Run, Monkey

Jenna is out on the lawn when Sully drags up the driveway. At the sight of him, she stands up, clippers in hand.

"What are you doing back so early?"

Sully doesn't reply. He walks to the door.

"Hey!" She yells, sauntering after him. Her knees are marked with dirt. "What happened?"

The key won't fit in the lock. Sully grunts, shifting the box so that it sits on his hip. The box scrapes down his thigh and falls with a dull thud onto the floor. Inside, the flower pot cracks, spilling soil everywhere.

"Sully," Jenna's voice softens. She gently picks the box up. She leans over and opens the door to show him it's unlocked.

Sully stares down the hallway where he can see food left out on the counter. He couldn't recall what he was thinking this morning when he left. The motions of the day blur into the back of his head in a tight, refined knot. He'd skipped breakfast because he was nervous about his presentation.

He never even got the chance to present it.

"Was it the presentation? Did something go wrong?" She pesters when he doesn't move.

"No," Sully sighs, stepping into the house. He removes his shoes and places them neatly on the rack. The mirror catches his reflection. Sully can't tell if it's him or whether the glass is sagging. Either way, he looks like something out of a funhouse mirror, grotesque and stretched out. He looks away, "I got fired."

Jenna carefully places the clippers on the floor by the door, making sure that the dirt-encrusted blades don't get onto the hardwood. Something about her husband reminds her of glass.

"Have you eaten anything?" She heads to the kitchen before he can respond.

She's afraid of looking at him directly. She twists her fingers, playing with her wedding ring. A sandwich should help, she thinks to herself.

He's on the couch, scrolling mindlessly through TikTok.

"Punch, huh?"

"What?" He scrolls to another video, this time to a woman using excessively large shears to cut someone's hair.

"No! Go back!" Jenna exclaims, hoping that her lightheartedness might get him out of his funk. She uses her index finger to scroll up on his screen.

A tiny gray monkey pops into view. The video emphasizes how sad the frail, little thing is, as it drags around an oranguatan stuffy.

"Punch!" A strange fervor reaches her eyes, "The poor baby."

Nothing affects Sully. He watches with careless indifference.

"It's a monkey," he states.

"Not just any monkey," Jenna insists, "he was exiled by his mother. No one in the clan accepts him. One of the bigger monkeys even thrashed him about. The only thing he has is that little stuffed animal. He literally sleeps with it... look, look!"

Punch, the monkey, curls into the stuffed animal and pulls its little arm forward around himself. Sully's heart twists. He slams the phone face down.

"It's a monkey," he repeats in disgust.

"Yeah, I know," Jenna snaps, "but it's alone and unloved and..."

She trails off in a wavering voice, suddenly looking away. Another silence befalls them, but this time it's even more uncomfortable than before. Fine. Be dramatic, Jenna storms away in a huff.

Sully breathes a sigh of relief, but then the silence takes over.

He taps his fingers in an arrhythmic pattern. He turns the TV on and then off. On again. A news channel shows bombs collapsing buildings in the Middle East. Another channel. A man fishes. Someone's selling jewelry. A Simpson episode plays where Homer gets fired. Sully clicks the TV off.

His phone flashes white and then black from against the arm of the sofa, begging to be looked at.

Punch is cuddled up with his stuffy, safe and sound. Sully's shoulders relax. His heartbeat slows. A soft smile slips onto his lips. He leans back into the couch and wraps a big arm over himself. Punch makes a soft whimpering sound and rubs his face against the stuffy's chest.

The video ends. He replays it.

When Jenna returns, it's dark out and Sully is asleep. Beside him, another video of Punch replays over and over again. This time the monkey discovers one of the zookeepers. A bond forms between them.

Jenna moves to turn the phone off and puts a blanket on her husband, but Sully startles awake. He grabs her wrist.

"No," he gently pushes her away.

"It's disturbing your sleep," Jenna argues just as the monkey starts to vocalize. She reaches for the phone again but Sully stops her.

"No, don't," Sully frowns. His tongue is swollen and heavy from sleep. He blinks slowly, "I like knowing he's there."

Jenna backs down. She tries to offer him a blanket instead, but Sully shakes his head.

"Punch doesn't have one," he mumbles deliriously.

"He's a monkey, babe," Jenna struggles to keep her voice light.

"He just needs a little bit of love. Someone to be there for him."

Any vindication Jenna once felt disappears. This is more than dramatic. This is weird. Still, she folds the blanket and leaves it on the other armrest. She's too tired to deal with whatever this new coping mechanism is. It feels like a morning problem. Her husband starts snoring again. Punch grabs the zookeeper's leg plaintively. Jenna heads to bed.

The next morning, Sully wakes up on the couch with a crick in his neck. The dull ache disappears almost instantly when Sully realizes that Punch isn't on his screen anymore. He immediately grabs his phone and scrolls down the long list of videos until he finds the monkey again.

"Punch made friends with the zookeeper," he smiles as Jenna slumbers down the stairs. She pauses, giving him a strange look.

The little monkey clings to the zookeeper's legs. The zookeeper throws food around the pen, but the little monkey never lets go. Not even to eat.

"He made a friend," Sully croons, stroking the screen, "He made a friend."

