I sit in the same tree every day looking out on the Serengeti.  This tree, my favorite tree.  I see my relatives and close friends talking to each other. I begin to wonder where my youth went. Where the merriment and happiness of living has gone off to and worry that I’m not the same person I was. 

Yesterday I could name to the children all the best trees for shading in were. Which bushes had the best berries and which leaves the stay away from if you didn’t want the trots. Today…well today ain’t the same.  People have been asking me all sorts of things I used to know the answer to - key words: used to.

This ain’t no country for old monkeys.

I watched the youngins flex and howl for each other in a show of supremacy and remember how it’s been since I did the same.  I climb down outta my favorite shade tree and go for a nice long walk – with the coin I got off a tourist a while back, flipping it in the air as I go.  My mind races with one thought and one thought alone.

Heads I live, Tails I die.  Dirt, I make the best of it no matter what the outcome. Water, I take a life.

I’m always prepared for tails – heads is what throws me off. Every day for the last month since I’ve had this coin, it always tosses heads. I’ve flipped it various different ways and it still comes up heads and I have yet to drop it.

I come across a young buck and study him wondering if he’ll let me catch a ride – I flip my coin.

Heads ask, Tails walk on.

“Hey youngin, can I catch a ride?”

“Use your own legs gramps!”

Nah – this ain’t no country for old monkeys.  Half of these hot tempered bucks wouldn’t know the first thing about survival in these parts.  Not how to fight or when to run, you always need to know when to run. I can say they know where to go once I let them know.

“Go to hell boy. I’ll walk and get a lot further than you on two legs than your four!.”

Snot nosed….

I keep walking this time with a little more vigor.  I’m angry now. I’m angry and I want to do something about it. I want to take out all my frustration on someone – anyone that will listen but the problem is no one will. No one listens but the humans.  I can talk to them, whether they understand is not the problem but whether or not I’m heard.

I wait beneath the shade of a tree near a herd of elephants and listen to the rushing water from the elephants stirring it up and pause for the next tourist car to pull in.  Yeah.  I’ll talk to them and be done with this coin toss for the day. While biding my time – near the pod of elephants…or is it a herd…hm.  I watch them as they bathe and I roll the cool flat metal across my knuckles. I flip it up into the air and watch as it wobbles up then descends back down into my palm. I flip it again and my attention is taken off the coin for a split second as a range rover rambles towards the river. I hold my hand out waiting for the familiar weight of the coin to hit the center of my palm….

Only it doesn’t hit my palm.  It lands in the water. I walk over to it and pick it up out of the mud and think… what was it now, head up live, tails die, dirt kill, water talk??  Or was it….

The horn sounds again and I’m startled by the noise, the coin slips free of my hand and back into the water.  On top of that a spray from the snout of a nearby elephant hits me and brings me back to my reality. 

It’s hot, there are people and I just dropped my coin in the water and I’m still pissed.

“Oh dear.”

I clean off my coin – dry it with leaves then nestle behind the tree amongst shoots of grass then make my journey towards the car quickly.  Time is of the essence – tell them what’s wrong and be done with it. 

I run and hop onto the roof of the car.  I jump up and down – shouting to the top of my lungs.

“You think I want this life, I don’t and does anybody care, no!  I want to be where you are –  why couldn’t he have done that for me, he blesses everyone else – and everything else but me.   He takes away my strength and makes me forget.  Why doesn’t God show me the same love he shows everyone else huh?  Why?!     I’ll tell you why, because it’s conditional and selective love.  He made you just a little higher than us and angels a little higher than you! I could be an angel, but instead I am a monkey! You don’t deserve your lives – none of you!”

They point and laugh.  They take pictures and mock and I can’t take anymore. I reach in and grab a woman by the hair and snap her head back until she no longer laughs or cries. She falls limp in her seat.  I run before the ranger can pull his riffle.  Before he can aim and shoot it.  I scoot away fast and just as I am about to round a bush I feel something hit me in the back.  I look back to see if maybe it was one of the elephant throwing peanuts, but it wasn’t.  Then I know. 

I pick up my coin and flip it.

Tails.

I run off into the woods and run up the nearest shade tree.  This tree, my favorite tree, the one I see everything from. I see my relatives and close friends talking to each other and I think about my youth and all the damage I did, my adulthood and all the fun I missed then my present and how all the time  has flown by.  I lay with my stomach on the bark of the trunk of this limb and try to clear my vision for one final coin toss.   “Tails”   The coin slides out of my hands and lands somewhere on the ground below.  I couldn’t help but think, I can't believe my chance of survival was in the hands of a cynical monkey.