Jung Young Moon - Vaseline Buddha

And he could see a strange scene on television in which goats on a farm somewhere in the U.S. pass out at the slightest provocation, for instance, the sound of clapping or the sight of an open umbrella, and think that he could perhaps see why they did so but couldn’t in the end, and think of the animals he’d seen doing incredible things, thus recalling the time he went to a volcanic island, where he saw a roe deer lying face down near a little crater surrounded by a thick forest, which had collected water and turned into a swamp, and a crow sitting on its rump pecking and plucking its hair, and smile, thinking that the act looked quite erotic. And the crow was plucking the roe deer’s hair to use it in building its nest — the roe deer’s hair probably came in handy in building the crow’s nest — and the roe deer stayed still for a moment, not wanting to budge at that moment, it seemed, even while having its hair plucked, but in the end it got to its feet, as if to say that although it was all right for the crow to take a few strands of its hair without giving anything in return, it couldn’t let all its hair be plucked by the crow, and looking more dejected than offended, went off someplace else, after which he could recall how happy he’d felt to have had the good fortune to witness the little drama in the forest next to the crater, which perhaps took place between the roe deer and the crow on a daily basis.

And on occasion, he could think of animals that do astonishing things humans can’t understand, of which he knew quite a few, such as a cow that chewed and swallowed chickens whole, a water buffalo whose hobby it was to blow gusts of air into plastic bags, a badger that was found lying unconscious in the middle of a road, dead drunk after eating cherries that were ripe to the point of fermentation, and a parrot with a wounded heart that stayed with its head stuck between watermelons in a fruit shop, and think that perhaps by doing such things, they were, with joy and fury and despair, expressing in a difficult way the difficulty, and the joy and fury and despair, of living their daily lives as animals.

Or he could recall how, when he came outside after having lunch in a restaurant on a tropical island he visited, a cheeky and pathetic looking male monkey, which was tied to a tree in a corner of the shabby garden, suddenly lifted its colorful skirt and shyly, but at the same time brazenly, exposed its erect red penis as if to flaunt it. Thus he could detect something nasty, cheap, sly, and mean, almost to the point of evil, in the monkey, and although he wasn’t sure if such traits were something inherent in the monkey or gained through experience while living with people, and didn’t know why it did what it did, though perhaps for sexual reasons, he could think that it didn’t seem like sexual harassment that could take place between humans and animals, or think that the monkey was perhaps openly showing its pleasure, which it couldn’t bear not to show, or again, openly showing its displeasure, and if so, the act could have been an expression of good or ill feeling toward female monkeys, but of contempt or hostility toward humans. Or he could wonder if the monkey had been trained by its master to startle, offend, or please a stranger by doing so, or to do so whether the person was a stranger or not — in that case, it was up to the person to be startled, offended, or pleased, and not something for the monkey to be concerned about — or if the monkey wanted to show off its penis to someone, thinking it had nothing but its penis to show off, and so it couldn’t help but show off its penis, if nothing else, and he could think about the reason why the monkey had, as if it were something it did all the time, or at least without showing any signs of surprise, and without showing any signs of wanting to surprise the person, so nonchalantly taken out its penis, the size of which couldn’t be determined as immoderately small or large, or moderately large or small, or just right in proportion to its small body.

And he could return from the trip, and think that the monkey left a deeper impression on him than anything else he’d experienced on the trip, and spend some time thinking about it. So the monkey I encountered looked at me with a quite desperate look on its face, as if what it had just shown me was nothing compared to what it could show me, as if it were going to show me something more amazing, as if to see if I was ready for it, and so I couldn’t help but ask, What are you so desperate for? and watched what it did with my hands on my waist, because the monkey seemed too outrageous, and I thought of the word conduct, and thought for a moment about the conduct of the monkey that had made me think of the word, and yet felt great admiration for what it had done, giving no heed to humans, or looking down on humans, and felt delighted, and although I didn’t know what it was about to do, I thought about what there was I could do to help, to give some small aid in what it was about to do, but the monkey did nothing more, just blinked as if to say that although it didn’t know how I felt about what it did, it knew very well how it felt, and I didn’t feel the slightest honor at the monkey’s inclusion of me in its sexual conduct, and could not respond favorably to its effort to win my heart, for the effort was too explicit, without any subtlety, so I didn’t show much of a reaction and the monkey looked as if it regretted having lifted its skirt and exposing its genitals, which was understandable because it hadn’t gotten anything out of me, and its effort had produced no results, but the moment I was about to leave the spot, thinking there was nothing more the monkey would do that was worth watching, it took its penis in its paw and shook it, not pretending to masturbate but actually masturbating, and I watched as if in surprise or as if there were nothing surprising about it, not having known for sure if animals other than humans masturbated, and although I didn’t know if perhaps the monkey’s master, thinking he could do anything for his beloved monkey, thought about what he could do and came up with the idea of teaching the monkey how to masturbate, and taught it how to masturbate, or if monkeys masturbated on their own, and although I felt that the little monkey touching its little genitals seemed somewhat brazen yet boring, I realized once again that humans and animals and everything in the world coexisted in a strange way, and didn’t hide my joy at the realization, but the monkey, for some reason, made a face and didn’t hide its uneasiness, and when I tried to pull its skirt back down, it became extremely angry and ran wildly around the tree, and ended up being bound up tight by its leash, and I wanted to give the monkey a bit of a hard time, something it deserved, but I wasn’t sure what to do, and at that moment the monkey’s master appeared, looking angry even though he didn’t know what had taken place, and he could sneak off, thinking that he usually chose to lose courage in the face of someone angry, and think that one time long ago, he had the thought that there was something inherently funny about sexual things.

And it was while he was having intercourse with a woman that he had the thought that things of a sexual nature could easily be associated with jokes, and he could think that sex, while it was the most serious act that all mating animals took part in, without which preservation of species wasn’t possible, there was something ridiculous about the specifics of it, the act itself, and that laughter at times could be the most fatal blow to sex, and it became difficult to concentrate on sex when you burst out laughing, and sex was one of the most typical things that could seem ridiculous and preposterous while you’re doing it, and although it was okay to smile quietly in your heart thinking that, you shouldn’t laugh, and the moment you realized what a funny thing it was to engage seriously in sex, sex could come to a funny end, and I could also think that sex was one of the things in which the absurdity hidden in everything serious could easily be encountered, which wasn’t surprising since everything serious contains something absurd.