Wounded Orangutan First Animal To Be Discovered Self-Medicating
A portrait of photographers: Indonesia.
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WHEN KEMALA FIRST MADE THE DECISION TO COME HERE, she hadn’t expected to be regularly interrupted, in her own apartment, by a gangly Scottish photographer whose name she couldn’t pronounce. It usually happened at around this time of day. It wasn’t good that it happened, but it was good that it fell into some kind of predictable pattern. Common sense didn't leave a lot of free time.
The routine for the morning would be the same as it had always been. Basuki would bring his “Jeep” around, which was not in fact a Jeep, no matter what Basuki liked to say. In reality it was just an old 90s Panjero, gifted to the foundation when it was first inaugurated. Over the years, enough head-on collisions with the branches had worn away most of the car’s outer markings, making it anyone’s guess. Basuki had even crashed it, once, and almost lost his license, but for someone high-up stepping in, somewhere, at the last minute. ‘American,’ he would say, slapping his hand on the steering wheel, ‘it’s kacau... but you gotta love something American.’
The knock came a little after five o’clock. The sun was already rising; grey light blurred the edges of her window. Another blunt, tropical morning. Rodney usually let himself in. “Oh, there you are,” he said, as if she would have been standing any differently to any other morning. Bag packed by the sink, by the door, ready to go. Her eyes stared flatly at the intruder, who walked over to the stove, and tapped his fingers at the edges of the kettle. Still hot, still full. “So… that’s a yes? For this morning? Please? It’ll be lovely.” “How long do we have?” “About twenty-five minutes.” “Have you already got one?” “Have I already got one what?” “Do you have to… set it all up, still?” Rodney turned towards her. “- do you mean have I rolled?” Kemala grimaced. There was something she did not like in the English language. Something about the shape of its letters, something about its completeness. “Yes, I’ve rolled,” Rodney laughed. “Thanks for boiling the kettle, I see we’ve both invested. I’ll even make the coffee - or do you want me to go and sort the chairs?” “I’ll make coffee,” Kemala said.
In many ways, Kemala wished she’d never indulged Rodney that first time, on Christmas Eve. He was a charming a young man, in his late twenties, with loose, naturally red hair that also grew into an impressive moustache. He held an S-shaped posture quite effortlessly and might have been the world’s foremost expert on any device in the EOS-R range. He’d been raised in a place he called Scum-Dee City, and didn’t speak much about his early adult years unless he was telling a story related to alcohol, the many times he'd re-watched John Cassavettes’ movie ‘Shadows’, or if wanting to sleep with someone. He made no secret about his drug habits from the beginning. When he found out that Kemala was from J-Town's Menteng district, he’d made every effort to find some way into her schedule.
The truth was, he was a long way from his home. She let him in to her one-room apartment on Christmas Eve. They sat outside, listening to the hiss of the early morning jungle, stars slipping in and out of the clouds. He was always reserved, but she could tell that it meant something. This was forever her distraction, others, finding meaning in things.
By the time she stepped out to her ‘balcony’, the two chairs had been neatly arranged. One buckwheat pillow, yellowed, clearly belonging to the outdoors, and one miniature plastic stool, thrown onto a circular rug whose central yellow ring marked out the floorspace for a make-believe table. Two sticks of incense had been lit and set in a marbled stone ornament, all of which was against the regulations, but these sticks were Rodney’s personal stash. IRN BRU, said the thin cardboard box he’d taken them out of. She passed him down his coffee. He was sitting on the pillow.
It wasn’t much of a balcony. A small, almost shower-cubicle sized terrace, walled on three sides, and barred with blackened glass at hip on the other. If anything, it was stupid to sit down; the view (of the opposite block) disappeared, and the space was so small that once you had established your sitting position, you could not move your legs without also forcing the other person to move theirs. It was a tight squeeze, with room enough for two hopeful, small chairs, and a table. The only objectively redeeming feature was the knowledge that fifteen minutes from the doorstep, the rainforest began.
