For her “Can You Tell a Story In…” prompt today, Esther Chilton has challenged us to tell a 41-word story using the words balloon, fancy, trance, monkey, and satchel.
I drove to Napa Valley to the annual hot air balloon festival. Dozens of fancy hot air balloons were floating in the air. I must have been in a trance watching them because a monkey suddenly appeared and stole my satchel.
Image generated using ChatGPT.
“Look at that monkey sitting on that rock eating an ear of corn. Doesn’t he look like he could almost be human?” James said to his son, Kyle.
“Hey Dad, I have a question for you,” Kyle said. “When I was in Sunday school last weekend, the teacher was talking about how God created everything, including humans. But then she said some people don’t believe that. She said they believe that humans evolved from monkeys. But she said that if humans evolved from monkeys, how can monkeys and humans be alive at the same time? So there is a monkey,” Kyle said, pointing to the corn on the cob-eating monkey, “and I’m a human, and we are both alive now. So humans can’t have evolved from monkeys, right?”
“That’s a great question, Kyle,” James said. “Let me explain. Humans did not directly evolve from modern-day monkeys. Instead, both humans and modern-day monkeys share a common ancestor from which they evolved around 25 million years ago. So, in the vast evolutionary family tree, humans and monkeys are cousins. It’s like you and your cousin Mike. You and Mike both have the same grandparents but different parents. You and Mike are related, but you’re in different branches of the same family tree!”
“I’m going to tell my Sunday school teacher that she is wrong and that monkeys and humans can be alive at the same time because we have the same grandparents,” Kyle said.
“I’ll tell you what, Kyle,” James said. “You don’t need to correct your Sunday school teacher. I’ll talk to her and make sure she understands how evolution works, okay?”
Kyle thought for a moments and finally said okay. “But I have another question for you. If that monkey and I are cousins because we share the same grandparents, does that make you that monkey’s uncle?”
Written for Melissa’s Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge. Photo credit: Bao Menglong on Unsplash.
I can’t believe that that goddam monkey, you know, the one that escaped from the zoo back at the end of April, just picked up a goddam brick and threw it right through my car’s goddam windshield.
What did I ever do to that goddam, crazy monkey to deserve that?
This piece of microfiction was written for Teresa’s Three Things Challenge, where the three things are monkey, April, and brick.
Facts, Fictions & Fantasies 