Once, there was a Man whose prison was a chair. The Man had a Monkey; they made the strangest pair. The Man was a captive; the Monkey held the key. No matter how he strained, the Man couldn't flee. Locked in his dungeon, terrified and frail; the Monkey wielding power, keeping him in jail. The Man tried to keep the Monkey from his brain, but every move he made became the Monkey's gain. The Monkey ruled the Man; it climbed inside his head. And now, as fate would have it, one of them is dead. — Monkey Shines (1988) · Afterword