298,685 BCE – 298,565 BCE | Episodes 265–288

Three days had passed since the riverbank burned.

It was the grass that burned. The dry reeds had charred across a wide stretch, and the smell of smoke still lingered. The one sat on a slope set back from the shore, looking at the wound on the sole of a foot. Something stepped on during the flight was still lodged inside.

Pressing with a fingernail sent a white pain running through.
Press.
It runs.
Press again.

The others of the group were growling at each other a short distance away. People from another group had come to this riverbank again yesterday. They came, pointed at the fishing pool along the shore, and left. They had been asserting something. The one did not understand what. Only that the adults among the group had raised their voices.

Since childhood, the one had witnessed many such moments — voices raised, tension climbing. Watching, there had always been a sensation of the body growing smaller. It was still there now. The body had grown, but that feeling had not.

The foot's wound is abandoned. Rising.

One of the group passed nearby. A dark mark on the arm. A burn. The one watched in silence as the figure moved on. No words. Nothing to offer. A hand reached out partway, then stopped.

Up the slope, there was a large stone. An unmoving stone. It had been there yesterday. The day before as well. The one came to that stone from time to time, for reasons unclear. Perhaps because it was cool.

When a hand touched the stone, it seemed as though the heat drained away.

The rain did not come.

The cracks in the earth widened. At first they were only on the surface. Then they deepened, until a finger pushed into one would sink to the second joint. The river grew narrow. The mud along the banks hardened white, and fractures ran across it.

The one sat at the river's edge. The water had fallen to less than half of what it had been. When cupped in the hands, it vanished between the fingers almost at once. The one did this again and again. Cup, and gone. Cup, and gone.

The group moved north. Two of the old ones could no longer walk. The group waited two days, then set out.

The one looked at the face of one of the old ones. The jaw had gone slack. The chest still moved. The one extended a hand. But there was nothing in it. The hand was withdrawn.

To the north, where the bedrock stretched on without end, the vegetation thinned and the ground held the heat inside it. The group stopped traveling by day and walked only at dawn and at dusk. Those with young children moved at the front; those who could carry the loads walked at the rear. The one moved somewhere in the middle.

On the morning of the fifth day, a sharp edge of stone caught the sole of the one's foot. Kneeling, the one picked it up. It was flat and thin, sharp only along one edge. The one ran a thumb along that edge. Again and again. And then set it down.

Along the way, roughly a third of the group fell behind. The children died first. The old ones died after them. Some could no longer walk from carrying too much water. Others discarded their water and walked on, and died the following day. Which had been the right choice, the earth did not record.

They found water because someone smelled it first. The group halted. One person raised their nose. The one raised their nose as well. There was a smell unlike soil. The smell of wet stone. The group turned toward it.

Water seeped from a crack in the rock. Not much. But it had not stopped.

The one pressed their mouth against the stone. A coolness lingered on the tongue.

That night, the group did not make a fire. There was no wood. No one made a sound. Wind moved through the gaps in the rock and produced a low, hollow note.

The one lay on the ground and looked up at the sky. There were many stars. They meant nothing to the one. They simply shone. There were simply many of them.

As the season turned, one man in the group came across traces of another group. Grass that had been trodden down. The remnants of eaten fruit. The remains of a small fire. The group stopped and gave voice. A long, threatening growl, and then they changed direction.

The one moved closer to the fire's remains. Charcoal was left behind. Still faintly warm. The one touched it with a finger. The finger turned black. The one brought it to the nose. Then to the tongue. It was bitter.

The group that had left those traces may have been near. Or they may have been far.

When the worst of the drought had passed, the rain came. The first time it lasted half a day. The next day it lasted longer. The cracks in the earth drank the water. After a time, the grass returned. But not everything returned. Some of the trees remained dead. The shape of the river had changed.

The group did not return to where they had been before. They stayed in the new place. It was smaller than what they had known.

The one tried to dig a hole in the new ground. Using hands and stone, the one worked into the earth. As it deepened, the soil grew damp. That was all. Why the digging had begun, the one could not have said. It was dug because it was dug.

By the time the one reached thirty-three, someone in the group had begun to push the one aside. At first it was only at meals. Before long, it was the same when it came time to sleep.

The one sat at the edge of the group. Away from the center, the nights were cold. The one drew the knees in close. The sounds of the group carried over. Something like laughter. Low rumblings. The sound of a hand striking someone's back.

