Monkey Sonatas Part 26

The life cycle of the habitat would be the problem. Its original designers knew how to arrest its development so that it didn't ripen completely and explode, scattering seeds throughout the galaxy-unless they wanted it to. But the one that comes to the human solar system has no such controls, and so it moves as quickly as possible toward maturity, at which time each of the cells becomes a fully functioning adult with tiny minicells forming its own sh.e.l.l, and the hollow s.p.a.ce humans were now using as a habitat would become the highly charged inner intelligence. The original inner intelligence dies in the process of giving independent life to all the outer cells.

The fables are the tales being told by the inner intelligence to its children. There is little sense of separate ident.i.ty among the cells or between the cells and their parent. But the tales must be preserved in order to keep some sense of purpose and meaning alive in the creatures. They have long since forgotten that all these tales have to do with "human" justice and equity, or that the creature exists in order to provide homes for the makers of the place. Still, the tales survive.

I include this explanation because of the number of readers over the years who have politely asked me (actually, some have begged) to explain what in h.e.l.l is going on in "The Monkeys Thought 'Twas All in Fun." I hope this helps. Those searching for thematic explanations, however, are on their own. I don't like decoding my work in that way.

To my mind, the very fact that I didn't make this story clear enough for many-perhaps most-readers makes the story a failure. I think clarity is the first thing a writer must achieve; if I fail in that, what does it matter what else I do? If I were writing this story again today, I'd spell out precisely what was going on from the beginning, so there wouldn't be the slightest confusion.

One must remember, however, that when I wrote this I was a graduate student in English. I think this explains everything.