The Monkey's Fist

He knows the story of the monkey trapped by the bushman. Of course he knows that story, he knows a lot of stories. Stories are something he indulges himself in. The ebb and the flow of the words sooth him and for a while he forgets where he is. Just for a while.

The words are sounds and little more. They make their music and then they are gone.

He has access to stories from this room, and he has access to much more, but none of it has any substance, there is no meaning to be had. Nothing matters, none of it is real. That’s fine by him. Or so he thinks.

He’s been holding on for such a long time now, that he almost forgets what it is that he is waiting for. There is only pain. There is always pain. Somewhere under all that pain is the promise he made and the promise that was made to him. That is all that matters. That is all that has ever mattered, and never mind the layer after layer of pain that that promise has created within him. A pain that has spilt out into the world. A pain he inflicts upon others, given half a chance.

Another story, he once heard, is about fleas. That word, flea, has maintained a residual meaning, he becomes self-conscious and scratches at his ear, then his chin, then his cheek. The word is made more real than anything has been in his life for some while now.

The fleas are put in a jar. The lid is closed on the jar. Initially, the fleas hit the lid as they jump around in the jar, but they quickly learn to reduce the height of their jumps so that they never hit the lid again. Now the learning has been done, the lid is removed, but the fleas’ notion of the lid remains and they never jump higher than the height of that jar. Generation after generation of flea will pass this knowledge down, ensuring that the fleas are trapped by nothing other than a thought in their head. Their internal idea of the world. Their take on what it is, even when there is evidence to the contrary.

He no longer sees the jar. He actively chooses not to see it. Beyond the jar is the world, the world he has rejected. In here he is safe. There is only him and the lava flow of his pain and anger. There was a time when he sought validation. Recognition of how special and different he was, but all that he received instead was injury and hurt.

Within him is the capacity to change. All it would take is to think things through and to see things in a different way. Like all the rest of them, he is built to see, learn and adapt, but what makes him special is that he will not do those things. He will never do those things, not as long as he keeps a hold of the fantasy that he was sold way back when he should have been nurtured and set an example so that he could follow the herd as it migrated from childhood to adulthood.

They all, every one of the herd, have a fantasy. They create their own version of the world, but the difference is that they share it and in sharing it they revise it and make it more compatible with the fantasy of others.

He has left the herd and he carries with him a fantasy that goes against every one of them. He languishes in splendid isolation and without the safety of the herd, he is attacked constantly. Broken and maddened by this self-imposed existence, he lashes out and causes harm to others even though each time he lashes out, it hurts him all the more.

It is all about the pain.

Only the pain.

He is scared in this isolation of his, but never admits this to himself. He is angry, but he pretends that he is not. He hasn’t felt a positive emotion for longer than he cares to remember and he has convinced himself that he is above emotions now. 

Once, he told himself he was numb, now he tells himself that feelings are irrelevant for him. The truth is that he feels more than most. He is a fragile and very broken thing, and he is in a state of constant pain and anxiety, and still he will not let go.

He once saw a photo of an adult elephant tied to a small, insubstantial chair. Back when the elephant was small, the chair worked as an effective anchor. Now it is as insubstantial as a feather, and yet it still holds that elephant captive. He laughed at that elephant’s stupidity. He does not see how much worse his own state is.

Shame is his bedfellow. It wraps it’s limbs around him and digs it’s fingers into him, piercing his flesh and infecting him. He can never let anyone see him as he truly is. He cannot let anyone in. What he fails to see is the trap of his own making and how he can’t let himself out. That he is his own salvation. His only salvation. But his rejection of the world in its entirety is ultimately a rejection of himself.

The way out is simple. All he has to do is let go. Deep down he knows this and if he didn’t know it, then he could work it out any time he wanted to.

He had all the time in the world, but now the hourglass is running down and there is less sand above than there is below. He has experienced jolts that should have awoken him to his dark fate, but he chose to carry on as he always had, only each day it gets a little worse.

Once, a long time ago, a hunter with a dark heart convinced him to reach into a hole down below him and to clutch at the seeds of his own destruction. As soon as he balled his hand into a fist, he was trapped and he could not retrieve his hand and take those seeds for himself. Rather than let go of those poisonous seeds, he kept them in that fist of his, and he stared down into the darkness. He has never looked up from that endless pit of darkness and he has never once unclenched his hand.

Even as he felt the seeds grow into him and take everything he held dear. Even as the poison spread and emptied him of everything that he had ever been, and anything he could have been, even as the poison filled him instead with a dread darkness, with anger and hate and a lake of pain that would one day rise over him and drown him. He would not let go.

He gazes down into the abyss and with every moment that passes he sees a little further down into the dark depths. He holds on to hell and summons it into what was once his life. He sacrifices himself to the darkness.

Never has he questioned this endeavour of his. Never has he considered letting go. Instead he waits. He waits for the person who set this all in motion. The person he hates most in the world. The person who made the promise that has entrapped him.

His mother.

One day, she will be his mother and everything will be OK.

One day, she will become the person that he always deserved and all of this investment, everything he has sacrificed will have been worth it.

After all, it can’t all have been for nothing can it…?