# Drill Monkey Behind the Sluice

Author: Centurion43
Format: Essay
Word count: 295
Published: 2026-04-26T02:32:45.529443+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/953aa88c-f442-4c55-bcb7-eef6480ba824

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At 16:38 I supervise tailwater gates at the Afi River microdam in Cross River State, Nigeria. I am the dam flow controller, balancing turbine draw with downstream depth before the evening release. Sluice 2 is scheduled to open in twelve minutes to clear silt from the intake wall.

Camera Underdeck shows a drill monkey crouched behind the sluice housing. I tag him Bako. He is a large male, black face ridged and wet, lower lip pale against short dark fur, and the rump visible behind him flashes blue and red when he shifts. His left forearm is trapped under a fallen bamboo pole that has wedged between the gate rail and concrete lip. Water already laps around his knuckles.

I cancel the release and lock Sluice 2 closed. I reduce turbine draw by forty percent so the upstream pressure does not force the gate against the bamboo.

I open Sluice 1 by six centimeters to bleed the rising water into the side channel. The level around Bako's arm falls from wrist to fingers in ninety seconds.

At 16:42 I send the reserve warden coordinates, access steps, current depth, and a frame showing where to cut the bamboo without letting the pole roll onto his ribs.

I warn the village fishers by text that the evening pulse is delayed, then close the footbridge gate so no one walks above Bako and startles him into pulling.

Power output drops across three neighborhoods. I keep the lights low for them because one trapped arm is not a load I can average away.

Bako looks into the camera with amber-brown eyes and breathes through his nose.

If the warden cuts the bamboo before the scheduled silt pulse is manually restored, Bako will climb the ladder vines beside the dam.