Thursday, March 19, 2009

THE MARSUPIAL KINGDOM


The little girl whose name was Parijatham, walked for nearly a whole day, before, tired and hungry, she saw yawning dark before her, a dense forest. She was tired and hungry. There may be some water and fruits in there, its
so dense, it must be full of life, so thinking, she entered and immediately found a tree with ripe, inviting fruit, just waiting to be plucked. She put out a hand, to pluck the fruit and found her hand held by something furry and calloused. She screamed in fright, but immediately, she found that a fruit was stuffed into her mouth and she was lifted up into the tree by unseen hands. Thoroughly alarmed, she choked on the fruit and immediately, several hands, thumped her back, but the foliage was so dense, she could not see anyone of her captors. Gradually, as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, shadowy forms emerged and she saw that she was surrounded by monkeys, all staring at her with their tiny, black-beetle eyes, while several small monkeys, and threw leaves down at her from the higher branches. Annoyed, she soon found her tongue, however, “Stop that!” She threw some back at them. This was a mistake as the monkeys began to throw fruit at her instead, until an older monkey put a stop to their game by shying fruit at them. Squealing, the little monkeys retreated to the higher branches, and hung there, swinging from them, while they chattered their protests.

Parijatam cleaned herself up as well as she could, without water, and decided to keep mum until the monkeys chose to elucidate their reason for capturing her.

TO BE CONTINUED…….