The Fear of Monkeys - The Best E-Zine on the Web for Politically Conscious WritingThe Senegal Galago - Issue Eleven
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The Senegal Galago, photo from Christian ArtusoThe Senegal Galago, or the lesser bush baby, is a small (130mm and 95-300 grams) nocturnal primate. They are agile leapers, and live in dry woodland regions and savannah regions of Africa south of the Sahara. They have woolly thick fur that ranges from silvery grey to dark brown. They have large eyes, strong hind limbs, and long tails, which help them balance. Their ears are made up of four segments that can bend back individually, to aid their hearing when hunting insects at night. Their omnivorous diet is a mixture of other small animals, including birds and insects, fruit, seeds, flowers, eggs, nuts, and tree gums. They are polygynous, and the females raise their young in nests made from leaves. They have 1-2 babies per litter, with gestation period being 110–120 days. Bush babies are born with half-closed eyes, unable to move about independently. After a few days, the mother carries the infant in her mouth, and leaves it on convenient branches while feeding. At the end of the night, group members use a special rallying call and gather to sleep in a nest made of leaves, in a group of branches, or in a hole in a tree. Their potential predators include mongooses, genets, jackals, domestic cats and dogs, raptors (especially owls), and snakes. In addition, several primates, including humans, Grey-cheeked mangabeys, blue monkeys, and chimpanzees, who have constructed spears, sometimes prey on bushbabies.

   



The Beggar’s Leg

By

Adam Valen Levinson

The beggar's leg jutted into the path of clambering metro-riders.

The man sat on the landing between the flight of stairs heading upwards into the cold sunlight and the one that went down under the overhang into the damp, tiled metro. He was situated just so on the concrete staircase that ascending or descending with the crowds, one might not notice a head floating at knee-height.

I saw him as I left the shade of the subway, but I could not see his leg, outstretched. Change rattled around in my jacket pockets, more easily reachable than usual, more valuable. I felt the Turkish one-lira coins with my fingertips.

And then I was beside him, looking down at my own feet as I noticed the leg that bent the flow of traffic in a silent arc. A stifled spasm. My upper half jerked forward and pulled the rest of me with it, shuddering.

The beggar's leg was but half a leg; not cut off crosswise, not a stump hanging below the knee, but eroded like a rotten log, eaten away from end to end. Yellow skin tinted green and flecked with the red of broken vessels, burst somethings and disease. I saw his leg crumbling like a nightmare I had never faced and I could not look, I could not turn back.

The part of me that feels fear pulled me away, up out of the stairwell by my own legs, around the corner towards home. Turn around.

Inside I screamed- half for the sad science of his wretchedness, half for finding myself so cruelly skittish. Turn around, goddammit.

I walked alone farther and farther away, joining the countless thousands who had skirted his leg and climbed the staircase. I walked towards a me I didn't like, yet one who recognized his own pitiful shortcomings. To go back was to view something that would live in my mind for days, weeks, I told myself. I had given before. I would give again.

But I had already seen what I would see. I had the chance to redo my actions - a mini experiment with time travel. There was no butterfly effect; there was only the beggar's leg.

I held the coins, maybe four or five, in my fist.

A choice.


Adam Valen Levinson lives in Abu Dhabi, blogs for The Huffington Post, and authors the travelogue INGULFED.com. Last year, he graduated from Columbia University. He loves orang-utans, but his mother loves them even more.
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