The Baboon Swoon

Baboons are interesting animals. They are best known for having huge pink arses, shitting in their hands and throwing it at people they don’t like, and dragging their knuckles over the ground while they walk. They have occasionally been known for their penchant for exhibitionist sex. Most bafflingly among their many intriguing attributes is their uncanny ability to be able to learn how to read, that is recognise words and distinguish them from others. They share this ability with humans, and, curiously, Columbian pigeons. It is unclear whether a diet of cocaine was involved in the development of the ability in the latter. Words baboons have in the past been proven to be able to recognise include the words “surf”, “wave”, “swell”, “drop-in” and “you bastard”. Under test conditions they have been shown to be able to acquire a vocabulary of up to 308 words, the vast majority of them swear words.

   One ability baboons are emphatically not renowned for being able to master is the art of surfing. Terrestrial animals by trade and inclination, they live on the ground and sleep in trees, only go near water when they need a drink, and run away screaming hysterically when asked to read the word “bath”.

   It is therefore rare to encounter one in salt water, much less in surf conditions.

   The little town of Eagle Bay however, in addition to boasting one of WA‘s finest wineries which has the unusual distinction of brewing the world’s only wine derived entirely from kangaroo turds and metho, also has the dubious honour of featuring among its many regular surfers a baboon. No one quite knows how this happened. Most people look the other way in embarrassment when confronted with the phenomenon, and, when questioned about it in public, pointedly study their finger nails, look up at the sky for signs of wind, cyclones or rains of frogs, and walk away whistling without answering the question.

   On this day however, the town’s baboon had been let off the leash. The surf was running nicely and smoothly, there was no wind, and people had abstained from turning up and crowding the point, in an unexpected show of great taste, refinement, discernment and consideration for other humans and distantly related primates. The crew sat gently bobbing up and down with the rising and falling of the swell. The Cork had found his groove, and was riding waves with minimal loss of direction and vertical confusion. The Space Shuttle caught cracker after cracker in a hitherto unheard–of display of restraint in the area of sending longboards into orbit around earth. The Snake Catcher, faced with the appalling and unexpected lack of venomous serpents to chase through the waters, had in desperation turned his attention to several small, innocuous and unsuspecting lizards waiting for the sunrise on a nearby boulder. Currently they were backed hard against a rock, and were hyperventilating and on the verge of mental breakdown.

   Chief Switchfoot pulled up at the line-up, sat upright and relaxed, taking a deep breath of fresh air, only slightly tainted with the scent of panic pheromones emitted by shit-scared lizards. He surveyed the scene before him and nodded happily, smiling and humming to himself in his beard. All seemed to be well in the world.

   But wait! What was that there in front of him? He frowned and scratched his head. Sure enough, it was that bloody Baboon again. Someone must have left the cage open again. As he sat watching a wave announced its intention to stand up and break hard on the heads of anyone not scrambling to either get out of the way or get onto it. The Baboon eyed it off hungrily, rubbed his guts anti-clockwise and patted his head, for reasons only known to himself and best left unexplored, and started dragging his knuckles through the water in a clear and obvious attempt to get into position and catch it.

   Equally clear and obvious to the Chief was the fact that the poor old Baboon, showing supreme lack of sound judgement, had carefully and meticulously positioned himself far too deep, too close to the breaking point to have any chance of catching the wave.

   The Chief sat up a bit straighter and grinned in anticipation. This was going to be entertaining.

   He was not to be disappointed.

   Paddling furiously without any discernible impact on his progress, the Baboon was overtaken by the breaking crest of the wave. Instead of leaning back, aborting the attempt and letting it ride harmlessly underneath him, the Baboon, with a single-minded determination that was as commendable as foolhardy and stupid, if not downright suicidal, made his move. The rising wall of the wave lifted up the tail of the board. Mistaking this for his cue to execute a successful take-off the Baboon jumped to his feet and landed in his distinctive crouch, knuckles on the board, arse pointing high to the sky. As he did so the tail of the board did not stabilise, as the Baboon was clearly expecting, or, at the very least, fervently hoping for. Instead it kept rising as inexorably as the salaries of politicians, until, within a split second, it flipped completely vertical upside down, in the process catapulting the Baboon forwards through the air like a deflated hot air balloon with a near-terminally confused expression on his face. The Baboon went flying and landed on his face in the water several metres in front of the breaking wave. His longboard performed a set of exquisite cartwheels across the morning sky, only slightly impeded by the legrope, and, in slow motion, made a perfect bee-line for the Baboon, slamming into him with a thud that was audible even above the roar of the whitewash.

   The Chief winced, but not too much.

   The Baboon stuck his head out above the water and screamed eloquently, making careful and artistic use of 303 of the 308 words in his vocabulary.

   ‘Aaaaaarrrrgghhhuuuuuuurrrrrggggghhhhoooowawawawahaaaareeeerrrrrk!’

   The Chief paddled over calmly and bent himself over the stricken animal with an air of complacent curiosity and mild concern.

   ‘You right there, mate?’ he enquired.

    ‘Ooooowaaaaarrrrrrk’ replied the Baboon in consternation, vigorously rubbing his shoulder. He pointed to it. ‘Ooo ooo.’

   ‘You done your shoulder, mate?’ the Chief asked benignly.

   ‘Ooo ooo,’ confirmed the Baboon, rubbing it again. He finally found his voice, regained control over his vocabulary, and retrieved the missing five words from it. ‘Fucking hell! Fuck me dead!’

   ‘Er ... no thanks, but thanks for asking,’ said the Chief. ‘Did you cop it?’

   ‘Yeah mate, I reckon it was the fin that came back and cleaned me up. Bloody hell.’ The Baboon grimaced, a spectacle of graphic horror not for the faint-hearted. A gannet, a tern and an albatross happening to pass overhead saw the contorted expression on his snout and, respectively, died of a heart attack, migrated to Siberia with no intention of ever returning, and became a nun with strict vows of chastity, silence and rigorous abstinence from breathing.

 

Back in the carpark the shoulder was examined carefully. It displayed a large bruise of a fetching angry red, spreading out slowly.

   ‘Hmmm ...’ said the Chief contemplatively. ‘That’s not so bad, I reckon.’

   ‘You reckon? Well, I’m happy you think so,’ said the Baboon sourly.

   ‘Well, look at it this way mate ...’ said the Chief, reflectively.

   ‘What way?’

   ‘Well, see, now your shoulder is the same colour as your arse ...’ the Chief suggested.

   The Baboon squinted around his back. He had to concede the point. ‘So?’

   ‘Well, cheer up, mate,’ said the Chief, slapping the Baboon amicably on the other shoulder, ‘now if no-one can tell the difference between your face and your arse at least you’ve got an excuse.’

 


 

 

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