The Mirror & The Monkey

A king who seeks to keep his kingdom safe and immaculate orders the destruction of a flower that he regards as pernicious weed, but soon finds that he has awakened the dragon who sleeps beneath a nearby mountain. The dragon takes her revenge on the king by eating his favorite horse and turning his firstborn son into a monkey. The king's angry reaction to this sets in motion a chain of events that will destroy his kingdom and scatter its people in all directions. In the midst of these events the young monkey will discover the pain of loss, the joy of love, and the secret of who he is.

R. S. Deese grew up in Claremont, California. He currently teaches History at Boston University and is the author of We Are Amphibians: Julian and Aldous Huxley on the Future of Our Species (University of California Press, 2014) and Surf Music (Pelekinesis, 2017). His poetry has been published in AGNI, Berkeley Poetry Review, MungBeing, The New Formalist, Poetry Motel, and The Quarterly.

Chuck Wadey is an illustrator and art director in the video game industr y, having worked for Activision, Team Chaos, Zynga, and Monumental. He has a BFA in Illustration from Art Center College of Design.