What the Monkey Saw

Disclaimers: I am basing this on the 2004 movie version. I don't own any of these characters and I am just borrowing them and the movie for my own slightly warped purposes. I am changing the sequence of events in the movie slightly by putting the events of Madame Giry's tale first and moving the auction towards the end. I will say that usually I have great respect for these characters. Usually being the operative word. That respect is flying right out the window with this story along with any and all period language. Be prepared for rude behavior, bad language, adult thoughts and general snarkiness.

Notes: Many talented people have told this story from many different perspectives. We have heard Erik's version and Christine's version and Raoul's version. We have heard this version and that version. The one version we have never heard is the version of the one creature that just bugs the heck out of everyone. He bugs the heck out of us because he is so damn ugly and so damn real. He is the one creature in all of this who has nothing to lose by telling the truth. What creature you ask? The monkey atop the music box.

Story Summary: This is the story as told from the perspective of that butt-ugly monkey sitting atop that music box.

PROLOUGE

I lay dying.

That little bastard had managed to loop a rope about my neck and now he was pulling it tight, cutting off my air, ending my life. This was not exactly how I had planned to end my day. I had other plans! I had plans that involved a few bottles of cheap wine, a dark-haired girl with curls that flowed right down to her shapely ass, and a night of hot steamy sex punctuated by loud screams of ecstasy. I had those plans but now they were flying right out the damn tent flap.

Stupid little bastard.

You take in a kid that his own mother does not even want and this is the thanks you get. You put him up, you feed him, you give him a chance to perform and this is the way he repays you. So maybe the accommodations were not the greatest in the world but after the old bear died, I could see no reason to let his cage go to waste. Hell! It was a damn fine cage! And - yeah maybe - the food was not the best in the world but when you live your life on the road, your food does not always come from the damned Cordon Bleu! There were so many mouths to be fed - the adults, the snot-nosed little brats, the whores, the horses, the dogs, the pigs - that someone had to come last. Last in, last fed, you know. And you tell me where in the Hell else someone who looked like he did was going to get a chance to perform for the public. Face it, the kid was ugly as all get out! He was not exactly leading man material - if you get my drift. We give him a chance to make a few francs and how does he repay us?

He kills me!

That's what the little bastard does - he kills me!

So his life was harsh! Big fat friggin' deal! You show me one person on God's green Earth who has not had a harsh life. Just one! So the little bugger got a raw deal. Mom and Dad don't want the hell-spawn they spawned. Hell, if I had a brat whose face looked like his old lady got scared by half of a skull, I would not want him either! Kid comes to us and he does not have much use for his living arrangements. Does not like the food. Does not like the work. That's a whole lot of "nots" if you ask me. So we had to discipline him the same way we discipline other little brats who suffer from delusions of grandeur - we beat the crap out of him. Well, we beat the delusions out of him. Everyone around here gets beaten so, frankly, I don't understand what the big deal was. Did the Holy Bible not say something about "sparing the rod and spoiling the child"?

You do what you got to do and this is the thanks you get.

I am dying.

The world in front of my eyes is narrowing down to a small pinprick of light. I can feel my heart as the pounding begins to slow. My lungs are giving up the struggle for air as the rope about my throat tightens closing off my airway. I am waiting for my life to flash before my eyes but they can only see that small light. My thoughts can only see that dark-haired beauty whose bed I had hoped to share this night. My emotions can only feel a sense of loss for all that might have been.

Suddenly my life does begin to flash in front of my eyes. I remember my youth. I remember my grandmother - an old hag with a fat, hairy wart on the end of her nose. She always smelled of day old cabbage and she had ragged, filthy fingernails that always left scratches when she pinched my cheeks. She was a fat, hairy, filthy, smelly old witch of a woman. And I do mean witch. You cannot get to be that old around these camps without knowing a thing or two. Or blackmailing a person or three. She did both. She also made sure that I knew her secrets.

There was not much left for me to do as my life flowed from my body. I was slumped on the hard ground like a harlot who had just had the best damn night of her miserable life. My senses reached out to the world around me in a last bid to take something with me. Or, just perhaps, to leave something behind.

Oh yeah. I was definitely going to leave something behind.

Thanks Granny, you smelly old bitch ... er ... witch!

That stupid little brat had managed to seduce one of the ballet rats who had come to see him. Pretty little thing she was, too, all blonde hair and long legs. Damn. Too bad I did not get to her first for I would have been all over her like stink on a pig. But that stupid little brat made sure I was not ever going to have that pleasure again. He had made sure I was never going to have any pleasure in life ever again. Fine. The little brat had his vengeance. But there is something beyond this life and I knew how to get there.

When the little brat choked the life out of me and I collapsed to the straw, I saw the means to my ends. The means by which I could make that brat's life as miserable as he had made mine short. It was right there before my darkening gaze, before my ending life, at the very edge of my consciousness. It was there as that brat reached down and grabbed for it. It was there as my brother entered the tent yelling bloody murder. It was there as that hot little ballet rat grabbed his hand and they went running for the back tent opening. By then it was gone.

It was gone because I had replaced it.

I saw that stupid stuffed monkey in front of my dying eyes and I remembered a curse from a long ago childhood. I remembered the words my smelly old granny had taught me. I remembered them and I used them. And - goddamn - if they did not work! Suddenly I was no longer looking through a glass darkly but through some little button eyes brightly. Oh yeah, baby! The ol' Transfer-your-soul spell worked like a charm!

I am in! I am so in!

I watch as that hot little ballet babe takes the stupid brat to the opera house and hides him underground. All the time I am thinking: "Nice work there, chit! Bury the ugly, murdering, little brat alive."

I watch as that ugly little brat learns his way around the dark, shadowed corridors.

I watch as that ugly little brat begins to make a home in that eternal blackness, aided by the gifts brought to him by the hot little ballet babe. Damn, if she don't get finer as the years pass.

I really want to yell at the stupid little brat, though, because - damn! - this place is damp and my new body ain't as hard as the old one. And it ain't as immune to mold as the old one. I really want to yell but I can't cause that damn old smelly granny of mine left out one little detail about this curse - I ain't got no friggin' voice!

Stupid old bitch.

So the little brat and I go on for years this way. He moves around in the shadows and I watch. He pants after those hot little ballet babes and I watch. He studies books and I ... fall asleep. Eventually this new soft body of mine begins to give out much the same way the old hard body gave out. I am gonna die all over again and that stupid little brat has got his nose in too many books to even notice. Do you have any idea how dangerous mold can be to your complexion?

Finally all that time the little brat spent with his nose in those stupid books paid off. I had no idea what the hell he had been doing with all the time he spent quietly hunched over that desk. I could see his arms moving and heard quiet mutterings but - damn me - if I could figure out what the hell he was up to. One day, though, he finally stood up and I could see the new means to my end.

He had built a music box. And what was on top of that music box? Hell, I know you ain't as stupid as he is! So I know you know it was a monkey. It was a mighty fine looking monkey, too, very realistic. That stupid little brat picked me up and placed me next to the music box, stepping back to study his work. Yeah, that was another stupid move on your part, stupid. It does not take a whole lot of effort to jump a soul from one body to another. And suddenly I was a musician! And not moldy!

And he was still stupid!

Because the minute I chose to jump from the moldy body to the music box body, the stupid little brat placed his hands on the music box. Oh, it was just too good! It was just too damn good! I was now part of his consciousness as well as my own! I was in him! From where my soul sat perched atop that music box, I could see and hear everything he did!

Yeah, baby! I am officially the "monkey on the brat's back"!

Hot little ballet babes here I come!

I only have one question:

Who the hell is Christine?