One season after my wife died, Mailwoman Susan delivered a monkey to my home. “Who’s this from, Susan?” “It’s from me. I’m retiring and I want to give you a gift.” “Are you giving everyone you delivered mail to a monkey?” “Only you and my grandfather. He wants to feel like a young spry animal.” “Thank you for the monkey.” “You’re most welcome. What a wonderful day it is.”
I laughed as Susan trotted away. A December snowstorm howled through our pin-on-a-map town. “I really should have put on a jacket,” I chided to myself. “Or a shirt, pants, and underwear. My feet are quite warm in these wool ski socks.”
My monkey came in a wood crate. Across the top, the crate declared its timber came from trees felled in the Amazon. I lifted with my knees to carry it under living room glare. Yet when I reached my front steps, I slipped onto an ice sheet like an eucalyptus hacked down in a faraway jungle. As I gaped upon wood shards, a monkey walked like a human in an envelopment of white. I got up and stood naked before this ancestral cousin.
Wrinkled at my feet, I picked up a note that got tucked inside the crate: “Since your hairy wife died, I became more and more depressed delivering all your sad mail. I’ve trained this monkey to be your new wife.” I collected the timber, tossed it into my fireplace, and sparked a blue-smile fire. The flames French kissed my body as the monkey froze in a storm only getting meaner.