Trump wins the election. Wasps, monkeys....
WHITEWASH
From the helicopter we spotted the
truck. It had veered off the dirt track into a mound of dry earth. Common
enough. Most trucks were imported, second-hand models, with bald tyres and
dodgy brakes. Bad roads and alcohol do not help. What was not usual was the
group of vultures that scattered as we landed.
All that was left of the driver was
the trunk. No head or limbs. The work of monkeys.
For some time now a group of
whitewash monkeys had been terrorising the district. They are a particularly
aggressive species, colonisers who expel all competitors from the area, hunting
and killing all rivals. It was as if they could bear no other form of life
other than their own. Hence the name: whitewash. Originally confined to a small
protected wildlife reserve, they had recently begun to invade the surrounding
farms and villages. A long drought had brought out the worst in them, and they
had attacked livestock and even domestic animals. But this was the first news
of an attack on a human.
Today we received news that may help
to understand the attack on the truck driver. It took place one day last week.
According to the local police, only a
young girl called Martha survived. She has been terribly disfigured.
There were three of them, Martha, her
elder sister Mary, and a friend called Susana. They were bathing in the rock
pool just outside their village. As they left the water, naked, they felt eyes
on them. They felt unprotected and afraid. As they reached for their clothes
the monkeys attacked. Some men heard the screams and managed to chase the group
of monkeys off, but by then Mary and Susana had been dismembered.
Our conclusion is that humans had not
been attacked before because the monkeys did not recognise people in clothes as
rivals. That has now changed.
We have informed the authorities, or
at least tried to. They didn’t seem too worried. They believe all of this is
simply a local matter, nothing that won’t sort itself out in time. They have
promised ‘to look into it’.
As I write our dog barks, then falls
silent. I can hear a scurrying on the tin roof, and an asthmatic, giggling
sound. They have found us. It won’t be long now.
