Because Simian said I should post this :)
As Ah Seng folded up his tweeds and flannel, he realised how far he had fallen. What good were his Cambridge degree and Etonian connections now? He came from a long line of , "Performing Simians" (
never Performing
Monkeys) as his grandfather and namesake would put it, who lived under the auspices of Lord Westwood. It was widely rumoured that his illustrious forebear had been gifted to his Lordship's own father by a magnificent old Maharajah, who had a decrepit castle filled with exotic animals. Indeed, the tiger rug in his Lordship's study was whispered to have been the remains of Bengy, the old Bengal Tiger.
Ah, if only he could return to those halcyon days when he roamed the lush, English countryside, reading sonnets, while eating bananas. He used to paint (in oils, mind you!) and conjugate in Latin to any forest creatures who happened by.
He cursed the day when he fell into the trap of that English Settler, Lord Westwood's sycophantic mutt. He had known that the dog hated him, but did not credit the cur with enough intelligence. Instead, he had been lured out of the safety of Lord Westwood's compound by promises of fresh pineapple. With the help of a bribed scullery maid, he, Reginald Westwood III, Simian of a thousand bon mots, met his doom at the hands of an English settler with the ridiculous name of Precious. The unendurable shame of it all!
He was tossed into a sack, then into a car and driven off. At some point, coarse voices sounded, and he was unceremoniously yanked out of his prison. Dirty, un-manicured hands tugged and probed at him, and then he was thrown on a plane. The airsickness was like nothing he had ever imagined, and he was not even given a simple blanket, never mind the thread count.
When he found himself in Singapore, he was conveyed from place to place in a dark, enclosed bag. He had lost his will to live when he was finally released. He sat stoically on the shelf of the store he found himself in, till a young couple bought him and presented him to a man for his birthday.
This new master did not seem to have a penchant for formal dress, as his beloved Lord Westwood did (how was the poor man coping without him?). Still, Reginald was not one who was quick to judge. He attempted to tell a joke, but was interrupted by the unruly request to sing
a song about bananas. Where now was his opportunity to slay them with the wit that had delighted Lady Higgersbottom's winter dance?
The worst was yet to come - another woman there asked what he was to be called. Reginald attempted to interject, but his new Master decreed that his name was henceforth, to be Ah Seng.
Reginald, now Ah Seng, was relegated to sitting on the desk of the new Master's bedroom. There was apparently no room to call his own. Worse, there were other animals roaming about, some of whom attempted to sniff and claw at him. Ah Seng wondered if any other monkey had ever attempted to strangle themselves with their own prehensile tail. None of the others had the talent, he would reckon, nor had any of the others been driven to such dire straits....
