ZERO MONKEYS

Every time I go down into the flatlands below and, say, wait on the platform at the train station or wander through the village, stroll country roads, viewing farm fields and kitchen gardens here and there, left and right, in every sunny nook and cranny, I can't help but suffer extreme salad envy as I admire the lush vegetables I behold as if in some kind of cornucopious church-- the towering bean plants, the voluptuous tomatoes, the resplendent lettuces and fat pumpkins, to say nothing of the Cullinan-diamond quality of the onions they should be kept in strong-boxes is my impulse, the jade richness of lush cabbages just sitting there in rows like well-fed bankers-- or the beans, the okra, cucumbers, the fruit-laden trees inyerface and whatever the hell else they got coming up like thunder down there at any given time of year and gnash my teeth at their luxurious lack of monkeys.

Few persons from other parts of the world appreciate the luxury of monkeylessness, or have zero-monkey cravings, for nearly all have always had zero monkeys, or at most only occasional zooey and therefore illusorily fascinating exemplars of simianhood, as I myself have had in several naive stages of my former monkeyless life (how do you appreciate what you don't know you have?). I confess that zero monkeys has for some time now been a dream of mine (surprise, o faithful reader!), for the fact is that countless monkeys is part of the price of living up here on the mountain.

I therefore must seriously begin planning my Vegetable Fortress...