THE　NANOPANGS OF　MONKEYLESSNESS

Long-time readers of this aging blog have perhaps begun to wonder where the hell all the monkeys have gone that this guy used to be ranting about all the time in re his vain attempts at growing onions and pumpkins and his annual shiitake harvest competition versus the quick-fingered simians etc., but whether said readers are wondering or not, I’m responding.

The fact of the matter is that I haven’t seen even one red-faced marauder around here for several months now, let alone a tribe; no ready stomping of a few dozen unshod feet in full ownership across my roof, no screechingly dull conversations from the trees before settling in around the house of a summer night, no hordes of the creatures huddling past on the winter road like refugees in fur coats. I admit to feeling some nanoanguish at their absence, though my full grasp of a delightful reality soon returns. As to the why of it, asking why there are no monkeys is like asking why I'm not sitting on a tack. One does not ponder the absence of a pain in the ass.

I have recently heard, however (I wasn’t asking), through the human grapevine, of a program being carried out by Shiga Prefecture, likely in response to loudening complaints from local pumpkin and onion raisers, to say nothing of the owners of those large tracts of shiitake logs just lying there unattended in the forest hereabouts in such fungal lasciviousness as to tempt even me, though I am not a full-time simian and I have a conscience, which works now and then, often at the wrong time.

Shiga Prefecture, as I was saying before thoughts of simian brigandage interrupted like a raid on my garden, has been carrying out some sort of Macaque control program - if it was sterilization I’d still see some monkeys around, though there wouldn’t be as much flirting in the trees (open-air simian love hotels). Or maybe the authorities read my blog and have developed a desimianization program involving work visas and commuter passes to remote fruit-picking jobs, although the monkeys around here have always raucously mocked the idea of national citizenship, let alone permanent residency. Commuting and full-time jobs forget it. Monkeys know nothing of permission.

I don’t know what Shiga Prefecture is doing with the monkeys exactly, but whatever they’re doing, it’s been effective. I’m already having thoughts about onion sets and pumpkin seeds, even grapes - and plums from my tree! - amid the broad spectrum of pleasant meditations that characterize monkeylessness.