The Nest

I’m living in a wooden shack on stilts, like a tree house, called The Nest at the bottom of Ram Sooriya’s garden. I have a veranda on two sides with a hammock and a chair and table. Inside I have an electric light and a Tilley lamp as a bedside reading light, I have a bed with a mosquito net and a large lockable wooden box for keeping my things away from prying monkey hands, some large spiders, a huge centipede, some geckos, a few cockroaches and a bat. About 20 metres away is a well with an electric pump which draws water up through a stand-pipe and acts as my shower, and the banana tree leaves surrounding it are my soap tray. The nearest toilet is a couple of hundred metres walk towards the main building so I’ve been taking a leak in the surrounding flora and fauna. In fact in the spirit of going feral I’ve felt compelled to mark my territory with strategic urinary deployments about the perimeter. Such bestial instincts weren’t effective enough to save me from the devastation that greeted my return from breakfast this morning. Having changed into dry shorts after an early surf I left The Nest to see an upside down monkey face peering at me from under the apex of the roof. “Good morning” I waved as I headed for eggs and fruit salad thinking nothing more of it. That cheeky money had obviously been casing the joint whilst waiting for my departure before whistling his firm in to do the place over. As I walked back towards home I saw the porch light was on and swinging slightly, as I neared I saw my erstwhile drying boardshorts strewn on the sandy floor beneath the hut, approaching further I spied some of my toiletries and other nick-nacks dotted around the area. As comprehension dawned on me I opened my door to the full carnage within. Anything and everything that was accessible had been ransacked. There was kerosene from the lamp mixed with citronella all over the floor and walls, forming a nice paste where it had merged with my soap powder. The bed was covered with incriminating muddy paw prints, the mosquito net torn down, my pillow nowhere to be seen. Luckily my muji wash bag was sturdy enough to save most of it’s contents but my coconut after-sun tube was riddled with tiny teeth punctures, it’s contents sprayed across the walls looking like the scene of a coconut massacre. Bizarrely my photocopied yoga sheet had been removed from it’s plastic wallet and sat neatly in the middle of the floor… But the icing on the cake was a monkey poo-present at the foot of my bed…

Luckily I heeded Ram’s advice and stowed anything of value in my wooden chest so the damage was peripheral, but caution is the operative word until I can figure out how to keep the buggers out.
Monkeys -1, Ed -0.