Once upon a time, there lived a pile of coconuts. Some of the coconuts were older than the others. Some had harder shells, and some had softer, whiter insides. Some were green, some were yellowy, but they lived happily together. In fact, they lived so happily together they decided to form an alliance. The alliance was established, and the coconuts had a wonderful time in it. Other inhabitants of the island would gaze wistfully as the alliance frolicked together, but nobody dared ask to join the alliance. It was only for the coconuts, and no-one else but coconuts were permitted to join.
The coconuts lived on an island where the sun always came up and the nights were filled with the music of insects. During the day, the members of the alliance surfed the waves together, explored the island together, made friendship-alliance-sand-drawings on the pure white beaches together. When night came upon the island, the coconuts would share stories about themselves, gossip, giggle, and talk around a campfire. Then they would dance and sing until they were tired and the fire had reduced to glowing embers. Tired out, the coconuts would retire to their cosy coconut trees, then start the happy routine all over again the next day. No one interfered with them, and they continued enjoying the blissful, sun-soaked days together.
One day, however, something happened that threatened to destroy the existence of the alliance. There was a dispute between two of the coconuts, an argument that was silent, yet so aggressive it left the coconuts in great turmoil. The coconuts took sides and went off to different ends of the islands to stew and boil and rage in their own coconutty anger. They started to launch attacks on one another. They hurled hard, acidic lumps of words at one another, sometimes silently, sometimes screaming it out on top of their voices so that the whole island could hear and feel the terrible hate between the severed alliance.
While this was happening, a little monkey watched them from the safety of a banana tree. It had been fast asleep, oblivious of the battle between the coconuts, but was rudely awaken when a large lump of words from one of the silent attacks launched by the harder coconut nearly whacked it in the face. It sat up sleepily, then watched in shock at the great war between the coconuts whom it once thought were inseparable. It peered through the glossy green leaves of its home, and gaped as the coconuts kicked at the friendship-alliance-sand-drawings, and stamped the merry flames that once brought so much fun and laughter until its ashes, still glowing, swirled up into the sky. The monkey watched on, munching on a banana, as the coconuts took sides and went off to either ends of the island. Then the monkey realised, the only reason for this pointless battle, for the razor-edged blades of words, was only because the coconuts refused to put down their hard shells and show one another their soft insides. The coconuts could not- or stubbornly refused- to see their own hard exteriors, instead they focused only on their opponents', and worked hard on trying to shatter it until it disappeared into nothingness.
The monkey sat on its banana tree and pondered, perplexed. All sorts of questions hummed around its head like the insistent mosquitoes on humid summer nights. Why are the coconuts so afraid of dropping their hard shells? What would happen if they did? Would they be able to show one another their soft insides? Would they understand that the soft insides want nothing more but forgiveness, to apologise, to say sorry? Would things ever go back to how they once were? The monkey wished it could climb down from its tree and offer assistance to help the coconuts drop their hard shells and expose their quivering white interiors, but that was just it. It was a monkey. It wasn't a coconut. It wasn't part of the alliance. If it were to interfere, the alliance would really vanish, taking all sunlight and days filled with late night giggles and chitchat with them. So it just sat, and munched on a banana, and watched, and waited to see the alliance come back together, to see if the days of sunlight could ever come back.
No comments:
Post a Comment