The one listened.

And did not join in.

The water returned.

The first to notice was the soles of the feet. The dry earth had grown slightly cool in the mornings. The next morning too. And the one after that. Before long, the sound of water returned to the river, and it began to move across the stones.

The one waded into the river. To the knee. The water pushed against their feet. There was a current. Weak, but present.

They hunted.
Those who had died in the dry season had left the group's bellies diminished. Two children, one old woman — they still could not move well. The one watched the movement of an animal from beneath the grass. The wind shifted. The animal raised its head. The one did not move.

Held their breath. For a long time. The chest began to ache.

The animal lowered its head. Began to drink.

A stone was thrown. It missed. The animal leapt and vanished.

The one sat there for a while. There was nothing at the bottom of the stomach. Not anger, not frustration — simply nothing.

That night, sleep would not come beside the group's fire.
Opening their eyes, there was a puddle. Ripples were spreading. There was no wind. The one looked at the surface of the water.

The bottom was dark.

They watched for a time. Nothing could be seen. They slept again.

The next morning, the one walked a different path. A different bank of the river than the day before. There was no reason. Their feet simply turned that way. There were animal tracks there. Fresh ones.

They followed.

There was heat inside the belly.

It had been that way for days. At first the body understood it as something eaten gone wrong. There is no word for *understood*. The body simply said so. The one curled around the pain, hands pressed to the abdomen. The next morning, rose again. That was all.

The river had returned to knee-depth. The younger ones of the group chased fish along the bank. The one watched from a flat rock above. Standing brought a swaying. Sitting brought heat rising from below — not from the rock, which was warm enough, but from somewhere inside.

A child came near. Looked at the one's face. Said nothing. Children have no words. The child ran off.

Night came.

Everyone gathered at the fire. The one lay a little apart, at the edge of the light. The sound of the fire reached there. The smell of scorching meat. Nothing could be wanted in the mouth.

Something flashed across the sky and was gone.

The one saw it. Only the eyes moved. The body did not.

The heat rose again through the night, and sweat came. Too much of it. Enough to darken the ground. By morning, the body had gone cold. The heat had not left. Something inside went on burning.

Two days passed.

Someone brought water. Held it close to the one's mouth. A little went in. Only a little.

On the third day, at midday, the one lay listening to the river. The sound of stones knocking against each other at the bank. The sound of the current shifting. The sound of grass moving. The eyes were open. They were not seeing anything.

The breathing grew shallow.

Shallow, and then the spaces between grew longer.

The river was still sounding.

Running along the edge of the rock ledge was a favorite thing.

When the others in the group carried loads, the one was always given the lightest among them. Bundles of dry grass. Rolled animal hides. Arms full, the one would chase after the backs of the adults walking ahead. The feet were swift. That alone was a source of pride.

At the end of the dry season, another group drew near.

This had happened before, a few times. Growls and gestures, each side measuring the distance between them. This time was different. Among the strangers there was a large one with sharp, piercing eyes. The elder of the one's group spread both arms wide. The elder of the other group did the same. But the eyes did not smile.

That night, there were two fires.

The one sat at the edge of the rock ledge and watched them both. Which was larger. Which was brighter. Legs swinging idly, watching for a long while.

The night deepened, and someone cried out.

There was no knowing what kind of cry it was. The one moved to stand. A foot slipped.

Below the rock ledge, there was darkness.

Only darkness.

Lying on the rock.

The coldness of stone against the back. The colorless hour before the sky begins to whiten. The band is asleep. Someone's breathing. Someone's cough. The fire is fading.

At four years, the one has not yet been trusted with tending the fire.

The wind came.

It was cold. Something other than their own scent was threaded through it. The one moved its nose. Moved it again. There was no knowing what it was. It had no name. But it remained, somewhere deep behind the nose.

Morning came.

The adults began to growl. Low growling. The one knows the kinds of growling. This was not the growling of an empty stomach. Not anger either. Something different — the kind that tightens the body.

The one stepped into the shadow of the rock.

Drew up the knees. With the feel of the rock at its back, gazed into the distance. Toward where the archaic band was. Two columns of smoke rose into the sky.

The one could not count the columns of smoke.

But that there were two — that much was visible.

At five years, for the first time, the one was struck by a thrown stone. By a child within the band. It struck the right shoulder. There were no tears. The stone was picked up, held, and the one stood still.

