A Monkey Speaker in a Parliament of Baboons

A Monkey Speaker in a Parliament of Baboons
By Mihar Dias
(C) Copyright January 2022

In Lalaland far far away there was a jungle monkey-turned-speaker who presided over a parliament of baboons. The monkey speaker loved bananas. He would switch in favour of a side that offered him the most.

One day, the Big Baboon who was in charge of the Kingdom’s Banana Storehouse was accused of looting but the monkey speaker backed him, silencing everyone much to the displeasure of the entire assembly.

The baboons in the house shouted demanding fairness but the monkey speaker kept munching on the fresh bananas deafened by the sound of his big teeth crunching on the sweet yellow imported plantains from the Philippines. At times, he swallowed the whole banana, flesh, seeds, skin and all, grinning from ear to ear.

Some buffaloes walked out to complain to other animals waiting outdoors but were asked to return to their corner in parliament. They were lucky because the monkey speaker was about to strike their names off the roster for going AWOL.

The next day the animal kingdom was flooded by a heavy storm. Many young animals drowned. Those that were saved were starving on treetops. The baboons in parliament asked the monkey speaker to allow everyone to debate the issue. But the monkey speaker said that was not necessary and told them to shut up.

When asked later by a cute parakeet, before he entered his cage to retire for the day, the monkey speaker replied, “one thousand peanuts given by Prime Baboon was good enough for animals who were flooded”.

The following day the baboons banged and hammered tables in anger but to no avail. The monkey said only he had the power to decide. He sided with the Prime Baboon who had given him more bananas that day. Both of them agreed not to debate about the flood and just like that the parliament of baboons went silent.

An urban baboon wanted parliament to observe one-minute silence for the dead animals. However, the monkey speaker ruled that everyone could do that in their own free time because the assembly had so many things to work on that not a minute was to be wasted on dead animals. The dead, the monkey ruled, should not be governing the living animals. Again, the baboons stopped thumping and stomping and the monkey grinned, the Prime Baboon winked and most of all, their Baboon in Waiting jumped with joy and shouted for everyone to hear, “Right On Bro! Roar for Mercy!” The lions roared.

That was a sad day for all animals in the kingdom. The wolves wailed all night because they lost many in their pack. A murder of crows vowed to avenge their dead. A herd of buffaloes stormed the barricades in protest outside parliament. A band of coyotes was seen circling parliament to nab the monkey speaker who was hiding in a cave with the rest of the baboons.

A week later a Polish Bear that supervised the kingdom’s security was caught tampering with the vaults. Popular Animals Council (PAC) summoned him for an open forum. But the monkey speaker stopped the meeting from being heard openly by every animal in the kingdom. Shouts of unfairness could be heard from every corner of the animal kingdom.

Some even called for the monkey speaker to step down and make way for a tiger that did not like bananas but was ever ready to eat any monkey or baboon that was not following the System Of Preservation (SOP) of all animals in the kingdom.

The tiger won in the Year of the Tiger that was promising for everyone but more so for the snakes amongst them.

Once again peace returned to the Lalaland parliament.

Mihar Dias is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
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