Iris and the Roar Before Dawn

The cursor was still blinking when the forest made a sound too large for the window.

Iris stopped typing.

A low roar rolled through the dark canopy, rough at its edges, swelling until the room seemed less like shelter than a small listening box. Iris stood and went to the open window. Behind, the laptop waited with the admirable patience of something that had never heard a howler monkey.

Another call. Iris rested both hands on the sill and tried to place it: beyond the nearest trees, surely. Across the hollow? Farther? The sound gave an impression of size without offering a useful address.

Howler monkeys—Alouatta—have an enlarged hyoid bone that acts as a resonating chamber in the throat. Their low calls carry far through the canopy, especially around dawn. Groups can announce their presence and keep track of one another without having to meet. What sounded so fierce from this window could be a way of maintaining distance rather than closing it.

Knowing that did not make the next roar smaller.

Iris leaned forward, then caught the impulse and stayed still. Loudness alone would not settle the distance. The caller remained invisible; every dark crown of leaves looked capable of concealing the answer.

The amber lamp lit the abandoned desk. At the window, the first pale light picked out a leaf, then another.

Iris listened through the silence after the call, leaving the unfinished line of code exactly where it was.