A Monkey with a Camera

What happens when you give a monkey a glittery shiny thingamajig with too many buttons and picture modes than he can possibly need? Well he'll first cackle like a mad goose and jump around for dramatic effect, post which he will buckle down to the gargantuan, nay fantastical task of capturing the whole of this mind-bogglingly ginormous cosmos through his puny camera lens onto an even punier memory card with space not worth spitting on. And while success in this mad caper is bound to be illusory, it does leave said primate with too many images than he can shake a stick at.

The next step, of course, is the uploading. The monkey might dither; he might dawdle or downright shamelessly dodge this holy task, but do it he must. Who knows, he'll justify, there might be a gem in all this rubbish that his friends would go gaga over. And isn't it the task of each and every human to 'preserve for prosperity', to imprint ephemeral beauty indelibly onto cyberspace for future generations to peruse and photoshop? So he will hitch up his shorts, arrange assorted savouries and sweets picturesquely around his person and start on his quest. And what a quest it is, full of twists and hijinks, careful sorting and ruthless cropping, faithful tagging and dreadful despairing as the pixels just keep on mounting. But he is a conscientious monkey, so he ignores his failing eyes and flaring bladder and plods on patiently, weathering the barrage as best as possible. And thus, after much huffing and puffing and calorie intake, journey's end is achieved and the worthy primate collapses back on his bed with a grateful sigh. He did it. He gosh-darn did it. He was extremely tardy and not at all gracious about it, but better late than never eh? He can finally look forward to some much-needed unstinted peace. A rosy future beckons, he thinks as he drifts off to sleep, a pixel-free future...

But the evil never ends. Those buttons still sparkle in the cursed werelight, enticing unwary travellers into the pits of hell. The wanderlust is brewing again in our dear friend and it'd only be a matter of time before his fingers once again curl familiarly around the devil contraption. God help this poor soul then.