The stick he won't put down
Togar is five when he notices his mother slip a stick into the fruit guarded by little hairs that dig in, to get the seeds out without hurting herself, and into an old trunk to reach the honey. So he finds his own. He tries it, it doesn't work, he tries it again. And he keeps it.
That stick doesn't come built in. Using a tool to open a fruit or get at honey is something you learn by watching, that mothers pass to their infants, and that each valley of the forest does a little its own way, like inheriting a custom. Togar is receiving it gesture by gesture, without knowing that one day he'll pass it on to another infant. For now he lugs it everywhere, the same way you'll carry this bag: always on you, just in case.