Jenna's fears balloon over the next few weeks. Sully barely leaves the couch. His eyes begin to sag and swell. He melts into the sofa, taking its form.

At the end of the week, when the smell becomes unbearable, Jenna fights for him to get up. She drags him out to walks, the compromise always being that he can bring Punch along.

On the third week, however, Jenna has enough.

"You can't bring the phone," she says.

"Why not?" Sully doesn't even bother to look at her. He stares at the beloved monkey playing with its toy, chuckling when Punch accidentally waterboards the stuffed oranguatan, "Look at that, he drenched the little stuffy."

Jenna doesn't laugh. She doesn't even smile.

"That stuffy is going to smell really bad now," Sully continues. He twists his lips, "I hope the zookeeper changes it–"

Jenna tears the phone out of his hands.

"Hey!" Sully jumps up. His legs and back scream in pain.

"You'll get it back at the end of the week," Jenna slides the phone into a nearby drawer and shuts it. Sully storms over to the drawer to retrieve it but Jenna blocks his path, "This is unhealthy, baby, you're on that thing twenty-four-seven. Look at the state of you! You need to get out! Do something else! Job search!"

Sully doesn't say a word. He waits for Jenna to move. She softens after a moment.

"I know that this is tough... but you're going to be okay. That job sucked anyways, so maybe this is the perfect chance to find something n–"

"Give it back. Now," Sully cuts her off.

Jenna's face hardens.

"No."

A deep, dark rage floods through his body. Part of him knows it's irrational, but Sully couldn't control it if he tried. He pushes past his wife and yanks open the drawer hard enough for the entire thing to come out. Loose coins and knick-knacks clatter all around the floor. Sully doesn't care. He grabs the device.

"No!" Jenna snarls, jumping over him to grab the phone.

Sully shoves her away. Jenna crashes against the edge of the counter. Her head hits the marble top before she stumbles to the floor, stunned. Sully barely notices. His hands shake as he unlocks the phone.

The apps lag as he clicks on them. Sweat builds up on his temples and dribbles down to his chin. He stamps the pad of his index finger harder and harder against the screen until finally Punch pops up.

Behind him, Jenna slowly picks herself up. Sully hears her brush past him. The front door clicks open then shut.

Punch curls up by the rocks, all alone.

"I see you," Sully whispers, tearfully. He uses the tip of his nail to caress Punch's tiny cheek, "I'm right here."

A month goes by before Jenna returns, this time, armed with their children.

The stench hits them first. Dahlia, their eldest, digs her nose into her scarf to keep from retching. Theo clings to his mother, too afraid to near the misshapen figure haunting the dimly lit family room. Mountains of garbage pile around him. Fruit flies buzz.

"Hey Dad," Dahlia delicately walks over to the couch where a live Youtube video of Punch shows him napping by some rocks.

"Punch made a friend yesterday," Sully says.

Dahlia nods, glancing worriedly at her mom. Jenna busies herself with heating up the dinner. Theo slides open the backyard door.

"Dad–"

"No! The zookeepers, his goddamned friends! Where the hell are they?!" Sully exclaims, leaning closer towards the screen.

"Let's... uh... Let's eat dinner. What do you say, dad?" Theo interjects awkwardly.

Sully waits until the zookeeper opens the door before he responds. Punch jumps onto the zookeeper's arm and disappears into the facility.

"Okay, yes," he says. He grabs his phone and turns on the live stream, "Let's eat."

But Sully can't get up. He tries to heft his bloated body. His arms shake. He looks up at his daughter, a sudden moment of coherence glittering helplessly in his eyes. His right arm bends unnaturally and gives out. A deafening crack echoes through the house. Dahlia screams.

"Where is Punch?" Is the first thing Sully asks when he comes to.

Jenna stares down at him with disgust.

"What's wrong with you?" She begins to cry.

"Where is Punch?" Sully repeats. His lips feel numb.

Before Jenna can reply, a nurse walks in with a Jello cup. Sully refuses it.

"You have to eat, Sully. You will die if you keep this lifestyle up," the nurse warns. She sets the cup on the bedside table before leaving.

Still, Sully did not touch the cup.

"Punch," he juts his lower lip out like a toddler.

"Are you kidding me? Did you hear the nurse? You're dying, Sully!" Jenna yells, "Do you get that? The doctors told me that you are dying of malnutrition. Your muscles are rotting, goddamn it. Your bones are literally made of nothing now! And all you care about is that fucking monkey?"

"He needs me," Sully mutters.

"Your kids need you! I need you!" Jenna starts to cry, "Why don't you see that?"

"You don't understand. You can't understand," Sully shakes his head, feeling exhausted.

Jenna never did understand, not even a month later when the doctors discovered Sully's corpse, grey and stiff. Nobody saw him die or noticed until much later when a terrible smell drew them in. By then, it was too late. His body oozed with open sores and his arms were permanently curled upright from holding the phone to his face.

He lost some fingers from the medical examiners trying to pry his phone away, and the team had to break his arms to get him to fit in the coffin. They returned Sully's only belonging to Jenna in a clear plastic bag.

Nothing about the situation made sense to Jenna, least of all the sight of Punch on screen, all grown up now and loved. Still, she let the video play till the phone died, too.