Iddi, a Catapult and a Monkey.

Just before 7.

A.M.

House asleep; push open the wooden door, step outside.

Cross the garden under the palm trees.

Iddi is standing there.

‘Jambo’

Jambo, jambo.

‘Habari?’

‘Missouri.’

Iddi is holding a catapult in one hand.

‘I’m on monkey patrol’

‘Good luck’

The garden is full of yellow flowers. White flowers. White and yellow flowers.

And a few red flowers.

Hibiscus.

The monkeys like the red flowers; they eat them.

There is a monkey behind Iddi that he can’t see.

The monkey reaches up and takes the first to last red flower from the bush and places it between his lips.

There is another red flower above him, but he can not reach it without a climb and Iddi will here that.

So the monkey pads softly away; Iddi is elderly, he hears nothing.

The monkey will come back later, when Iddi is asleep.

I pad off softly to the white sandy beach.