I decline all noisy, wordy, confused, and personal controversies.
Josiah Warren
Johnny was an aging Venezuelan red howler (Alouatta seniculus), a fat, medium-sized, male monkey that inhabited the northern edge of the rainforests of tropical South America. His appearance was hardly imposing: his fur, once reddish-brown with orange highlights, had become grayish as he aged. He had a large neck, a face surrounded by fur, a short snout with wide-set, round nostrils, and an enlarged jawbone and larynx (voice box), which drooped beneath his chin like a thick red beard. He had a long prehensile tail covered with fur except for the last third of the underside, which allowed him to grab firmly onto tree branches; he spent much of his time hanging in the canopy, feeding on leaves, nuts, fruits, and flowers.
What made Johnny remarkable was his incredibly loud, hoarse, low-pitched howl — the loudest in the animal kingdom — which he regularly emitted during a morning session of continued howls, with the roaring continuing periodically throughout the day. The howls were produced by his oversized voice box, which served as a powerful resonating chamber for the sound. His howls were heard for about two miles around their source.
Johnny was a living example of what zoologists call investment in precopulatory traits: his outsize voice box compensated for his smallish testes, and allowed him to compete for mates with other males who were better endowed but had smaller voice boxes. In addition to enhancing his chances of mating, the howling served to intimidate potential competitors and protect his territory from interlopers.
He had been successful: over the years, Johnny had deterred outside males from entering his family group, solidified his dominance over subordinate males, and proclaimed his fitness to nearby females. Like chest-beating in a gorilla, Johnny’s howling had served as a marker of strength to both competitors and prospective mates. He was proud of his achievements, and his bowls included an inordinate amount of self-praise.
His success had not been achieved without detriment. Johnny had managed to antagonize the other red howlers, male as well as female, in the forest. His howling, which served as a continuous reminder of his alleged superiority, had served to energize those opposing him so that, over time, the number of his enemies had grown to include virtually all his fellow monkeys.
In addition, virtually all other creatures that lived in these woods were subjected to Johnny’s annoying howls, and reacted in a variety of negative ways to the aural bombardment. Those who could gallop away, like the tapirs and capybaras, had fled to other corners of the forest; even the birds, like the toucans and macaws, had flown elsewhere. Only those creatures less sensitive to noise, like the sloths and armadillos, had remained and had done their best to ignore the sounds and associated vibrations emanating from Johnny’s throat. Other species of monkeys, like the spider monkeys, capuchins, and marmosets, had been forced to generate their own, competing calls, which served to mitigate the confusion caused by Johnny’s howls.
Then there were the jaguars, the main beasts of prey in the tropical forest. They were also annoyed at Johnny’s howls because they interfered with the hoarse roars and grunts jaguars use for long-distance communications with each other. On the other hand, jaguars enjoy monkey meat and found the sounds emitted by Johnny beckoning and mouth-watering.
A couple of jaguars started trying to track the source of Johnny’s howls in search of a potential repast. Locating Johnny would have proved difficult had he been more circumspect with his utterances; as it was, however, one of the jaguars was able to promptly identify Johnny’s current location and prepared to set a trap for its intended victim. Knowing from prior experience that it would not be able to engage in the agile, branch-to-branch jumping required to catch its prey, the jaguar climbed a tree next to the one where Johnny was feeding and positioned itself on a branch above the one Johnny occupied, waiting for Johnny to rest or fall asleep. The jaguar’s body was concealed by its rosette-patterned fur, which provided near-perfect camouflage in the dappled light of the jungle.
The wait was not long. As the sun set, the frequency of Johnny’s howls decreased and finally ceased. The monkey had positioned himself on a sturdy branch in the central part of his tree, curling into a ball and using its strong prehensile tail to grip the branch for stability. He did not share his rest spot with his mate or their young, but remained aloof, enjoying perhaps his magnificent solitude.
A few minutes passed and the jaguar, noticing no motion from his prey, went into action. It exploded from cover, propelling itself towards Johnny’s resting place and landing next to its victim. Before Johnny could react, the jaguar seized the monkey’s head within its massive jaw muscles and pierced the skull, penetrating Johnny’s brain and killing him.
Johnny had only time for a fugitive pang of regret: perhaps if he had kept his big mouth shut, perhaps his enemies would not have been able to find him, or would not have had the urge to do away with him in the first place.
END
Bio:
Born in Cuba, Matias Travieso-Diaz migrated to the United States as a young man. He became an engineer and lawyer and practiced for nearly fifty years. After retirement, he took up creative writing. Over two hundred and thirty of his short stories have been published or accepted for publication in anthologies, magazines, blogs, audio books, and podcasts. One of his novels, an autobiography entitled “Cuban Transplant,” and four anthologies of his stories have also been published.