Under the relentless sun, a tiny form lay motionless in the dirt—a baby monkey, abandoned and utterly spent. This was the poorest of creatures, not just in body but in spirit. His energy was completely gone, siphoned away by days of crying, hunger, and fear. He was very exhausted, so much so that he could no longer stand, crawl, or even lift his head to call out. He simply lay there, his shallow breaths the only sign of the fragile life still clinging within.
His exhaustion was total. Earlier, he had cried until his voice grew hoarse, screamed until his lungs burned, all for a mother who never returned. Now, even that was beyond him. His limbs felt like stones, too heavy to move. His eyes, glazed and half-open, stared without seeing. Flies buzzed around his matted fur, but he lacked the strength to twitch them away. He had given up, his small body shutting down in the cruelest form of surrender. The fight was over.
It was this very stillness that saved him. A farmer, walking the path, nearly missed the tiny, dusty heap. But something—a faint tremor, a slight rise of the ribs—made him pause. His heart sank at the pitiful sight. The baby was not dead, but dying from sheer exhaustion and neglect.
With a tenderness belying his rough hands, the farmer knelt. He gently scooped the limp infant into his palm, feeling the alarming lack of weight. He hurried home, cradling the creature against his chest. In the cool shade of his hut, he used a soft cloth dampened with water to wipe the dust from the baby’s mouth and face. He prepared a weak solution of sugar water and, drop by painstaking drop, let it fall onto the monkey’s tongue.
At first, nothing. Then, a swallow. A minute later, another. Life, slowly, began to seep back. The profound exhaustion did not vanish, but its grip loosened. Wrapped in a clean cloth and placed in a sheltered basket, the poorest abandoned baby monkey finally slept—not the desperate stillness of collapse, but the deep, restorative sleep of one who is, at last, safe. His exhaustion remained, but it was now a path to recovery, not an end.
