A children's story - well sort of.

Ok - bit stranger this one, but its a something I've been writing recently which I thought I'd share.


The Monkey’s Shame

If you were to go deep into the heart of the deepest jungle, deeper than any other person had ever been before, you might possibly stumble upon a simply fantastic place. A place that was full of joy and happiness and fun and laughter and excitement and games, but most of all it was a place of high jinks. For this place would be the Kingdom of the Monkeys, and as everybody knows monkeys are lively, happy, outgoing creatures and they love fun and laughter and excitement and games. But most of all monkeys are cheeky creatures and they love high jinks. In this place, deep in the deepest heart of the deepest jungle, the monkeys and play all day long, as they swing from branch to branch, delighting in their life together and all the high jinks they got into. However, this story isn’t about monkeys like that.

This is Mortimer’s story and Mortimer was a very different sort of monkey. Mortimer wasn’t very lively and he wasn’t very cheeky and he wasn’t at all outgoing. Mortimer was quite quiet and very sensitive and more than a little bit shy and he liked to think more than he like to talk. He liked to play games sometimes, but he wasn’t very good at them and often felt embarrassed about this. But most of all he wasn’t really comfortable with high jinks. As Mortimer grew older he realised more and more just how different he felt from all the other monkeys.

“I’m just not very lively,” he thought to himself “and monkeys should be lively. And I’m not at all cheeky, and monkeys should be cheeky! And I’m just not outgoing, and all monkeys should be outgoing. And I don’t always enjoy playing games and monkeys should enjoy playing games! And I don’t like high jinks and monkeys should like nothing more than high jinks!” As he thought about these things, he realised something else: “And I’m not very happy and monkeys should always be happy!” The more he thought this, the less happy he became. And the less happy he became the more he thought like this.

Eventually, as he became less and less happy, another thought came to Mortimer: “I’m really not like the other monkeys in so many ways. I am different. In fact,” he thought, “I’m not really a proper monkey at all.” The next thought followed very quickly on from this: “There must be something wrong with me!” And as he thought this final, painful thought a black cloud settled over his thoughts and in his heart. And the name of this cloud was Shame. And Mortimer felt the presence of the cloud and he felt ashamed. He felt ashamed that he wasn’t like the other monkeys, that he wasn’t a proper monkey. In fact, he felt deeply ashamed of himself and everything that he was. And the more he felt ashamed, the more he knew that the other monkeys would never like him if they saw what he was like. And the more he knew this, the more he felt he had to hide. So Mortimer learnt how to hide.

At times he would hide by trying to be the liveliest and most fun monkey there had ever been – he would laugh louder than all the others, and try to make the more jokes than any other monkey. But always after a little while of this, he would start to feel very silly, that he wasn’t really being himself, that he was making a complete fool of himself and that the other monkeys would like him even less than they did already. In other words, he began to feel even more ashamed of himself and the cloud over his thoughts and his heart grew even blacker.

At other times Mortimer would hide by trying to be the most helpful monkey in the whole kingdom. He would forever being fetching things and taking things for others and most of all he would be doing all sorts of things and all sorts of other things to serve the King of All the Monkeys. Mortimer thought that if the other monkeys saw how helpful he was then they might start to like him. And if that sounds a little strange to you, then maybe you need to realise that Mortimer, despite feeling so different from all the other monkeys, wanted absolutely nothing more than for some monkey or other to notice him and like him for who he was. However, in all his helping and all his serving, Mortimer never forgot his one golden rule: “I must never, ever let anybody see who I really am, because if they see who I really am they will not like me”.

Unfortunately for Mortimer all his helping and serving didn’t make the other monkeys like him more. In fact, they didn’t seem to notice at all – they took everything he did for granted. (In actual fact, this was not quite the truth – for one Monkey did notice. One Monkey saw everything and was deeply moved by what he saw in Mortimer, but Mortimer didn’t know this.) So the more Mortimer helped, the more he felt taken for granted. And the more he felt taken for granted, the more he felt something else growing in his chest – a burning fire underneath the black cloud. And the name of this fire was anger. And the more angry he felt the more ashamed he felt because good monkeys just did not get angry. And the more ashamed he felt, the more he wanted to hide.

So most often, Mortimer would hide by going deep into the jungle, to places where the other monkeys never went. (All the other monkeys except one, that is). So Mortimer would go off and hide with only the cloud and the fire for company. And there, in the deepest part of the deepest jungle he found something else within himself. Or rather he found nothing else within himself, for the something he found was a huge, yawning emptiness. And the name of the emptiness was loneliness. And when he became aware of this yawning emptiness, he would lay down, curl himself up into a ball and cry to himself.

At times, as Mortimer was walking deep in the deepest part of the deepest jungle he would notice things of amazing beauty – a stunning butterfly or the particular way the sunlight shone through the branches. At other times as he wandered Mortimer would get lost – not lost in the jungle, but lost in his own thoughts. And as he got lost in his own thoughts, he would occasionally stumble across a really interesting and unusual idea. And when he came across something of amazing beauty or a really interesting idea, the first thing that Mortimer would do was turn around looking for somebody to share it with. But of course, there was nobody to share it with and even if there was, they probably wouldn’t care, or so he thought. And as he thought this, the yawning emptiness, which he had been successfully managing to avoid until that point, would open up inside him and he thought that it was going to swallow him whole. And he would fall to the ground, curl up into the littlest ball he could, and cry to himself.

And as he cried, he would think to himself: “What’s wrong with me? Why am I so different from all the other monkeys? Will anybody ever notice me and love me?”

But it wasn’t quite true that nobody noticed Mortimer and it wasn’t quite true that nobody loved Mortimer. One monkey noticed Mortimer. One monkey saw all that Mortimer. One monkey was filled with nothing but love for Mortimer. You see, in the kingdom of the monkeys there was one monkey who saw all that happened and that monkey was the King of all the Monkeys. And the looked and saw Mortimer and saw the good in him – the kindness and gentleness of his heart, the ideas buzzing round his mind like a storm of bees, his longings and his pain. The King saw all this and his heart was filled with love and compassion for Mortimer.

Sometimes, when Mortimer was in the deepest jungle crying to himself, the King would come and take Mortimer in his arms and just hold him. And there, crying against the chest of the King, the black cloud and the burning fire and the yawning emptiness would recede for a while and Mortimer felt loved for a while.

However when the King had left, a voice started whispering in Mortimer’s head. And the name of the voice was Untruth. The voice told him: “The King doesn’t really love you, he just does that because he has to – he’s the King after all. I mean how could the King love you, pathetic and weak like you are! You’re not a proper monkey!” And even though all these things were false, the voice was very convincing and Mortimer believed it utterly. And as he believed it the dark cloud, the burning fire and the yawning emptiness came back stronger than ever.

Now, I would love to tell you this story had a happy ending, but it doesn’t. In fact, it doesn’t have an ending at all yet because I cannot write what hasn’t happened yet. So, if you were to go deep into the heart of the deepest jungle, deeper than any other person had ever been before, and if you were to find the kingdom of the monkeys, take time to enjoy the fun and the games and the high jinks. But don’t stop there, go deeper – deeper into the deepest heart of the deepest and you may find a rather lonely and miserable monkey hiding there. And if you should find this monkey, and if you should take the time to get to know him and listen to him, you may just find that he has some pretty interesting things to say.