The Monkey’s Heart
You know how when women are about to give birth, they crave bizarre foods? Pickles with ice cream, watermelon and suey, White Castle, snacks like that? Well, that’s as true of the alligator-woman type as the lady-man type.
In the case of this story, a female alligator was about to lay an egg (that’s how alligators give birth, you know), and her kind-hearted husband made the mistake of asking her what she wanted to eat.
“Monkey heart!”
Now, it is scientifically impossible to say no to your wife when she is “with the egg”, as they say… or “in the egg way”,… or “watching the egg”… okay, I will stop. Therefore, Crocodile had no choice but to go into the forest to catch a monkey for his wife to eat.
The first thing he did was destroy the bridge across the river. You see, across the river, there is a forest of fig trees (monkeys love figs), and this Crocodile knew that sooner or later, there would be a monkey who wanted to cross the river to get figs.
But when the monkey finally reached the riverbank, he was alarmed to see that the bridge had disappeared.
“Oh, banana peel!” Monkey said, using a ubiquitous monkey expression. “Now, how do I get through this?”
“I will help!” said Crocodile, who had been waiting for an opening sentence like this. “You can ride on my back, and I will carry you across the river.”
“Hey! That would be a sweet deal I can’t refuse!”
Hmm… that’s quite a strange thing for a monkey to do. Oh, okay.
The Monkey climbed onto the Crocodile’s back, but when he got halfway across the river, he stopped swimming.
“What are you stopping for?” Monkey asked.
“Well, it’s a little awkward,” said Crocodile. “But hey, I’m not planning on taking you to the other side of the river. I will attack and kill you right now and bring your heart home to feed to my wife, who requested a special monkey heart.”
“I appreciate your honesty…sort of,” Monkey said. “So I will return the favour in kind: Even if you kill me now, you will not take my heart.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, where do you keep your heart?”
“My breasts.”
“Exactly. Monkeys don’t do that. We hide ours in fig trees. That’s why we always hang out in those trees to test our hearts. But if you promise not to hurt me, I will climb the tree where I keep my heart and throw it down to you.”
Crocodile agreed and continued his journey to the opposite shore. There, the Monkey jumped off the Crocodile’s back and climbed the first tree he saw.
“Alright!” Crocodile said. “Let me have it!”
Well, let’s face it, he should have known better than to give Monkey such an easy chance. And sure enough, a second later, Monkey threw the fig at Crocodile with all he could.
Finally, the Crocodile escaped the shelling and returned to the water, but not before picking up a fig and wondering if his wife believed the Monkey’s story as he did.
History does not include specific details, but evidence was found that Crocodile slept on the couch a few nights later. And, of course, Monkey ate the fig.
