remembering monkeys

Me? Really?

The central question I'm exploring with the screenplay I'm currently writing is this: can memory be trusted to present us with an accurate version of reality... and, does this matter?

Browsing through an old journal this morning, I serendipitously found this snippet from December of 2001:

"One of my first memories is of being peed on by a fluffy grey monkey named Gus. He was just a baby, so I was struck more by the novelty of it than by any sort of anger at finding myself covered in monkey-excretion. But looking though old photos a week ago, I discovered that Gus was brown, not grey, and that his fur was actually more wooly than anything. Still, it pleases me more to remember him as the years and my subsequent monkey experience have made him - grey and fluffy - and so I will."

The funny thing about this is that now, eleven years later, I can't really remember Gus at all - let alone that he peed on me. I remember being peed on by a different monkey, who at the time was gazing lovingly into my eyes as I fed him from my plate at the dinner table. But he was an Emperor Tamarin; a nasty, evil little white-mustachioed chap, who will live forever in infamy. Because that's how I want to remember him.