It was not thrown back.

The stone was carried for the rest of that day. That night, by the fire, it was set down.

Around seven years, the one began helping with the tanning of hides. Pounding with a stone. Pounding. Pounding. Pounding even when the arm ached. The change as the hide grew supple was felt in the palm of the hand.

With words not yet known, the one tried to tell someone of it.

Made sounds. Moved hands. It did not reach.

Tried again.

It did not reach.

In the winter before the age of nine, the day the tension between groups reached its peak, the one was pressed back into the depth of the band. The adults moved to the front. Growls overlapped. Stones flew.

The one pressed its body into a cleft in the rock.

Covered both ears with both hands.

Even so, the vibration of the ground came through.

It kept coming, through the soles of the feet.

The rain came from the north.

The trees at the edge of the plateau opened their leaves, water gathered in the cracks of rocks, and the sand turned dark. The river rose, and places that had been shallow crossings could no longer be forded. Fish returned to hollows that had dried out, and animal tracks multiplied in the mud along the bank. On distant hillsides, thin ribbons of water began to fall from the cliffs.

The one was not hungry.

That itself was unusual. Someone four years older was cracking open nuts in the shadow of a rock, and the one sat a little apart, watching the river. The current was swift. Brown water moved forward, foaming. Around this time last year, the river had barely reached the knee. Now it could not be crossed. The one simply watched.

To the south of the land, rain was falling at the same time. But that rain was a different rain. It fell in the same season and wet the earth in the same way, yet the earth itself was different. The lowlands in the south held the water. The plateau in the north let it run. Two groups lived in these two places, and children grew up within each body of water. Neither group knew the other existed. On this world, there was much of that.

In the one's group, children were increasing.

Women with swollen bellies grew more numerous, and the sound of crying echoed morning and night. The one did not dislike children, but drawing near brought low growls from their mothers, who drove the one away. And so the one took to sitting at a slight distance. On top of rocks, at the base of trees, on flat stones along the river. Everywhere, the one had grown accustomed to being alone.

There was that man.

The oldest man in the group, with an old scar across his forehead. The one had followed behind him since early childhood, but had stopped following him now. The man began spending long stretches of time with certain others, and the pitch of his growling had changed. It was not a fight. But it resembled what came before a fight.

Sometimes the smell of another group drifted in on the wind.

Each time the wind shifted, the one raised its nose. It was not the smell of animals. Not smoke. It was the smell of unfamiliar bodies. Others in the group raised their noses in the same way. No one made a sound.

On this world, groups were multiplying.

There was water, there was food, the temperature was gentle, and seasons continued in which children were less likely to die. The edges of groups swelled and split. In places a full season's walk away, those who had once sat around the same fire now made their lives. Given enough time, faces and voices are forgotten. And then recognition comes through smell. The smell of that one, the smell of one's own group, the smell of an unknown group.

An unknown smell always called forth wariness.

The one was twelve years old now. There was a growing sense of something heavy settling at the center of the body. More and more, there were things that had to be decided. Take the nuts or not. Cross the river or not. Follow that man or not. Where to be. But the one did not know how to decide. Whether the outcome was good or bad, the one did not know why it had gone that way.

One morning, light fell on a certain place.

It fell into a hollow in the cliff face. The one had not been looking to see what was there, but when the light fell, the eyes were drawn to it. There was a stone blackened with charcoal. Someone had made a fire there before. The one crouched down and touched the charcoal. Black came away on the hand. The cliff stone was soft. The one pressed that blackened hand against the wall.

The shape of the hand remained.

The one looked at it. For a moment, did not move. Pressed again. Another remained. Two shapes of the one's own hand, there on the wall. The one stood, hesitated over whether to call the others, and did not call them. Stood alone and looked.

At the end of that year, the scarred man did not return.

He went out in the morning and did not come back by evening, nor by night. Nor the next morning. Members of the group went to search and found him fallen at the base of a cliff. The rock had given way. The man was beneath it.

The one watched from a distance. Did not go closer.

The adults raised their voices in low cries. The children wept. The one was silent. Picked up a stone. Set it down. Picked it up again.

The rain came again the following year.

On this world, water was not impartial. There were places of abundance and places of drought. Places where groups had grown many and places where they had not. Even with the scarred man gone, the numbers in the group kept growing. Children came of age, and again there were more women with swollen bellies. The one had grown to a middling size within the group. Large enough now to drive away those who were smaller.

