was some kind of forty-something playground. Hello, Mr. Middle-aged Executive. The Comfy Chair is not your friend. Sitting in it could kill you. It will suck you into the maw between its nubbly red cushions and never let you go.

But nobody cared. Mine was the voice crying in the wilderness--well, gibbering to myself while the Crystal City lunch crowd steered as far away from me as the limited space allowed.

Monster scorpions, sentient cockroaches and an army of evil airline seats together in a fiendish plot conceived by the simian brain of a Hindu god with an infinite number of primates with opposable thumbs at his disposal...

The weird part is it’s so close to reality it almost doesn’t count as fiction. But please, let's keep that our little secret. The plot hamsters think they're being so original, and it really doesn't do to upset them. The results could be downright ugly. Remember, myopic monkey gods and gargantuan sea scorpions are their idea of a good thing.

Cheers,

Jean Marie