The Sockmonkey Sanctuary

It was an interesting day at the sanctuary this week when an unexpected Sockmonkey turned up to visit Divine Phentom-Phoams, who has such a tragic story, like so many of the Sockmonkeys’ who come here for refuge.Divine Phentom-Phoams comes from an aristocratic background and a tremendously long line of Phentom-Phoams It is even rumored that somewhere in their distant lineage is Royal blood..

She was brought up in a typical upper class jet-set lifestyle, playing polo, going to concerts, or helping her older brothers pick which racehorse to buy. To the casual observer it seemed like a dream lifestyle. What wasn’t commonly known was that most of the gold and massive fortune that belonged to the Phentom-Phoams family was due to owning the only silk-mines in south Africa. It was the cheap almost slave-labour of thousands of Sockmonkeys’ in these deep and dangerous mines that was driving their vast fortune. The terrible working conditions were fraught with danger, there were frequent cave-ins, fires, and floods.

Over the years countless numbers of Sockmonkeys perished in those hellish mines, some even being born down in the mines never even seeing daylight before malnutrition and flash floods took them from this world.

The Phentom-Phoams family only cared about the money coming in, and sat back in their luxurious mansions ignoring the pain and anguish they knowingly caused to the mine workers. Divine was too young to understand all this. It was a family secret, that was only told to their members after it was decided that they would not tell the world about their dark family secrets.

So this would have continued, however after centuries of mining the seams of silk began to run out, with no-work to occupy the slaves, and no money supplying their food – the poor workers began to starve, being kept in captivity inside the mines.

It wasn’t long before a revolt took place – thousands of Sockmonkeys’ driven to the brink of existence had no choice but to rebel, a dark wave of dust covered Sockmonkeys’ poured out of the mines and began burning everything in sight. The target of their revenge was the Phentom-Phoams family, and their mansion estate. Seeing the mob coming towards them the family consisting of the young divine phentom-phoams, her parents realizing the seriousness of the situation gathered up her brothers and sisters, and rushed upstairs to hide in the attic – They
forgot the poor Divine who was playing in the basement, and did not hear the incoming crowd. The angry mob had worked themselves up into a frenzy and tore through the house like a whirlwind, smashing windows, stealing paintings and books and all the time searching for family members.

Divine heard the commotion coming from above her and hid inside a potato sack, shivering with fright. We don’t know quite what happened next but according to records and eyewitness accounts the mob broke through into the attic and dragged the family outside. They set light to the house but by some miracle the sack that Divine was hiding in was completely missed by falling debris and the mob. By the next day Divine crawled out of the rubble, and the sack to find the dead bodies of her entire family outside the ruins of her home. The ex mine workers were still not satisfied, they told their story to the world, and the Phentom-Phoams wealth was redistributed amongst the surviving Sockmonkeys’ who had worked in the mine.

Divine, had no-where to turn to, so over the years she became a Street Sockmonkey, living off her wits, scavenging food and sleeping where she could. She managed to piece together her family history and lived her life in secret, afraid of people finding out about her family’s dark past. She moved to Majorca, and became an alcoholic, and sockmonkey of the night.

It was during this stage of life where she met an alcoholic by the name of Bananabrows, an odd looking Sockmonkey, he wasn’t interested in using her like so many before, he talked and talked to her for hours,
just paying for her company. She began to fall in love with him despite herself, he was so different to the other Sockmonkeys, he seemed genuinely interested in helping her.

They had a whirlwind romance – this loving sockmonkey had put something into her life that she had never known before, he seemed wealthy, and bought her a small flat to live in. One day she woke up and he was no longer there, he’d simply vanished, She was heartbroken, and it was shortly after that she discovered she was pregnant. She had 2 baby Sockmonkeys to look after and she was desperate. A Sockmonkey doesn’t get any help from the government with childcare, and Divine was thinking of taking to the streets again. It was through chance that she heard about the Sockmonkey Sanctuary, a place to help a Sockmonkey find their way once again. By hitchhiking, hiding on boats, and walking Divine Phentom-Phoams arrived – exhausted at the door of the Sockmonkey sanctuary.

Filed under: Latest News on August 26th, 2007