The one went sometimes to the hollow in the cliff.

Looked at the shapes of the hands. Pressed new ones. When the charcoal grew faint, the one searched out the remains of fires and gathered more. The one began drawing lines with just the fingers, not only pressing the whole hand. Whether the shapes meant anything was unclear. They may have resembled the way the river bent. Or perhaps not. The one showed this to no one.

The stone was not too heavy to hold.

The one knelt in the mud of the riverbank and chose three flat stones. Chosen not by shape but by weight. The density felt against the inside of the palm. Stones of the same size felt different. The one had no words to ask what that difference was. The hands simply knew.

Across the bank, another group.

Visible since morning. Seven, perhaps eight. Archaic ones. Heavy brows, broad shoulders, a different way of moving. Neither group stirred, the river between them. Among the archaic ones, a small child pressed its face into its mother's belly. The one watched this.

The group's elder gave a low sound. Deep, from the belly.

The one stood. Still holding the stones.

The elder sounded again and swept a hand sideways. The gesture was neither *come no closer* nor *go away* — it was simply a line. Yet the archaic group received it. An adult at the rear lifted the small child. The group turned and walked north.

The one remained standing, stones in hand.

When the archaic ones disappeared, the weight changed. The stones were the same stones. Yet in the one's hands, they had become something slightly different. The one set them on the ground. Then picked them up again.

A child's cry rose in the distance.

Within the group, a third child had been born that season. The mother had delivered. But in the night the bleeding would not stop, and by morning she had gone still. The child was alive. Someone was holding it.

The one looked at the surface of the river. The water was still high. There were places where the current foamed white, and places where it deepened to green. The boundary between them was interesting. Why it was interesting, the one could not say. Only that the eyes would not leave it.

In the mud of the bank, the archaic ones had left their footprints.

The one crouched and placed a hand beside one of the prints. Comparing sizes. The archaic foot was wide, the toe marks pressed deep. The one's hand was small.

The one stayed like that for a while.

Wind came from upriver. The smell of water, and something else. The smell of an animal — one the one had never eaten. The one raised its nose. Nothing was there. Only the scent had come, and passed through.

The one threw a stone into the river.

A white column of water rose, and was gone.

The tree on the cliff's edge was bearing fruit.

Yellow, round, swaying at the tips of the branches. The one had been watching that tree for three days. The tension that a companion might reach it first, and the feeling that waiting a little longer would ripen it further — these two things pressed against each other somewhere in the chest. There were no words for it. Only the feet, moving toward the cliff's edge, then back, then forward again.

The group had split in two. There were two elders with loud voices, and which fire you sat beside had come to mean something. The one belonged to neither fire. Standing outside the circle of adults, somewhere between the children and the old ones.

The fourth morning.

Mist drifted low. The slope below the cliff was the color of wet earth. The one listened to the stomach's growl and set a foot on the rock at the cliff's edge. The first step held. The second as well. Leaning the body toward the base of the tree, a hand reached the fruit. The fingers of the right hand touched the yellow skin.

The weight shifted.

The soles of the feet left the rock. No sound came. The fruit was still between the fingers.

The low shrubs at the cliff's base caught the body. There was a dry sound. The one lay still there. The fruit rolled down the slope and vanished into the grass.

The mist drifted on, unchanged.

In the damp earth, the hoofprints of an animal remained.

The one traced the edge of a print with one finger. Not yet dry. Deep. A heavy animal. Direction: northwest.

Rose and lifted the nose.

The smell of grass. The smell of water. Beneath that, something else was mixed in — not blood. Something rawer and duller drifted up from the south. The one stood facing the direction of the smell for a time, but there was nothing to see. Only the grass moving.

The voices of the others reached from far away. A low, summoning sound, like a growl calling back.

The one's eyes returned to the prints.

Go forward, or go back.

The animal's tracks continued northwest. The voices of the others came from the southeast. The one stood over the hoofprints for a little while. The body's weight had shifted forward.

Turned back.

Not at a run — at a walking pace. Not wanting anyone to see the turning away. When the one reached the group, there was an attempt to convey the tracks through low sounds. But the meaning did not cross over. The elder hunters were already looking in another direction.

The one went quiet.

