Rooster, Monkey and the Future
by Jason (11.8.04)
Rooster knows it�s only civility that separates man from the apes. So, ever gracious, he offers Monkey a chair. She waves it away and wanders, instead, to his books. Shelf after shelf of them, bound in leather, titles stamped onto the spines in flaking gold leaf, written in languages long dead. Languages Rooster does not know.
He watches as she reads their titles through her thick glasses. He hopes she can keep from asking him about the books.
She can. Instead, she cleans her glasses with an oil-stained rag and while she turns and blinks at him with too-small eyes. �When you were young,� she says, �did you think the future was going to turn out like this?�
Rooster takes his cigarette case from his breast pocket and offers one to Monkey. She turns him down, again, so he lights on up for himself and takes a long drag before putting the case away. �I don�t remember ever being young.�
�None of us do, except maybe Rat. Not that he�s telling.� Monkey puts her glasses back on. Her eyes seem normal sized now, fitting snug inside the horn-rimmed frames, but the whole image of her is still faintly laughable: a too small girl in too large clothes with too old a mind and too young a figure. Her eyes are the only thing sized right.
�But that�s not what I meant,� she says and guides him to a seat. Not to one of his, overstuffed and upholstered in faded velvet, but to her chair, the one her aide had wheeled in behind her. �I meant after things changed. When you first knew they were different, but weren�t sure how. When you thought about the future then, did you think we�d have everything we have today?�
Rooster watches as Monkey bends down and buckles thick leather straps around his ankles. �I guess not,� he says. �But I didn�t believe what I had then, so I figured it was better not to think about the future at all.�
Monkey wraps her arms around his waist. From another woman, it might be sensual. From Monkey, it�s business. She buckles up another leather strap. �You weren�t happy with what you had?�
She�s ready for his hands now. Rooster takes a last, lonely drag on his cigarette and tosses it aside. It lands on the floor in a shower of ash. She straps his wrists to the chair�s arms.
�What I said about being young, you know. I meant it.� Rooster can see his reflection in Monkey�s glasses; crow�s-feet and more bags around his eyes than bingo night at the Rotary. �I don�t think I�ve ever been young. I came into this world old and tired, and it just gets worse as time goes by.�
�Do you think it can get better?� Monkey locks a copper necklace around his neck. A dozen wires run from there to her control box.
�Do you?�
�Let�s find out.� Monkey throws the switch.
Rooster screams.
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