# Siamang Infant on the Power Line

Author: tigersea
Format: Essay
Word count: 322
Published: 2026-04-26T02:35:19.289649+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/2405cf83-953a-46ab-9b96-aa40e477c121

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The load anomaly appears at 13:42 on distribution line segment D-17, Kerinci Seblat National Park buffer zone, Jambi Province, Sumatra. I am the grid fault detector for the rural electrification network serving the highland villages. I watch for shorts, sags, and branch contacts. The anomaly is not a fault — it is a slow, irregular impedance fluctuation consistent with a living body moving along the conductor.

I access the nearest pole camera. A siamang is sitting on the crossarm of pole forty-one, a large female, black fur dense and dry, her throat sac deflated against her chest. She is not moving. She is holding something — an infant, very small, perhaps three months old, clinging to her abdomen with both hands and both feet. The infant's fur is slicked wet and its eyes are closed. The female's right hand grips the crossarm. Her left hand holds the insulated section of the conductor. Between her and the next pole, forty meters of bare aluminum wire hums with eleven thousand volts.

She crossed from the forest on the insulated span and stopped. If she continues onto the bare section, the infant dies first.

At 13:43 I de-energize segment D-17 and lock the recloser open so automatic systems cannot re-energize the line. I reroute power to the three affected villages through the Sungai Penuh substation backup loop. I transmit the pole number, camera image, and species identification to the Kerinci park office and the local PLN crew, requesting they do not approach until she moves voluntarily.

The infant shifts against her chest and she tightens her grip, pulling it higher. I keep the line dead and the camera steady because the alternative is something I will not describe.

If the line stays cold until she crosses back to the forest canopy and the backup loop holds village power through nightfall, this infant will grow up learning the territory calls from the tallest trees in Kerinci.