Deep within the jungle the monkey howls, unsure how it became trapped within a carpeted cage of concrete and gypsum. It awakens matted and alone, bereft of the soothing ritual of mutual grooming, uncertain what became of its troop, its tribe, its family, unable to comprehend the rules that regulate its primal needs.
It screams its frustration to the darkness. No one listens.
Each day we beat the monkey down, relegating its desires to the cold-blooded landscape between sentience and survival. It dwells in the reptilian depths, only surfacing with frustration and anger at the Other, the one who does not belong, the one encroaching on its territory, its mate, its life, its existence. The one threatening the first of its tree, the women of its troop, the children of its line. Then it growls and howls and shakes the bars of our frontal lobes.
We camouflage our hairy hides beneath a cloak of civilization whose thin leather cracks and peels as those around us abandon the conventions upon which we thought we had all agreed. Others no longer turn their faces away but reclaim eye for blind eye confident the magic of their shamans will grant them second sight. Fear sends us huddling to one another, terrified that the shadow stalking the night is a hungry leopard rather than a tame and playful housecat.
Each morning the monkey raises its voice with the dawn, chattering its protests, its anger, its discontent. That cathartic cry rises to a warning wail of loneliness to the wilderness we fear may claim our souls again.
© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III
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