The sky was overcast, casting a gray shadow over the endless rice field. Wind swayed the tall green stalks gently, hiding something small… and heartbreaking.
A baby monkey — no more than a month old — wandered slowly between the rice plants. His fur was wet from morning dew, his belly sunken from hunger. His eyes, wide and lost, scanned the horizon.
He was alone.
He called out with sharp, desperate cries — short, trembling sounds that rose and fell with fear. “Ma… ma…” His voice echoed faintly, but no answer ever came.
The baby paused, sat down on a muddy patch, and hugged himself tightly. He looked around — everything was too big. Too quiet. Too strange without his mother. Her warmth, her milk, her heartbeat — gone.
His little hands trembled. His stomach growled. A dragonfly buzzed past, and he flinched. The world was no longer safe. His cries grew louder, sharper, filled with both sorrow and fear.
Then, far across the field, a man carrying water buckets paused. He turned his head, listening. There it was again — a cry. Not a bird. Not a cat. Something else.
He stepped carefully through the tall rice plants and found the baby, curled in the mud, barely able to lift his head.
“Oh, baby…” the man whispered, kneeling. The monkey didn’t resist. He had no energy left. Just hope.
Wrapped in a scarf and carried to safety, the little monkey was taken to a rescue shelter nearby. There, he was cleaned, fed with a soft syringe, and held close.
He cried one last time before falling asleep, warm at last.
