Chick was searching the trash for aluminum cans, when he came across the small, blacked fist. It could have been a baby's hand, tanned and preserved as a trophy by some sick hunter who considered all living creatures fair game. However, when he spread the fingers, revealing the slick, leathery palm, he noticed that the creases were wrong. The thumb did not work, either. Not the way thumbs were meant to work.
It was, he realized with a little snort of laughter, the hand of a monkey. Being well acquainted with the old tale about the monkey's paw, he imagined the havoc it might have wrecked on the upper class family whose trash he was raiding. Did the father wish for a promotion? Maybe junior wanted to get into Harvard. Who died as a result of these selfish desires? How much pain and suffering were caused by the greed of those who already had more than enough?
Too bad such stories were fantasy. It would nice to see people get their just desserts for a change. The woman who let her Dobermans off the leash to attack him last week was high on his list of snooty rich folks who needed to be taught a lesson. Maybe he should drop the monkey's paw in her mail box. At the very least, she would get a shock when she reached in and touched it. If she recognized what it was, she might make a wish or two. This being the real world and not a story, nothing would happen. and then she would feel like a fool. On the other hand, if the tales were true, then something really nasty might occur.
A car turned into the alley. It was a cop car. Quickly, Chick pocketed the monkey's paw and started walking, his plastic trash bag of tin cans slung over his shoulder. The street was a public thoroughfare. He had a right to walk here. However, the police could arrest him for loitering if he did not keep moving.
What would the plump, blonde haired young man behind the wheel of the patrol car wish for if he had the monkey's paw? A winning lottery ticket? A wild night of hot sex with a movie star? A cure for his mother's cancer?
The last thought stopped Chick in his tracks. The words "April is the cruelest month" starting playing through his mind. Funny how he remembered things from his college days more clearly than the events of last week. He seemed to be living in a fog, each day blurring into the one before and the one to follow. He could not tell you who the vice president was, but he remembered why Thomas Sutpen's daughter could not be allowed to marry her suitor and how Byron died and which plays were Shakespeare's last.
"April is the cruelest month." Hope, despair---two sides of the same coin. A coin called desire. It was not people's anger or tears or death that made them suffer. It was the awful, empty space deep within their guts that made them want and want and want.
The patrol car stopped. The young officer got out.
"Do you have business in this neighborhood?" he asked. One hand rested lightly on his pistol.
Chick drew his hands out of his pockets slowly, to show that he was unarmed. "Just getting some exercise, officer. The doctor told me to walk a mile everyday."
The patrolman relaxed. He did not buy the lie for a second. However, Click's quick thinking proved that he was not a burned out schizophrenic refugee from the local VA psych ward waiting to go ballistic. If he saw a bicycle lying unattended on someone's front lawn, he might hop on it and speed away, but he would not cut off a housewife's head with garden sheers and pour Draino down her throat.
"Better get walking, then." He softened his words with a smile. "You won't get much exercise standing there, looking at the street."
"Yes, sir." Once upon a time, words such as sir would have stuck in Chick's throat, like bitter, bile-flavored phlegm. Now, they were just words, little, insignificant words compared to the big ones. Words like desire.
|
Some say the world will end in fire, Some in
ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire-- |
The young officer nodded his head once. "You have a nice day, sir," he said, out of respect for Chick's gray hair. Then, he drove away.
Chick fingered the monkey's paw. He could wish for happiness for the young man who had been kinder to him than he had any right to expect. However, desire was still fire, even if it was for someone else. For instance, the police man might get shot in the head, causing brain damage that would leave him with the IQ of a child. At that point, he would be "happy" simply to be fed and bathed, but would that be real happiness? Not for the family that had to care for him.
The best thing would be to bury the monkey's paw at the bottom of a land fill. However, eventually, it would work its way to the surface again and fall into the wrong hands. There had to be a way to protect not just this generation but all the generations to come from its malevolent influence--
Chick's eyes widened. His jaw dropped. Could it really be so simple? There had to a catch. He turned his solution over and over in his mind, examining it for any possible loophole, but he found no flaws in his reasoning. He would turn the paw's power on itself.
He looked over his shoulder to make sure that he was not being observed. Would not want to blurt out a "damn you!" in the middle of his wish. Seeing that the street was deserted, he took out the smooth, blackened paw. "I wish that no one on earth will ever make another wish with this monkey's paw."
Before Chick and every other human being on earth vanished, he recalled the next line of Frost's poem.
|
--But if it had to perish
twice, I think I know enough of hate, To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice. |
This made him think about regret, another one of the big words, a word vast enough to occupy a man's thoughts for all eternity.
In the Pure Land, Bodhisattva Chow Lin watched his monitor. "Looks like another species just achieved collective enlightenment," he announced to his partner.
Bodhisattva Pierre Blanch checked his own monitor. "You sure about that? I don't pick up a mass of souls waiting to enter the Pure Land. Nothing but a couple of Rangoonian water priests and an Enlightened artificial intelligence from Zeta 3."
"Positive." Chow Lin pointed at the screen. "See. No more wishes on the monkey's paw in the third planet in the Sol System. That means no more desire. 'Desire is the root of all suffering. If you end desire, you end suffering--'"
"You don't have to quote the Four Noble Truths to me." Pierre Blanch peered over his partner's shoulder at the lotus blossom which represented the world in question. "You're right. The homo sapiens have all vanished. Maybe they bypassed the Pure Lands and went straight to Nirvana. Better send someone to pick up the monkey's paw. There's a planet in the Orion system that's about to evolve intelligent life, and I want to keep track of its spiritual development."
Bio: McCamy is a long time contributor to Aphelion and you can find out all about her and her work by following the link below to her website.
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