For Kylan's minimalist contest. First prose posted. Hah, kept it a secret so far! Spared you some pain maybe. Do read and leave any kind of comment as long as you don't fool yourselves.
A Fine Place
'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.'
--Ernest Hemingway.
“We couldn’t see a thing. It was dark wherever we looked. And they weren’t making sounds so I thought they had moved. Nobody saw them at the temple either and we’re waiting for the people from the river to report. They must be there,” said the girl and ran onto the pack track, avoiding the trees.
“What do we do?” the question came. It was from one of the boys of the farmyards. Everyone was looking at Ravi.
“We wait,” their leader replied. Ravi was under the shadow of the wall but everyone heard him. They seemed on edge and wanted to act. But this was no time to act without thinking. Even the kids who barely got up to your elbow had realised this before they had been packed off home.
The antagonism between the kids of the neighbourhood and the troop of monkeys from the temples had been going on since ever there had been children and monkeys. It was a fact that every child grew up hearing about in the town by the river. Even the children of pilgrims to the shrines learnt of it in time. When a child grew, he or she learnt the art of tolerance but until then it could go any way. The priest at the temple warned the children whenever he saw them looking at the rooftops of the town or pricking up their ears when they heard the troop dancing overhead as they passed over a building, “You kids had better not do anything to the monkeys. They don’t mean you harm. You tease one, they’ll try to scare you, but they never gang up against kids or grown-ups like I’ve seen you kids do against them. Anyways, you’ll anger the monkey god. Remember that monkeys came to Lord Ram’s rescue when he needed it. Your fathers will be struck with a famine...”
There was the troop which hovered by the temple and there was one other. This troop, that lived on the other side of the river, did not bother a soul. The temple troop was the enemy at the gates. They stole food from the bazaars. They stole it from homes. They stole it from the hands of anyone who was not looking. And all the while they preserved their tag of holiness and godliness. Their love for things that shined often overpowered their senses. Every child had heard the story of a monkey or two that tried to steal the necklace of a relative. Of course, they had already taken much. But much abided. They hadn’t stolen any children.
But that didn’t last.
It was a spring morning, when the world was full of the bounty of god, that they stole Nina. Or tried to. Nina was three and hollered as loud as any monkey. She was also awake. And so before the troop could make it far, the family in the house was onto them. The mother, with a shriek that any eagle would be proud of, blocked the window. Half a dozen monkeys, their teeth bared faced off with the woman. She didn’t budge. A large male stood on its hinds and raised the heavy child like an offering. The husband approached from behind, but the monkey saw sense and set Nina down. The man snatched her from the clutches of the wild. The woman allowed a large gap and suddenly, they were all gone. The room was rather messed up. It didn’t stop there though. The next evening, Ali and his sister (who had hardly learnt to walk) were passing through the woods near the river, trying not to make noises. That night saw Ali in bed, with multiple wounds and scratches, and his sister (whom Ali had saved with his own arms and sometimes fists), was in shock.
The elders among the children had been permitted to visit Ali. Ravi, who had a stake in the affairs of late (Nina was his cousin and Ali his best friend), was also there. When they all came out, Ravi said some words that none of them later forgot.
“Let’s get back at them.”
However, it was not as easy as they might have thought. The troop had disappeared, as if sensing danger. The same afternoon, they made another visit to Ali. He simply told them to be careful and that it would be tough. He gave them his blessings. All evening, they went about the neighbourhood in safe huddles to locations of interest. Nothing had been found. Ravi’s eyes were bloodshot. But sleep was out of the question. Those kids who were too young and sleepier than the rest were sent back. There was no saying when the battle would begin. Ravi was not afraid of the dark.
Just as they were about to give up and let the sun set, the kids down at the river sent a runner with the report they were waiting for. The army was off. They were armed with flashlights. These would not fit in anybody’s hand. Only those who could get their fingers around some way were allowed. Gunny bags, half-full of broken bricks and stones, were lugged by pairs to whom was assigned the job of Hander-of-Stones. Another set, mostly comprising of the elders and some good shots were assigned the job of Chucker. It was considered the guard of honour, but they were in for a challenge in the evening light. Lastly, almost twenty or twenty five kids were given fat sticks. Some got hold of farming tools for the fray. They were to do any hand to hand business necessary. And there were those lugging the torches who might get attacked first.
Ravi strained his eyes. They could hear the screeches. It was still far. Or most probably, it was because they were at the edge of the river. Everyone around was silent and strained with all that evolution had left of the sense organs in man. In the end, they knew it would be a close thing. Intuition would hold the key, but the monkeys had all the eyes and ears. And loads of intuition to boot. Suddenly, it didn’t seem worth it. Hearts pounded, sweat poured in gallons. Someone said someone else had peed in his pants. Except for two or three girls who were too stubborn to be pushed away by their brothers, it was mostly a party of male hunters. And it was night. Everyone had been taught signals of the hand and mouth. The torches were off. The feeling in everyone’s minds was that they had pitted themselves against something much older than their grandmas. They were against their own past, their ancestors.
A boy named Bashir, Ali’s little brother, started to cry and someone told him not to. Ravi saw flashes of his friend’s face full of scars, in between scenes of the trees, lit by the moon. He saw movement. He asked a torch-bearer to flash across the river. There, someone whispered, they’re crossing the river. There seemed to be silence that one might expect at the bottom of the deepest trench in the ocean. And then, the sound and the fury were unleashed.
Above them, in the leaves, the monkeys were trying to wake their dead. Leaves fell like rain on the children below. Later, someone said that it rained monkeys too. Some of them fell in the river. None of them seemed to notice the children. Orders went out to shoot out the lights. The spectacle was one they told their grandchildren, years later. In the trees, the monkeys were fighting. Against one another. The children gaped. Someone got blood in his eyes. Ravi spotted, on a branch barely two metres or so ahead, a large male, screaming upwards. Bashir got up off his knees and with a flurry of movement, groped in a bag and hit the monkey with a brick. It fell into the undergrowth and lay there. Someone asked Ravi what they would do. Then someone else asked the question. The stones won’t reach, someone whispered. It seemed Ravi took an eternity to answer. An eternity in which someone else peed in his pants. He gave them the signal to get the hell out of there.
The rush out of the woods was like the passage of a train in a tunnel. Ravi was in a daze. Someone else stopped them all when they were out and counted them in the starlight. It was a miracle. Everyone had made it out. They could hear the screeching from where they stood. It’s the two troops, fighting for territory, the son of a zoologist said. And that was it. They all went home.
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