Everyone in the village laughed the first time they saw the baby monkey. Not a gentle chuckle, but the kind of laugh that bursts out before you can stop it—half shock, half disbelief. The baby lay on its back on a warm stone near the river, arms and legs splayed like a toy someone had dropped and forgotten. Its tiny chest rose and fell so slowly that people squinted, wondering if it was breathing at all. “It’s probably close to death,” someone joked, and the laugh emoji might as well have floated in the air above them. 🤣
But the baby monkey did not die. Not then, anyway.
The truth was that the baby had simply discovered the deepest nap of its short life. After a morning of clinging too tightly to its mother’s fur, after being jostled by older monkeys leaping from branch to branch, after tasting leaves that were far too bitter and fruit that was far too sour, the baby had given up. It had let go. Gravity did the rest, lowering it gently onto the stone, where sunlight wrapped it in warmth like a blanket.
Its mother watched from the shade. She had learned, over years of raising infants in a dangerous world, that panic wasted energy. She chewed calmly, eyes half-closed, tail flicking flies away. She knew her baby’s habits—the dramatic collapses, the floppy limbs, the way sleep came like a sudden power outage. The villagers didn’t know this. They saw only stillness and imagined tragedy.
A boy crept closer, curiosity tugging him forward. He had seen death before: chickens gone stiff, fish floating belly-up in the river. This looked similar, he thought. Too similar. He crouched and poked the baby monkey with a stick. Nothing happened. The boy poked again, harder this time, and the baby’s fingers twitched. The boy jumped back as if struck by lightning.
The baby monkey opened one eye. Just one. It was cloudy with sleep and annoyance, the look of someone who has been rudely awakened from a perfect dream. Slowly, the other eye followed. The baby yawned, mouth stretching wide enough to show two tiny teeth, and then it screamed.
It was not a cry of pain. It was a scream of outrage. How dare the world interrupt such a good nap?
The sound echoed across the riverbank. Birds burst from the trees. The villagers gasped. The boy dropped his stick and ran. And the mother monkey, who had been pretending not to care, was suddenly there—scooping her baby up in one smooth motion, checking it from head to tail, scolding it softly for being dramatic and scolding the humans even more with her eyes.
Laughter returned, but this time it was warmer. Nervous laughter. Relieved laughter. The kind that says, “Oh. You’re alive. Good.”
From that day on, the baby monkey earned a nickname. People called it “Almost.” Almost gone. Almost dead. Almost asleep forever. Almost became a village legend for the wrong reason. The name stuck, because the baby continued to live life on the edge—of exhaustion, mostly.
Almost would climb too high and freeze, clinging to a branch with all four limbs until its strength vanished and it dropped, caught at the last second by its mother’s tail. Almost would eat too much fruit and lie belly-up, moaning dramatically as if poisoned. Almost would play until its legs shook, then collapse in the dirt like a fallen leaf.
Each time, someone would say, “This time, it’s really close to death,” and someone else would laugh. 🤣
But something changed as weeks passed. The laughter softened. People began to watch more carefully. They noticed how small Almost was compared to other babies. How its fur took longer to grow thick. How its naps were longer, deeper, heavier. The mother noticed too. She fed Almost first. She carried it longer than the others carried theirs. She stayed closer to the ground, choosing safety over speed.
One afternoon, a storm rolled in without warning. Rain slammed into the trees, and wind shook the branches like angry hands. Monkeys scattered. The mother clutched Almost to her chest and ran, slipping once, nearly falling. For a terrifying second, Almost went limp in her arms, eyes closed, body slack.
No one laughed.
The mother reached shelter and curled around her baby, shielding it from the rain. She groomed its fur with shaking fingers, whispering sounds that meant comfort, survival, please. Almost stirred, coughed, and let out a weak cry. Alive. Still alive.
In that moment, the joke died. The emoji faded. 🤣 became 😟 without anyone saying a word.
Life went on, because it always does. The storm passed. The river calmed. Almost grew. Slowly, stubbornly, against expectations. Its legs strengthened. Its naps became shorter. Its collapses became less dramatic. It learned when to stop, when to cling, when to rest. Not perfectly—Almost would always be Almost—but better.
One morning, months later, the villagers saw a small monkey leap cleanly from one branch to another, land steady, and look back proudly. It was Almost. The boy who had poked it with a stick stared, mouth open. “That’s the one,” he said. “The dead one.”
The baby monkey—no, the young monkey now—scratched its head and chattered, as if laughing at the idea itself.
Maybe one day, Almost would grow old. Maybe one day, death would come quietly, honestly, without jokes or emojis. But not that day. Not on the warm stone by the river. Not while sunlight still felt good and naps were still worth surrendering to completely.
Because sometimes, something looks close to death when it’s really just very, very tired—and not done living yet.
