The Fear of Monkeys - The Best E-Zine on the Web for Politically Conscious WritingThe Indri - Issue Forty-Seven
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Vervet Monkey from Christiano Artuso The Indri is one of the largest lemurs and is native to the lowland and montane forests along the eastern coast of Madagascar, from the Réserve Spéciale d'Anjanaharibe-Sud in the north to the Mangoro River in the south. Herbivorous, they feed mainly on young, tender leaves, but will also eat seeds, fruits, and flowers. Their large greenish eyes and black face are framed by round, fuzzy ears. Their silky fur is mostly black with white patches along the limbs, neck, crown, and lower back. Different populations of the species show wide variations in color, with some northern populations consisting of mostly or entirely black individuals. Their face is bare with pale black skin, and it is sometimes fringed with white fur and they have only a rudimentary tail. They are about 64-72 cm tall and weigh between 6 and 9.5 kg. They maintain an upright posture when climbing or clinging and practice long-term monogamy, seeking a new partner only after the death of a mate. They live in small groups consisting of the mated male and female and their maturing offspring. Like many other species of lemur, indri live in a female dominant society. The dominant female often will displace males to lower branches and poorer feeding grounds, and is typically the one to lead the group during travel. Many groups move 300-700 m daily, with most distance travelled midsummer in search of fruit. They sleep in trees about 10-30 m above ground and typically sleep alone or in pairs. They reach sexual maturity between the ages of 7 and 9 and females bear offspring every two to three years, with a gestation period around 120-150 days. The mother is the primary caregiver, though the father assists, remaining with his mate and offspring, despite the infant clinging to their mother's belly until they are four or five months old, at which time they move onto her back. The indri begins to demonstrate independence at eight months. They are the only mammal other than humans so far discovered which can use rhythm. They make loud, distinctive songs, which can last from 45 seconds to more than 3 minutes. Song duration and structure varies among and even within groups, but most songs have a three-phase pattern. Usually, a roaring sequence lasting for several seconds will precede the more characteristic vocalizations. All members of the group except the very young participate in this roar, but the song proper is dominated by the adult pair. Different indri groups typically sing sequentially, responding to one another. As well as solidifying contacts between groups, the songs may communicate territorial defense and boundaries, environmental conditions, reproductive potential of the group members, and warning signals. Countless variations are given on the legend of the indri's origins, but they all treat them as sacred animals who are not to be harmed. Despite the origin myths and traditional taboos (fady), however, in practice where western influence is felt and economic times are tough, they are hunted and their habitat destroyed due to slash and burn agriculture, fuelwood gathering, and logging. They are a critically endangered species. While population estimates are uncertain (1000 to 10000 individuals), the population appears to be rapidly shrinking and may diminish by 80% over the next three generations.

   


The Bucket

by

Travis Flatt

He died for a bucket of water.

In an attempt to commandeer a bucket's worth of gritty water, my jarhead step son ate a .22 rifle shell in Greenland. "Jarhead" is not a term I'd ever used until he started writing self-deprecating letters home to his mother and I from Marine Corps basic training, and it stuck to my dusty tongue. The kid, to our horror, enlisted in the Navy (well, tried to), but they deemed him unfit to fly. He'd lost too much hearing from repeated ear infections as a kid. The infections were way before we met--his mother and I. Why she let him swim in Center Hill lake, which by that point was as much sewage as water, I'll never know. But they hid that. The sewage, I mean.

Seems like you could smell it?

That was probably the last generation to swim summers, poisonous or not.

I mumble. So with the kid's compromised hearing, I doubt he ever fully understood a sentence I said.

As for myself, I got old-fashioned swimmer's ear a couple of times when I was around the kid's age. Maybe a little older. This was at the Gulf, when it was pushing up into Atlanta. I remember thinking that it felt like there was a bug inside my ear, chewing on the flesh. But whatever they called his infections put Braylon in the hospital. These were closer to staph infections.

