Year of the Monkey

The youth was staring at the display when I walked up. As one of the museum’s guides, I often had to try and help the visitors understand the displays.

“So this charts the history of the planet, as divided into symbolic measures of time, into ‘years’. Now-“

“I get that,” she interrupted with obvious disdain. “But why these divisions? Who decided this was how it worked?”

“They were agreed upon by consensus of the scientific community. This ‘year’ is when the giant lizards existed, and this ‘year’ is when the monkeys existed on this planet, before they killed themselves off.”