Monkey Madness

I've not kept up this blog as originally planned, due to an increase in working in my wife's house cleaning business and probably over extending myself. Seems any time I plan to do extra writing, the work load increases giving me less time for writing. Good for paying the bills. Bad for getting much writing done. I'll keep working on it. Stay tuned.

Until then, I'm treating you to a special story. Back in 2007, I participated in a contest at Ray Gun Revival Magazine (no longer in operation). It had to be under 500 words and deal with "space monkeys." I entered the following story, and ended up winning 3rd place. It also appeared in a special edition of the Ray Gun Radio podcast which is still available.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the story!

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I told headquarters their idea proved they had developed a case of monkey madness. Never give a monkey a man's job. But did they listen? No. They trained and installed monkeys through the whole fleet. And now I'm sitting up in bed, a monkey holding a ray gun to my head.

"We're taking over the ship," the leader signed to me. "You've been holding out on us, and we want our due." He bared his teeth. "Are you going to hand it over willingly, or shall we take it by force, Captain?"

I signed back, "How about a third option? You would get a lot further if you simply did your jobs."

Hoots and howls arose among the group of monkeys filling my quarters. The leader stayed focused on me and smiled one of those cheesy monkey grins I'd seen on old TV shows. "We put up with those jobs so we could take over. Stupid humans didn't see this coming." He raised his head upward in a victory howl.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. You pulled one over on us." Actually I hadn't been totally blind to the possibility. "I'll need to give the order."

He swung his limp hand at the com panel. "Remember, we have a ray gun trained on you. One false word . . ."

I paged the kitchen. "Release the bananas."

"Aye, Sir," crackled back over the com.

"Truth be told, I have a few in my quarters." I pointed at a locked storage door.

He nodded and jumped up and down. I opened the door and passed the bananas out. Hoots and monkey calls rang through the room. Soon they crammed the well preserved yellow delicacies into their mouths. Smacking noise vibrated through the room. Ten seconds ticked by before they all dropped dead in quick succession.

Food remains one of the most powerful weapons. In this case, the poisoned banana.

A call rang through the com. "Engineering, Sir. The monkeys are all dead, but we have a problem."

"Yes?"

"The navigation controls have been set to fly us into the nearest star."

"Unset it then." I felt impatient despite myself.

"Can't. The master controls are in a room so small, only a monkey could access them. We would have to tear through the anti-matter bulkheads to override and change course."

I pounded my fist on the desk. Blasted monkeys! I told headquarters the idea reeked. Especially monkeys designing ships, much less operating them. They've made monkeys of us all.