This piece of flash fiction took inspiration from shuffling my cards for a full hour, and sorting them into four piles (see photo below). I had forgotten how much mixing so much cardboard hurts your hands. Melancholy overtook me in the last thirty seconds. My unique order is gone.
I based this story on that sense of loss, and the stacked piles of cards resembling lost Mayan temples. The golden monkeys appeared on their own.
One More Year
The saxophone needed cleaning. He would sort the sound issues in the afternoon. Insects must have knocked the wires again.
He ripped the vines off the rabbit’s face, and stuck a wet duster into the golden mouth. Five pairs of plastic eyes watched and did not watch him, and clutched their instruments forever.
A few monkeys hopped down from the trees to join him. The nearest real simian was ten thousand million miles away, but he called them monkeys all the same. Their golden fur was a dusting away from a tamarin. They made a clicking noise closer to a dolphin than anything on land, but their tails were curly enough.
They had been a key reason behind the restaurant’s closure. Chefs found them snaffling crumbs from the storage. Stealing melted curdled cheese from the bins. One snuck in through the air vent, and swung across the rafters. The children below screamed around a birthday cake.
Now they sniffed around the bear’s faded trainers, and hopped across the broken wreckage of the once glorious dining area.
What a job it had been, even on days with alien vermin spoiling a party. Visitors had been so excited to be this far out. So delighted to find Cornish ice cream when a foreign jungle boiled outside. The music rolling out every night from the mechanica band. The ball pit framed by trees dripping with unknown fruits.
Luxuries for staff had to wait this far out. Their accommodation had consisted of tin huts, toilets and a console link up. No-one noticed when he missed the shuttle back home. They certainly were not going to send another for a lost waiter and some crates of party balloons.
The suns were low and orange when he got the electrics fixed. Although the main sources of power were rotting under vegetation, his rigged up battery held together for now. Each day the power lights faded to a duller shade of green.
He flicked a switch. Sat cross legged. The four animals played a tune that wheezed and cracked, but still rang of lemonade. and chocolate and ice cream topped with sparklers.
Music ruled the jungle for another day.
