How much time have you spent thinking about one monkey?
One specific monkey? I’ve spent some time; an inordinate amount of time some
might say. And it’s not even a real monkey. It’s a fictional monkey.
Now I know there’s something about this monkey. He’s
important somehow. I need him. In some way I know I need this one specific
fictional monkey. But I don’t know what for exactly. What am I supposed to do
with him? He follows me. Why? Oh monkey, if only you could speak to me and tell
what to do.
If you’ve played The Secret of Monkey Island you might
know which monkey I’m talking about. To begin with you can feed him bananas.
This in itself is a strange experience as nothing seems to happen as a result.
To begin with. But after a while he will
follow you. But what on earth is the point? Things happen for a reason in
videogames. Though if there were a game in which a monkey can follow you around
for no reason it might well be this one.
I’m sure some people out there knew exactly what to do
with it –there’s always some oblique clever-clogs who finds these puzzles easy – but for me it took a while. A
long while. And during that time, while stranded on Monkey Island (tm), I spent
my days at working thinking about this monkey.
There’s something inside this 2D sprite representing a
monkey which is hidden from me, I would think to myself. What can it do? What
is inside it? What meaning is impregnated in this flat – oh that’s what it
does! There we go.