In the dictionary we have found an obscure word for monkey. It is written that a monkey is a bird that eats the fruits of a tree. Because monkeys walk on two legs, and so do birds. And they eat fruits, just like birds do. And if we only pay attention to how that word sounds, we can find a preference and the color green.
Once upon a time there was a monkey that lived in a tree. The tree wasn’t his. There were other tenants, a flock of birds among them. Birds that every winter flew far, far away. And when they came back, they never missed the chance to remind that monkey that he looked just like the people responsible for banishing the trees to the outskirts of their cities. And there was nothing that the monkey hated more than that comparison. Because it made him feel guilty about living in that tree.
The story ends with winter giving way to spring. With the first green leaves of the tree telling this to the monkey: Birds walk on two legs too. To us, you look like a bird, not a person. You eat out fruits, and so do those birds. Don’t let them make you feel guilty just because they would like to be the only birds in this tree. The decision is ours. The fruits are ours. And we decide who gets to be called bird and who gets to be called person.
We expelled the monkey from our tree to take good care of it. But now our tree says that we look like people to it, because we stand on two legs and fly away when it suits us.
The tree is ours. Ours. Ours. Ours and only ours.
It’s because of you that we are forced to fly far away from our tree, in search of examples of how awful people are, when all we want is to stay close to our tree. Why are you like this? Why don’t you let us convince you once and for all? You are awful, you are the one that should go away and never come back.
The monkey doesn’t matter. Only our tree does. And we have to remind it every day that people are awful. That birds are wonderful, and our presence should be properly appreciated.
The tree says that both monkeys and birds know how to stand on two legs. But why, oh why, doesn’t that similarity miraculously make everything right?
The tree says that both monkeys and birds eat its fruits. But that similarity doesn’t bring us closer, it doesn’t unite us, it only makes us compete against one another.
The tree says that both monkeys and birds are noisy. But why is it that only one of those noises gets to be called a song?
The thing that hurts me more than anything else is that the tree only speaks when the birds return. When it is only us here, the tree doesn’t have anything to say to monkeys like me.
The birds say that I am doomed to commit the same atrocities that people commit. Because I already know how to use a stick to dig ants out of their hills, and it is only a matter of time before I learn to fell trees to build a monstrous city.
The birds say that they can trace back every horrific thing they have seen to the use of a stick to dig out some ants. But I could easily teach that same trick to a crow.
The birds say that I resemble a person because I have an innate ability to smile, to pretend.
The birds say that I resemble a person because I can recognize my own reflection in a mirror, and it won’t be long before I avert my gaze.