One day, Brigham Monkey was so sad. He was moping through the forest with his hands dragging tracks through the mud as he trudged through the forest. He was feeling so sad you see because he didn't feel special. He just felt like every other monkey in the jungle. He ate bananas like the other monkeys. He swung through the trees like the other monkeys, and he even hung from his tail like all the other monkeys. He wanted to do something special and something amazing, but he just felt so.....monkey. Sometimes he would see the other animals doing things he wanted to try but just didn't think he could do anything other than being a plain ol' monkey.
The snakes slithered and coiled. The leopards and tigers bounded so high. The birds glided through the trees. He wanted to stand out, to be bold, and to be brave, but alas, he was just a monkey doing monkey things. Even his hoo hoo ha ha, was suffering.
As he was walking along, he saw a group of butterflies that he had never seen before. The group looked like a tornado fluttering in the trees. The sun was shining on their wings, and they glimmered. He was mesmerized by what he saw. The wings, when opened, looked just like a super hero mask. This gave Brigham monkey an idea! If he could just convince a butterfly to let him use their wings as a mask, he could be SUPER MONKEY! Brigham monkey swung right over to the butterflies and called to them as they started to flutter away!
He asked them for help and told them of his plans to be a SUPER MONKEY. They were not very excited by the idea of sitting on a monkey's face, but Brigham, the clever monkey made them a deal. He would bring them bananas for a whole month, as he knew that they both shared the same favorite food! The butterflies were very excited and accepted.
The next day, Brigham Monkey hopped up onto the boulder in the middle of the jungle with his new butterfly mask and with hands on monkey hips proclaimed to the jungle that SUPER MONKEY was there to save the day!
The animals found this quite exciting and put SUPER MONKEY straight to work.
Photo by Jeffrey Hamilton on Unsplash
SUPER MONKEY spent the day swinging from trees in service of the animals. He untangled branches for the birds, rescued a snake whose head had got caught in a tree branch fork, scratched an itch on an elephant's back, and even rolled a branch into a pit to help a tiger escape. SUPER MONKEY was feeling very super indeed.
At the end of the day, SUPER MONKEY was resting on the big boulder when the animals came to thank him for all his services and tell him what an amazing animal he was, when the masked butterfly-who was also very tired from holding on to SUPER MONKEY's face all day-fluttered away.
The animals and Brigham Monkey all shared a moment of surprise at the revealing of Brigham Monkey's identity. Brigham Monkey wondered what the animals would think?
Photo by Jamie Haughton on Unsplash
The animals were quiet, and then as if on cue, they all cheered for Brigham Monkey. Brigham Monkey, whose jaw had dropped, slowly started to smile. He realized that the monkey things that he could do weren't plain at all. He still swung from his trees and hung from his tail, but this day he did it in amazing monkey fashion to serve the other animals. If he could be SUPER MONKEY with a mask, then he could still be SUPER without it.
Brigham Monkey thanked the masked butterflies for this lesson as he delivered his first payment of bananas. THE END
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
These are the stories I make up for my kids at bedtime. They ask all the time for new adventure from Brigham Monkey. I hope this was okey for my first Ink Well, and that it somewhat worked for the prompt of Unlikely Hero.