The Day In The Tree

This comes from Varma, a freelancer for The Hindu, Metro Plus, Vijayawada, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India:

Every scar tells a story.

Sitting across the polished coffee table, Sunil, 24-years-old, and in loose overalls, feels the scar. The scar jags from his right temple and squiggles to the lower chin bone. The skin on the scar has become flaccid, kind of loose and leathery. On his face, with its broad jaw, large, sharp nose, bushy eyebrows and moustache, it shows. It shouts. It screams. It's a line, a scar Matisse would have been proud.

In his childhood summers, he along with his cousin would go to his grandparents' village for vacation. There they would build coops, wallow in the pond, wander in the fields, laze on the grass, climb the trees and have a hippy-dippy happy time.

On a sunny day, when he was 12 and on vacation, the day felt cool for adventure.

Sunil climbed up the tree, crawled along a huge branch whose offshoots had clusters of mangoes. He started picking up the mangoes while his cousin down below collected whatever fell down. Then, for hell's sake, a gang of monkeys swooped down on the tree from nowhere. They blocked the passage down.

Big ones pounded their way. Little ones scampered, bolted from one branch to the other. They threw punches at each other. Wrecked the branches. Scratched their hinds. Picked the licks. Screeched. Jousted. Grinned.

The tree turned into a beehive of beasts gone berserk. The branches broke. The twigs snapped. The mangoes fell. The leaves shook. Crisp sounds popped from the dry leaves below.

"I lost my wits."

Then one monkey, of huge shape that could cradle Sunil like its own baby, and with thick dirty light brown fur and a stupid grin, looked at him. Blood curdled in his veins.

"I thought I would die."

The monkey sneaked toward him. It zoomed in its stare on him, panned him here and there, and backed over. "My God, I am saved."

Monkeys, it appears, can change their minds instantly.

With a twist of its neck, it eyed him again. It snarled at him, exposing its shrapnel-like teeth. It foot stepped toward him.

A gust of wind blew though the tree. Sunil's cousin was drop-dead with unfolding drama.

Laborers worked the land far away. A tractor rumbled in the distance. Cattle slept in thatched huts. Grandparents at home expected these guys to come home.

Stopping in its tracks, it eyed him closely. It paused. It posed. It acquired a posture of meditative calm that could give a yogi a run for his austerity.

Monkeys can, it turns out, appear very calm while contemplating the whole enchilada of messianic mayhem.

It didn't like the distance between them. It inched toward him.

10-feet…

It gives him that stupid into-the-depths-of-the-heart glare.

8-feet…

Sunil for the life of him gives the hope of survival.

4-feet…

It gets huge. Menacing. Monstrous.

2-feet…

The beast bends over. Reaches him. Scrapes the right cheek. Gashes the flesh. Rakes the tissue.

He thumps to the ground.