Today is World Rainforest Day. We pause to pay a little tribute to the coconut trees, banana leaves, and foliage that literally keep us functioning.
Even if we aren’t aware of it all the time.
Little Milo the Macaque wasn’t. But is about to learn.
Appreciation is worth more than bananas.
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Finally, rest for a weathered little Macaque. Little Milo, banana-leaf-bagpack on his back, had returned to the macaque troop, despite numerous calamities and password flounders.
Modern monkeys needed regular updates.
He swung again among the durian tree branches, his little cheeks becoming as full as the durians he devoured.
The little monkey had never encountered a fruit he didn’t trust.
He trained his eyes on the branches. They moved along and fell on a single durian.
A different durian.
It GLOWED. Like a fruit-based genie.
And beckoned, crooking its cheeky spikes.
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So the little money answered. His cheeks became durian husks as the fruit infiltrated them.
They grew bigger.
And bigger.
His head swelled.
To twice its size.
The little monkey became more bloated than a functioning hot air balloon.
And he suddenly became–
Monkey Mind.
With the rainforests’ biggest brain.
The trees and durians around him suddenly spoke.
“Eh. Little Monkey Brat. Now you know.”
The strange thing was–
He knew exactly what they referred to.
He gazed at his troop. All guzzling durians.
One hanging upside down from a branch. No branch, no grip.
Another attacking a shell voraciously under a canopy of leaves.
With the sun peeking-
Then, they withdrew as if offended.
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So the little monkey did what was within his primate capacity–
He formed action committees.
He chaired the Committee for Strategic Durian Allocation. Another for Banana Accumulation.
And his troop became alarmingly–
Educated.
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But the monkey conventions had acted quickly enough.
The rainforest turned.
With green gusto.
Notices appeared on trees.
“Shade withdrawn till further notice.”
“No random leaf-picking–fine 50 bananas.”
The durian trees refused to produce. The rivers reduced service.
“No water flow until further sanitation.”
Monkeys did unexpected trapeze flips as vines tripped them.
Even the mosquitoes formed insect unions.
“Resolution to deploy the dengue virus if the rivers are not sanitised.”
The ecosystem services had been effectively suspended.
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So the troop had to take some action.
Whether it liked it–
Or not.
It appointed little Milo its ambassador.
The little fellow did what he could do–
Used banana diplomacy.
“Eh…Sir Durian Tree…could we offer a carton of bananas in return for…”
The durian tree swung its branches dismissively. It stayed stoically–professionally–offended.
With a trunkful of formally worded emails.
And as the monkey tried all negotiation tactics at his disposal, blending surreptitiously with the branches above–
A Malaysian Tiger.
Creeping ever forward, an unseen ninja acrobat, towards Milo.
A young tree forgot its mission of macaque subjugation and promptly swung a vine.
The predator tumbled, doing all jungle circus clowns proud.
It fell to the ground, with a couple of smashed teeth.
And paws.
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Evening came and saw Milo swinging from branch to branch, Banana Leaf bagpack intact.
The rest of the troop followed.
The trees had stayed. With a little primate persuasion.
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Original story for World Rainforest Day by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
Read the misadventures of our little Macaque friend, Milo, here.
Mirrors of the Mind by Michelle Liew is a collection of psychological and supernatural short stories that explore the quiet unease beneath ordinary moments. These are not tales of spectacle, but of subtle fracture — where memory distorts, silence speaks, and the self is not always singular. In these stories, what is unseen often carries the greatest weight, and what lingers is not what is shown, but what is felt.