He'd play those old tank games on XBox Live and watch dozens of those YouTube videos about the history of modern arms and weaponry. That was a big trend in the early 30's, had been a fad when I was his age, too--things cycle around like that. But the kid was nine and could name every fighter jet ever made just at a glimpse. He'd protest anachronisms in the movies we'd watch. This kid was an expert on warplanes. I had no idea what he was talking about. He'd get all excited, talking about Afghanistan and Israel--stuff he read about online--and how he wanted to enlist when he got older. "Braylon, I don't believe in war," I'd say. He'd look at me like I was crazy when I tried to explain pacifism.

So the kid's obsession with tanks and planes--he never outgrew that like I'd hoped he would. When he got to high school--and this was right when the skirmishes were breaking out around the glaciers--his eyes still shone like the flash of polished uniform shoes at the mention of war.

We assumed all service would deny him because of his ears. His school wouldn't even let him play football. But they let him join JROTC, then college ROTC for a minute before he left for basic training.

In high school, though, they'd had this thing called "rifle team," which was exactly what it sounds like. The kid was a natural crack shot and kept winning until he qualified for regionals, then nationals. There were always these two kids--twins--from Arkansas at his tournaments. If anyone ever beat him, it'd be the girl twin--Ashlynn Crane. The Ashlynn Crane. I knew the general of the Republic of Little Rock when she was fourteen.

Look, I know I'm all over the goddamn place here, but the kid loved planes, tanks, and won second place in a rifle tournament with the leader of that army. Those terrorists. This was two years before any real war broke out, native or foreign. If they hadn't sent him off to Greenland, he might have fought against her though, Ashlynn. I don't know how I feel about that. But it's not like it really matters. A tragic waste of lives, that rebellion--kind of pathetic, really. Had seven million Americans not died over a bullshit cause, over nothing, maybe Ashlynn would have been there fighting with my son in Greenland. He could have used a friend. I don't know what ever happened to her brother. He probably died in that "civil war," like his sister.

Goddamn.

So, with the lower half of his face shot off, of course we had to have a closed-casket funeral. We were lucky there was a corpse at all. Lots of parents don't have that luxury anymore. His mom is a shell at this point. I was never any good at consolation. When we'd been together about a year, her father died of lung cancer. He never smoked a day of his life. It was one of those ironic, all too common things. I watched her cry and cry, hysterical. And I thought she was being melodramatic, I'm ashamed to say. When my parents died--Alzheimer's for my mom and heart attack for my dad, respectively--I just felt cold.

The worst I ever felt about a death was over my last dog, Rosie.

Braylon--I guess he'd come in second as far as deaths go. He knew what he was getting into, at least. My dog just got lymphoma and wasted away. She never had any idea why she was in such pain. I should be ashamed to say it, but putting her down was the worst day of my life. I was drunk when I took her to the vet. My cousin, Silas, was still making wine out of something. Well, "grapes," he said, but I definitely never saw a vineyard.

And now we're left with a dead kid, or, I guess the memory of a kid. And who knows how many years to watch these wars stretch on. They say the glaciers will last for seventy years. If Braylon had lived, he'd face dehydration. Hell, I'd probably take a bullet over that.

We cremated Braylon. The ground's too hard here for graves.

When I was his age, America didn't invade nations for buckets of water. I'd have donated blood to save the boy's life if he hadn't been 3,000 miles away.

While he was in the field hospital, they gave him a juice box, allegedly. A fifty-dollar juice box made from extinct pineapples. That's one of the perks you get for signing up. You know, they made sure to let us know in the email they sent about Braylon that they'd managed to catch some of the blood splurting from his ruined face into some canteens so his company would have some left to infuse the next dumbass jarhead.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: we burned my dead son because some thirsty Dane shot his face off over a bucket of water.

Travis Flatt (he/him) is a teacher and actor living in Middle Tennessee. He is epileptic. His work appears in Drunk Monkeys, Roi Faineant, Streetlight Magazine (upcoming) and other publications.

 
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