Nature reserved

The monkeys of Pigeon Valley leap with inhuman virtuosity then drop from high-up branches into a tangle of netted leaves. One lands on a precarious bough then, like a lady at Pick n Pay (down the road), she reaches discerningly and takes between her thumb and forefinger the ripest berry from a twig.

A white mushroom grows gradually off the curved and mottled spine of a great old tree like a shelf bearing its saffron underbelly to the dappled heavens above.

Viney limbs of an ancient Ficus fall to the ground in very, very slow motion.

Birds click in bushes.

Insects skate along a stagnating pond.

We walk inaudibly, hand in hand.

And shongololos slither beneath a carpet of lifeless leaves and hide from human feet.