Our story begins as all good as stories do, with a monkey waking up and thinking about knockoff balloons invading their homeland.
I wake up in the morning and slap my alarm clock. 7:00 already? (Sigh) I wonder how boring today is going to be. Today is the day of the Quincy speech, is it not. I am already forgetful enough. Please, tell me that Norman won't jump scare me the moment I wake up. But of course, he will.
I slug myself out of bed, eat a quick fried banana for breakfast, and throw on an overcoat and a pair of shoes. As expected, the moment I step out the door I am jump scared by Norman, who jumps up and down energetically. He then starts rapid firing words at me.
" Have you heard? The Quincy speech is today in the midmorning! Are you going to be there? Everyone in the city is going" He says this in the manner that an overenergetic glue gunner like him would day it. He had more energy than he knew what to do what to do with, or then he could actually handle
At this point I was tempted to say something like 'no, you idiot, it is physically impossible for the 1.2 million people in the city to go, more like 10% of the people in his specific tiny region of the city are going' or 'no, you idiot, Quincy's speeches sound like they are from the Middle Ages'. But I refrained.
" I am sorry I have things to do, " I respond
I know that this is a complete lie as the place I work at is quite literally the place where the Quincy speech is being hosted. I am relying on the fact that Norman is a bit on the dumber side of things.
" Oh... That's a shame. Thanks anyway! I will see you in the evening," and then, without prompting, he burst out through the door and left to who knows where.
I Hope I do not see him in the evening. My day will already be bad enough, with the fact that the bank I work at is hosting the event. I will probably have to find some way to avoid it.
On the bright side, at least Norman did not make fun of me for having the same name as Ben, the hero who does not even understand the concept of grass. Nor did he try to uselessly convince to join the war. Does he actually think that I have the time and energy for that?
I would say that Norman is my friend. He is an acquaintance. More of an annoyance, if I were to be honest. Welp, enough contemplating my life choices.
I make my way into the hallway and begin to wait for the excruciatingly slow elevator. Just for context, my apartment is on the 43rd floor. Yes, I am aware that I am impatient. Yes, I am aware that I have ADHD. The only thing that stopped me from dying of boredom was the fact that there were many elevators. I finally got on the elevator and had to listen to the annoying Beep! every time I passed another floor. I arrived on ground floor soon after. Upon walking out, today was partly cloudy, but it did not seem like it was going to rain.
I then hopped on the line 17 bus toward the local Monkey Wall Street. It is quite a short ride, as the only reason I take the bus is because I am too lazy and tired to walk the eight blocks to get there. I am dropped off, and then walk through the entrance on the back, the staff entrance.
Once I get in, a board shows that the value of the yellow banana is predicted to stay stable at 20 dollars, the green banana will fluctuate between 25 to 26 dollars, but still keep its advantage of having the longest shelf life. And for the golden banana? It is fluctuating between 100 to 10,000 dollars. Who even puts their money into that, apart from rich collectors looking to hoard them. It is not even a lottery; it is a slot machine. I just do not see how the chances of financial gain outweigh the chances of financial loss. It's just not worth it.
" Morning, Ben," says a fellow bank teller, Bush. Bank tellers are still needed because the ATMs cannot handle bananas.
" Morning," I say automatically back.
I have the easiest job in the building, the security camera watch. This allows me to sit back on my phone and play video games like card storm. And just because I don't fight in the war does not mean I can't play card storm or battles or battles two or monkey city or whatever. Whoever told you that is just jealous of who knows what. I can play whatever videogames I want to.
A voice on loudspeaker then goes " Attention. All personnel please report to the courtyard"
Oh no, I think, Is there a robbery. Now that I think about it, that would be pretty exciting. But maybe they will be angry at me because I did my job poorly and did not pay attention to the security footage. Well, I guess they would be even more angry at me if I did not show up. I guess I need to go.
I go back down again, but instead of taking a right, I took a left. This led me into the main hall, a huge citadel-styled room. I then walked across the whole thing, which led me to the door to the outside area, the courtyard, a massive area perfect by picnicking, enclosed by a wall of hedges. But something was strange. I saw a lot of people who I did not recognize. At least 200 of them. And what was that they were holding? Is that a crossbow? And why is there a podium?
And then I realized. I had been tricked! This was the Quincy speech. I then saw Quincy walk out onto the podium.
I tried to run out, but there were so many other monkeys pushing around and coming in that I could not.
Then, Quincy started to give his speech "My dear bothers-"
A random monkey in the crowd then called out " How dare you gender assume that we are all males? Cancel him!"
" Oh my go- alright, fine Brothers AND sisters, happy now. The crowd here is made up of crossbow monkeys, and we crossbow monkeys are strong. So that is why I have a mission for all of you today. We have discovered a clump of stray ZOMG's all just sitting there in Bloon airspace. That is right, we will be the first land monkeys to attack bloons in their own land in centuries. Now who here thinks that they can do it?!"
There was a deafening cheer for the crossbow monkeys as support chinooks arrived. At this point I was trying as hard as I can to get out of here. But the push of the crowd forced me into a support chinook. Then, the door shut as I was still screaming wait, but no one could hear me over the yelling of the crowd. Then, before I could react, another sharpshooter handed me a bow and a purple bandana.
As we took off, I gave up and slumped to the ground, thinking about what would lie ahead.
I hoped you liked this. If you are reading this, I just want you to tell me if this is a good idea or not. It probably is not, but when has that ever stopped me. Thank you for reading. Chapter two will hopefully come out soon.
