How I met our new member, Monkey...

...or Cardio-thorasic surgery on a budget.

I couldn’t remember why there was the gentle flap of the pilot chute against the silk above me but after re-reading Part 1 I was, with relative ease, able to pick out the lights of the village below me and, angled against the wind to minimise drift, landed safely on an open stretch of river sand at the village edge.

You could tell at once the Bovine Bombardment had found it’s unintentional mark. There was something very wrong in this village. There were flattened huts and burger mince everywhere. Where these two factors had combined to knock over some late burning kerosene lamp a barbeque several metres in diameter had explosively been born into existence. I could imagine the fact I’d forgotten to bring beer and some type of salad would make this the most awkward BBQ of my life.

Artist rendering of what the village looked like

The locals already seemed to be building up an angry head of steam as somewhere beyond the pall of beef scented smoke and angry foreign sounding chant had begun;

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto,
Mata ah-oo hima de
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto,
Himitsu wo shiri tai

You're wondering who I am-machine or mannequin
With parts made in Japan, I am the modern man

I've got a secret I've been hiding under my skin
My heart is human, my blood is boiling, my brain I.B.M.
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto, domo...domo
Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto

Although I couldn’t understand the ancient chant I soon discovered the reason behind its obvious anger. There besides the river was a giant stone Olmec-like god and where it’s head was supposed to look sanguinely down upon his adherents there was the semi-intact body of a bull.

Head cows later became ceremonial dress

A high priestess quickly broke off the lament to her God and turned angrily towards me, ‘No, No, meata forjin! Veeh gan, Veeh gan! Meata est murh durrrr! No, murh durrrr forjin!’ Although I couldn’t grasp this strange insensible dialect that would one day become renowned for it’s use by the most annoying Star Wars character in existence, I knew that I was going to be blamed for befouling their giant god.

I quickly went into a lengthy description of aircraft maintenance schedules, more in the hope of putting this savage priestess to sleep rather than to explain myself. But by the time I had been able to describe everything from the heady adventure of two brothers at Kitty Hawk up until the general space requirements of a D Check on a C-130 Hercules, I could tell that she was in no mood for my excuses.

She shouted towards the moonlight sky, ‘Baydi powaa of greyskull, smyyyte dis Deckhead!’ and as though some magical incantation had been uttered, above the bull befouled demi-god a rent appeared in space and hovering within it's depths was a strange severed head being interviewed by what could only be described as some sort of large strangely coloured African animal in a explorers uniform. As the severed head intoned the ancient curse, ‘Buymyceedee!’ I felt the eyes of the African Spirit penetrate my soul where it found my greatest weakness. I fell to my knees, ‘But that was a secret’ I whispered, ‘how could you know that?’

The Wright Bros also angered the fates
by flying over an Olmec God at Kitty Hawk.

In that moment my greatest fear was realised as a banana, the only thing to which I was allergic, fell from the rent in space and landed in the hand of the goddess. She drew back her hand. I could feel my throat itching already. She took aim. I silently wished I knew what on gods green earth could counteract a banana. She threw the cursed fruit that was technically a herb at my chest. ‘SAVE ME’, I yelled. There was a rush of furry felt-like fingers and everything went black.

Monkey and Purple concede that they cannot find any signs of civilisation
and therefore must be lost.

As I regained consciousness a small brown Monkey was looking over his shoulder at an Orangutan, ‘Hi Purple!’ he said before looking deep into my eyes, ‘I caught the Banana, indeed I did!’. I looked down at my chest to see his furry fingers clasped strongly around one end of the banana. ‘But the other end appears to be embedded in my left ventricle’ I gasped. After the Monkeys untelligible rage had subsided into general mutterings of, ‘I caught the banana, damn it, I caught it!’ I was glad to discover that Monkey and this ‘Purple’ character were in fact lost Doctors who had taken a wrong turn on their way to a Borneo Cardio-thorasic Surgeons conference. After several hours of surgery that seemed to consist of Monkey eating the banana, Monkey intermittently hurling poo every time my heart stopped, and Purple calmly taking over the surgery while stating, ‘This reminds of when Calzone went psycho with the [fill in the blank]’, I managed to survive.

This is the only banana I am not allergic too,
so I heart it very much.

I’ve been firm friends with Monkey and Purple ever since. Of course, when we tell the story, Monkey most certainly DID save my life from a savage bananaring, and to suggest poo-flinging during heart surgery is not therapeutic is just a slur against his brave act. And I could explain how we managed to smooth things over with the Boliv-egan Natives, or how we managed to find passage out of the remote area, or how I was even contracted for the job seeing as I’ve never been on a cattle farm or flown a plane… but unfortunately my word limit is up riiiiiiiiight, NOW!