The Monkey

I awake to see a monkey watching over me. Not your normal straight-forward mischief type of monkey, but a conniving, evil specimen which brings to mind the baboons who attacked cavemen in my childhood picture books. He didn't move, just watched. Despite my fear, I drifted back to sleep. When I awoke, he was gone. Several nights later, I heard him return - just the smallest scuffle, but even that sound was rich with malice, and I suddenly knew that he had intended me to hear him. The next day, I emptied my room. The furniture I burnt. Certain essentials I returned to the room - a huge pile of books and a radio, which I hoped vainly might keep me sane. Then I set to work barring all entrances, closing every small hole through which a creature larger than a beetle might crawl. But still he got in. Every night I could feel his presence - sometimes watching me from the top of the book pile, sometimes swinging slowly from the bare light-fitting, once standing on my pillow, breathing down my neck. Then one night I awoke to feel his rank fingers tracing patterns on my face. I panicked. I grabbed a spatula and started pulling plaster from the walls. But he was unshaken - he stood there, as if made of brass, observing like a fourth monkey, the one who had seen and heard all of the world's evil and now waited on my bed for a chance to recount it to me. Note: OK, so I didn't get any further than that!