Franke The Monke's Book

A Divine Blessing

"A divine blessing?"

This was the first sound to ever touch my ears. My mother, a strong Injorian ape had just realized that my birth was on the fifth day of the fifth week of the fifth month of the fifty-fifth year of the post-oylen era of the New Trespian Calendar. The elderly apes of my shrood, the destels, believed that I was a blessing from Olton, whose sacred number is five. Just like the Five Islands of the oylen era of Trespis.

The Monke family has existed since the beginning of Olton. Our family of apes was one of the first created by the god Moke, the god of apes and jungles. This side included my grandfather, the current Solverg of my shrood. The maternal side of my family did not have a history as interesting, but they were intelligent and brave apes nonetheless.

"Soorg!"

"He is already speaking?" A destel exclaimed.

"I still don't believe it," my mother continued.

It only took me five days to grasp the concept of speaking Sprak, the language of Injor's jungles. This was far quicker than the average of three years expected by my race. Once I had begun, I became extraordinarily talkative and would speak with any creature with whom I became acquainted.

"Hello!" I told a passing destel.

"This is truly the strangest thing in my entire life," the elder replied. "An ape merely a week old is fluent in Sprak!"

"You mean five days? They told me that five is an important number. Apparently it is related to a powerful god or something."

"You were blessed by Olton herself?" The elder suddenly walked off to the local fruit shop, mumbling something about needing a mango to help him reform his thoughts.

My young self simply crawled away to annoy more members of my shrood.