Monkey See (500 words, Day 5, 12/22/17, fiction, 3rd person, dialog)
“Monkeys?”
“Yes. Monkeys.”
“And they wanted to touch you?”
“Yes. The monkeys wanted to touch me.”
“… Why?”
“They wouldn’t tell me.”
Cali looked at her client and tried as hard as she could to discern some sliver of reason for his fixation with monkeys. She stared at him, hoping an answer would jump out of him. It didn’t. It never did. She’d been seeing Tyrone every Wednesday at 10 am for six months and she found herself in this position every week.
“How did the monkeys wanting to touch you make you feel, Tyrone?”
“Confused.”
“Tell me more.”
“I didn’t want them to touch me. I liked the attention and they made me feel special. They smelled weird.”
“How would you have liked them to give you their attention?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“You liked their attention, and didn’t want them to touch you. What could the monkeys have done to show you their attention in a way you would have liked?”
She kept up the dialog on the outside while, on the inside, she was trying to figure out how she had ended up here talking about attention-giving monkeys. The sentences coming out of her mouth were not what she had anticipated when she left the house that morning. Perhaps, if she’d remembered that it was Wednesday and that Wednesdays meant an hour with Tyrone, she would have been more prepared.
“I would have preferred they sing me a song.”
“You wanted the monkeys to sing to you?”
“Yes.”
“Any song in particular, Tyrone?”
“A round.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I would prefer they sing me a round?”
“I don’t understand what you mean, Tyrone.”
“A round. The kind of song where each group sings a different part, one after the other.”
“Ah, I understand. Any particular round?”
“Dona Nobis Pacem.”
“You want the monkeys to sing you a round in Latin?”
“Yes. I would prefer that to having them touch me.”
Cali took a moment to add some thoughts to her notepad. She wasn’t likely to forget this particular session, though she wanted to capture the feelings this unexpected conversation was conjuring up for her. Tyrone was outdoing himself today, and she felt a bit crazy in his wake. She knew that was a hazard of working with clients like this so she wasn’t worried about anything other than missing the chance to document it.
“What do you think the monkeys represent, Tyrone? Who or what are they standing in for in your dreams?”
“I think they’re monkeys.”
“Monkeys singing Latin-“
“I didn’t say they were singing.”
“Dona Nobis-“
“I said I would prefer it if they sang Dona Nobis Pacem in a round. I did not say they did.”
“Right. My mistake.”
“The monkeys wanted to touch me.”
“Right.”
She could see Tyrone looking at her as if she were the one who needed support. She took a deep breath and willed her shoulders away from her ears.
“Tyrone, where do you see the monkeys?”
“In India.”
“Let me try that again. Where are you when you see the monkeys?”
“In India.”
“Tyrone, you said you saw the monkeys last night, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you weren’t in India last night. You were here, in your bed, correct?”
“Yes.”
“So, you dreamt about the monkeys.”
“I saw the monkeys.”
* All 500Words are fiction. Any resemblance to people or events is strictly coincidental. *