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POETRY
Heaven and Heart
by Joy Chowdhury
Outside my window
Bare branches are reaching out to the sky
As if linking the Earth to the Heavens.
Today there is snow on every branch.
Reflecting crimson red of the setting sun
They look like the veins in my Heart.
I felt connected
FICTION
BUSINESS MONKEY
by Gareth Pike One
day, Akphat the Spider Monkey decided to escape from the zoo and return to
Thailand.
He curled up on the floor of his cage like a dead spider, and waited.
When the zookeepers opened his cage and prodded him with sticks, he
shouted
"Hooooooo," clambered over their backs and ran for it.
He vaulted the zoo wall like a Swiss high jump champion, to the cheers of
watching foons, lemurs, ricklebacks, and sneeps.
Akphatıs first stop was a menıs haberdashery on Wookerbie Street, where he
purchased a greatcoat and a floppy hat with some saved up walnuts, from a
half-blind 90 year-old tailor.
Akphat set off through the streets of New York, looking for Thailand. By
mistake, he ended up at Toyland, where he was promptly hired as a package
repairer due to his nimble fingers.
His job was to repair toy packages damaged by over-curious children who
always tried to get at the toys inside.
While employed at Toyland, Akphat read two business manuals, one on banana
farming, and the other on classical composition.
Akphat thought for a bit, thoughtfully. Since nearly all his family were
in the banana trade, he opted to pursue a career in classical music. He
resigned on the spot, bit the store managerıs shoe, and walked out.
Akphat applied for a position as conductor of the New York Philharmonic,
and got it.
He was a roaring success, due to being able to wave his arms like
windmills and bend them in four places.
Journalists who interviewed him found him eccentric yet endearing. He
would always gnaw on the hems of their trousers during interviews. His
most famous recorded comment was "Hooooooooo!"
Then Akphat suddenly disappeared from the social scene, missing a vital
recital of the "Messiah" one night.
No one heard of Akphat for years after that, although he did write to the
foons back the zoo, who were keeping mum on the issue.
Recent rumours place him on the Cambodian border, involved with a
guerrilla group of radical gorillas.
Another rumor has him farming walnuts in the Golan Heights, in order to
build up funds for his future projects in the west.
According to sources, his closest friends are a hermit called Tram, the
High Most Devout Dervish of Moragia, and a small stuffed bear called Dent.
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