The voice from the other side of the valley
Some mornings, when the forest is still dark, a long, deep sound arrives from far away: the call of a big male orangutan, one of the wide flanges, who lives in the next valley over. It's the voice that carries farthest in the whole forest — heard from nearly a kilometer and a half off, farther than any other — and it announces, simply, that the big one is there.
Togar goes still when he hears it. He listens until the sound dies away completely, and only then goes back to what he was doing. He knows, without anyone explaining it, that this voice is his horizon: one day he'll be the one who has it, with his big voice and his own patch of forest to roam. For now, when he tries, out comes a tiny little squeak. But it doesn't bother him: he tries again the next day, and the one after, like someone breaking in a size that's still too big.







