‘Wished for gold, was transported into sealed, underground cavern.’ ‘Wished for youth, became a child.’ ‘Wished death upon enemies, killed in massive explosion with others.’
‘The Garden of Monkey Paws’ doesn’t feel the need to go into details about these events. It doesn’t try to explain how monkeys’ paws work or that ‘The Orchard’ exists as a means of producing them. It is simply a collection of extinguished paws along with short descriptions of their results. It’s a cautionary tale for those of us willing to read behind the lines. Potentially a guide for those who can’t.
‘Don’t try to pry the fingers from the fists at ‘The Garden of Monkey Paws.’ Outside of the occasional burst of malicious irony, the magic doesn’t return to the monkeys so easily. Knowing this, ‘The Garden’ loses what little allure it might have had. Outside of a few large-scale wish botches (we won’t spoil the surprise), the entire facility is devoted to a striking and disturbing display of dead monkeys. It smells like it, too.’
The paws are arranged by general wish categories. I spend a good deal of time in a room in the back that deals with wishes regarding love and sex. Irony can be particularly cruel in this vein of wishing and, for some reason, ‘The Garden’ has chosen to paint the nails of the monkey paws involved.
Rumor has it that the staff are open to bribes, that monkey paws ‘fall off the back of the truck’ all the time. Honestly, you couldn’t pay me to travel with something so dangerous.
Just as I’m about to wrap up and head to the camper, something moves in my peripheries. I turn and my absurd first thought it that someone is flagging me down from across the room. It’s a monkey paw, of course, opened like a blooming flower.
Then, with the sound of a creaking door, they all open at once.
The lights go red and a siren sounds. ‘The Garden of Monkey Paws’ shakes as its emergency doors begin to close. There’s shouting outside before a voice comes on over the PA system:
THIS IS NOT A TEST. THE PAWS ARE ACTIVE AND DANGEROUS. MAKE NO WISHES AND RETREAT TO A DISTANCE OF ONE MILE. CLOSURE WILL BE ATTEMPTED IN FIVE MINUTES.
The shouting is clearer outside, the curators arguing over what appears to be a long script for a carefully worded wish that would re-close all of the paws without room for malicious irony. The thing is, irony works a bit like an explosive. The more it’s compressed, the bigger it tends to blow up.
Someone is weeping inside ‘The Garden,’ cursing the cruelty of the universe between sobs. Someone got greedy and tried to make a wish. He won’t be the last.
I’m happy to put ‘The Garden of Monkey Paws’ behind me- to put the whole concept behind me, really- and, as far as my phone can tell, there are no more entries in the guide for monkey paw-adjacent destinations. The book is changing all the time, though. I find myself less sure of anything the longer I travel.
-traveler
