Monkey Nuts
“Please ensure you have correct fare,” read Edmund as he got into the big yellow taxi. Things had certainly changed since his last visit to Narnia.
“Where to Guv?”
“The Wood Between the Worlds please.”
“You’ve not been here for a while then?”
“Er... no. Why?”
“The Woods have gone. They’re in a tree museum; people pay a dollar and a half just to see ‘em. See, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot. There’s a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot too. Progress eh?”
“Oh,” said Ed, unable to think of any suitable rejoinder.
“Oh, hang on a moment. I need to get some antacids; bloody bananas are murder on the digestion.”
Screeching to a halt and narrowly missing a unicorn, the Orangutan climbed out and knuckled across to a convenience store, reappearing with a box.
“Right, all done. Hey, guess who I had in my cab last week.”
Edmund’s eyes roved the interior of the cab as the ape rambled on in front, his gaze caught by a small sign - “Do not try the monkey joke unless you want your nuts placed somewhere dark and surprising.”
“Right then, here we are guvnor. That’s two bags please.”
“Oh yes, right,” he said and passed over two bags of salted peanuts.
Alighting, he noticed a man clutching himself by the roadside.
“Ah, don’t worry about him,” said the orange primate leaning out of the window.
“What happened?”
“He made the joke about me being a monkey ‘cos I get paid peanuts. It’s like going into a guitar shop and playing House of the Rising Sun. Bloody obvious, and usually results in a painful injury.
“Have a nice day!” a hairy arm waved, the big yellow taxi taking away the old man of the Woods.
~
A combination of my avatar and Big Yellow Taxi, originally based on a prompt given to me by the excellent Mr. Thomas Berryman (to whom this story is dedicated, link on the right), and originally appeared as an interview with him that I did as part of his Writer's World series. The original prompt was - Write a 250 - 300 word short about; An Oranutan climbing out of a taxi, or An Orangutan riding a horse in the desert.
My somewhat deranged brain (or Brian) added in the Big Yellow Taxi song for some reason and this is the result.
Warning, don't make the banana joke either, or you'll have one inserted somewhere dark and surprising... =]