Rodney was smiling a wide, contented grin. He was also wearing a ridiculous hat, mauve green, with a single cork dangling from either side of the brim. Kemala grimaced as she lowered herself to the floor and slid the chair back against the concrete, instantly making it larger. Nearby, a troop of gibbons began their melodious whoops, their sound intermingling with the rising steam in the air. A lighter clicked privately beneath Rodney’s hat, which he lifted, and exhaled a large, distinctly white cloud of smoke.
“Well, bugger me,” he said, as the flame crackled faintly, “I’m in Indonesia.” “Have you still not gotten used to it yet?” Sometimes, Rodney could react to a question in a very particular way, a way that made it seem like the person asking had missed quite an obvious joke. There was a small moment of silence. “I suppose I’m used to it.” Then, giving it some thought, he said: “I miss the dippers.” “Dippers?” “Yeah, the dippers.” Kemala paused. “Is this another one of your… ‘haggus’ things?” “What do you mean?” Rodney looked ready for a challenge. The glint in the eye, already! So early in the morning. She sipped her coffee. “Where it isn’t real.” “Oh, no,” he laughed. “The dippers. These ones are as real as Chicken Selects.” “What’s a chicken select?” “Oh, I forget,” he added, handing her the smoking wad of leaves, “we’ve only just covered Greggs.” “Thank you,” she said. She drew in a breath of her own, took a sip of her coffee. Her voice became harsh and strained. “So, what’s a dipper?” “Oh,” Rodney said, having forgotten about the question. “What time is it?” “Five zero five.” “Ha, five zero five.” “What?” Rodney giggled. “Nice number,” he said. She lost interest in him for now, and cast her gaze up towards the sky. A small fleck of rain landed on her left cheek; the calls of the gibbons were getting louder. Something in her body was loosening, something was focusing, something was being adjusted. Was it rain, or had she twitched? Could she, behind the smoke of this morning, detect, somewhere, the sound of a drum? How much of it could she even be sure of? Several minutes had passed. “What’s a dipper?” she asked.
A dipper, as it turned out, was a small river bird, native to the Northern British Isles, that would bob up and down each time it landed on a rock. “And why do you like them?” “Well… because they’ve basically got hydraulics.” “You mean, like a car?” “No, ya dafty… not like a car. Not like a car at all.” “But you do mean the bouncy things?” “Yeah, the suspension, those ones, yeah.” She wasn’t sure, but didn’t mind - it was nice to see how other people played. “And why’s that important?” “Well, let’s imagine, you’re a wee bird, right?” “Right…” “… what’s your main problem?” Kemala thought for a moment. Actually, all she did was think about thinking. “I don’t know,” she said. “… it’s bumping into things.” Now she thought about birds bumping into things. “… because, right, and I’m even overlooking all of those collision statistics, which I know you know… but have a think, right? You’re a bird. You can fly. Boom. You have just doubled, or probably quadrupled, the amount of space you can explore. More than that. You’ve octupled it, or something, probably. Infinite freedom. Lots of places to go…” “Sounds good to me.” “… ah, well, it does, yasee, until… ten times as much to explore?” “Yeah?” “… ten times as much to bump into. And probably more.” “And that’s why birds need hydraulics?” “Yes.” “That’s why dippers need hydraulics?” “Essential.” “And what are dippers bumping into?” Rodney was caught slightly by surprise. It delighted him. “I don’t know, ask them.”
They spent the next seventeen-and-a-half-minutes in this kind of conversation, only adjusting their legs once. Their coffees weren’t cold, but were lukewarm, with only the powdery dregs left at the bottom of the cup. The gibbons had stopped some time ago; they would probably start again soon after they left. Slowly, Kemala rose to her feet, and the sound of an angry Jeep could be heard rolling around to the front of the building.
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Read the original article (Georgina Rannard - BBC News)⚡
Wounded orangutan seen using plant as medicine - BBC News
disclaimer:
This is fiction. The views expressed in this publication do not reflect the views of the author. The stories themselves are based on imagined events. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is fictitious and should not be taken as representative.
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Food wild animals eat gives them natural medication plus add clay in the diet to help---only when people get involved vets get involved as they think they know better---THINK an important word!?
Is it hydraulics that wag the tail on a wag tail?