The picture was taken on a regular Tuesday.Ash was thinking about the crate.So he did what he learned to do to survive.He held himself.
That is okay.Holding yourself is still holding on.Sometimes being brave looks like sitting still and waiting for the world to be gentle.And sometimes,it is.
You do not have to swing through trees all the time to be okay. Sometimes okay looks like this.Quiet.Gold in the light.And that is enough.
What I see in the picture
A small honey-gold gibbon sits on a thick tree branch.The bark under him is rough and old.There are patches of green moss growing in the cracks and places where the bark has peeled away to show dry wood underneath.The branch looks strong.It looks like it has held a lot of weight before.It looks like it knows how to stay.
Behind him the world is blurry.It is all soft brown and faded green like autumn that does not want to leave.The light is low and warm.It falls on his fur and makes him glow.Not bright.Not loud.Just enough to notice.Like someone left a lamp on in a quiet room.
He is not swinging.He is not playing. He is not making noise. He is curled into a tight ball.Both arms are wrapped around his knees.His white hands are gripping his legs like he is holding something that might break if he lets go.His chin is down.His shoulders are pulled in.His whole body is making itself small.
His fur is thick and fluffy.It looks like a teddy bear that got caught in the rain and then dried in the sun.It is messy in places,neat in others.Around his face is a white mask,neat and clean against the gold.His eyes are dark and round.They are tired.Not sad in a loud way.Not crying.Just done.Like he has watched too much and has no words left for any of it.Like he has seen hands that take and voices that laugh and has learned to be quiet through all of it.
He looks alone.But it is not the kind of alone that shouts.It is a quiet kind of alone.The kind that sits in your chest and does not speak.The kind that makes the air around it feel still.The kind that does not ask for attention but gets it anyway.
You can tell he is breathing.You can tell he is here.But he is trying to take up as little space as possible.Like if he becomes small enough,the world will forget to hurt him again. Like if he does not move,nothing else will go wrong.
The branch under him is steady. The forest behind him is soft.And in the middle of it all,he is just sitting.Holding himself.Waiting.
What it makes me feel like
A sensitive person will feel this in the ribs first.For a girl,It will land there before it reaches her brain.
She will feel seen.Because she knows what it is like to sit on the edge of her bed at 2am.Or on the floor of her room with her back against the wall.Hugging her knees.Pretending she is just resting.When really she is trying to hold herself together with both hands.
The gibbon is not crying.He is not screaming.He is not asking for anything. He is just sitting.And that is what makes it hit hard.Sensitive girls know that feeling.The world keeps moving.People keep talking.Phones keep buzzing.And you are just there,trying to be quiet enough,small enough,that nothing else can find you.
It will make her feel grief.For all the times she had to be strong and no one noticed.For all the times she smiled in public and then went home and fell apart in private.For all the times she swallowed her words because saying them out loud would make them real,and real hurts. For all the times she told herself "I am fine" when she was not fine at all.
It will make her feel soft.The gibbon looks gentle.So fragile.Like he could be hurt by a loud voice or a careless hand.Sensitive girls protect fragile things.She will want to reach through the screen and cover him with a blanket.She will want to bring him warm tea.She will want to sit next to him on the branch and not talk.Just sit.Shoulder to shoulder.Because sometimes that is all a heart needs.Someone who does not ask questions.Someone who just stays.
It will also make her feel tired with him.The kind of tired that comes from carrying things for too long.The kind of tired that sleep does not fix.The kind of tired that lives behind your eyes.She will recognize that look in his eyes.The look that says, "I am still here,but I am not okay yet." The look that says,”Do not ask me to explain."
And then it will make her feel something else.Something smaller,but important.Hope.A quiet kind of hope.Because he is still here.Still on the branch.Still breathing.Still holding on.Even if he is only holding himself right now.
That matters.Because holding on is a choice.Even when it is just holding your own knees.Even when it is just breathing in and out.Even when it is just staying on the branch for one more day.
She will close the picture and carry it with her for the rest of the day.And later,when she feels too much,she will remember him.She will remember that quiet can be okay too.That you do not have to be loud to be strong.That you do not have to be okay all the time to be worthy of care.
Sometimes the bravest thing is to sit. To breathe.To hold yourself until the world becomes gentle again.
The Story
They did not call him Ash at first.They called him Number 4.That is how it works in a sanctuary.You do not give names to animals that are hurt.Names make it harder when they leave.
Ash came in a metal crate that smelled like fear and diesel.He was two years old.His fur was matted and his left arm had a long scar.The papers said he was rescued from a roadside tourist spot.For two years people paid to take pictures with him.They gave him soda and bread.They dressed him in a tiny shirt. When the cameras stopped,they put him back in a crate.No trees.No other gibbons.No swinging.
The rescue team brought him to a sanctuary in Loralai.It was cold there.Mountain cold.They gave him a room with one branch and one blanket.He did not touch the blanket for a week.
He picked one corner branch and that was it.Every morning he climbed up and curled up exactly like in the picture.Arms around knees.Chin down.Eyes open.
An old keeper named Nadir started coming every afternoon at 3pm.He did not go inside the enclosure.He sat on a rock outside with tea.He did not look at Ash directly.He hummed old Pashto songs instead.
For months nothing changed.Then one spring day,Nadir looked up and Ash was sitting taller.Still hugging himself but his head was up.Looking at the sky.
After that Ash started to move more.He ate fruit.He watched the other gibbons.But he still did not sing.Gibbons sing to talk to each other.It sounds like laughing and crying at the same time.
They tried to introduce him to Laila, another gibbon.It did not work.Ash curled up tighter.Nadir said,”You cannot rush a heart that came out of a crate."
One day Nadir left an old cloth by the fence.The next morning it was gone.Two days later they found it tucked under Ash’s branch.Six months later they opened a door between Ash and Laila’s enclosures and walked away.For an hour there was silence.Then a sound came.Low and shaky.A song.It was Ash.
Laila answered.Then the whole sanctuary.
Nadir ran outside.Ash was sitting tall on the branch.Laila was sitting below him. Not touching.Just there.A year later Ash still curls up on cold days.But now Laila sits below him.And Nadir still comes with tea even though he is retired.
This is my entry for contest. Here are the rules.
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THE END
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