That night, sleep came near the fire. The stomach was empty. Somewhere, a child was crying. Sleep came before the crying stopped.

After the group had fallen asleep, the one remained awake alone.

There was no reason. Simply unable to sleep. Sitting before the fire, arms wrapped around drawn-up knees. Something called out in the distance. A creature, or the wind — impossible to say. The one listened, ears straining.

By morning, the elder of the group would try to push the one aside. It had been the same the day before.

This the one understood. But not the reason why.

The fever came after the herds had gone.

Half the group had moved toward the watering place. The one did not go. He lay down in the trampled grass and looked up at the sky. The edge of a cloud was bright with light.

His belly was burning inside him. Water did not help. He pressed a hand against a rock and tried to stand. He stood. Then he fell again.

The next morning, someone brought fish entrails and set them beside him. The one leaned close and smelled them. He did not eat.

On the third day, the fever had not left.

The one lay on his back and scraped at the sand with his fingertips. The sand ran between his fingers. He scraped again. Many times. There was no meaning in it. He simply did so.

The group moved around him. A child cried out. Somewhere in the distance, someone was striking stone against stone.

The one's hand grew still.

In the sand, only a shallow groove remained.

Swaying on the mother's back.

There was the smell of leather. Sweat and fat. The one's face was pressed into the mother's neck, and the ground below was invisible. Each time the earth tilted, the body shifted, and the one gripped the leather's edge with small fingers.

A voice came.

A rumbling approached from ahead. Men's voices. High tones and low tones layered over each other, and there was the sound of something being decided. The mother's body stiffened. Her pace changed.

The one understood nothing.

From atop the back, only the treetops were visible. Wind moved through them, and light fell through the trembling leaves and vanished. The one's eyes followed the place where the light had fallen. Something in the grass caught the light. Small. For an instant.

The mother stopped.

The rumbling continued. The men's voices joined, divided, joined again. The mother's shoulder blades shifted. The muscles of her back contracted. The one felt this through skin. Without words, the one knew that something was frightening her.

The light in the grass was gone.

The one pressed a face into the mother's neck. Eyes open, seeing nothing.

Sitting in the shadow of the rock.

The voices of the group were close enough to hear, but this one was not among them. Outside the circle where the adults were trying to decide something. Beyond where the children ran.

The wind came.

The nose moved.

An unfamiliar scent. Not meat, not grass. Something like the fat worked into leather, but not the same as their own. The body went still. The knees stayed against the ground and did not move.

The eyes went to the soil.

Where the light had fallen, there were several shallow impressions. This one brought its face closer. Close enough that the nose nearly touched the ground. The scent came from there.

Standing up.

Looking toward the group. The adults were still gathered in their circle. One man raised his voice — a low sound pressed up from the back of the throat. Another voice layered over it. This one did not understand what it meant.

Returning to the shadow of the rock.

Looking at the footprints again.

A finger reached out. Did not touch. Stopped just before touching. The wind came again, and the scent was gone.

This one sat there for a long time.

The voices of the group changed. Grew lower. More men's voices. This one looked up but did not stand.

Evening came. Shadow fell over the footprints. Their shape disappeared.

This one stood, and walked toward the group.

But stopped outside the circle. Did not go in.

That night, one of the adults took this one by the arm and led the way deeper among the rocks. It was not rough. It was quiet. What it meant, this one did not know.

Only that the arm hurt.

At the eastern edge of the grasslands, two groups began sharing the same watering place.

At first, each side watched the other. From a distance, from behind rocks. Neither approaching nor withdrawing. They staggered their drinking times. The morning group and the evening group. This continued for several months.

The one crouched at the water's edge, looking at their own hands. The fingertips stopped just before touching the surface. Something was reflected there. Not the sky. The outline of something moving.

On the far bank, there was another face.

It was small. Smaller than the one. Sparse hair, a narrow forehead, brow bones that jutted forward. Their eyes met. The one did not move. Neither did the other. The water went on rippling the two shadows together.

The elder of the group stood on the flat rock. Arms spread wide, they called out. It was not a threat, nor a claim of territory — only a sound that poured the whole of their throat into the fact of their existence. From within the other group, a tall figure stepped forward. There was silence. That was all. Neither side yielded. Neither side pressed forward.

A heat gathered deep inside the one's ears.

Each time they came to the water, the one searched the far bank. The other was not always there. More often than not, they were absent. When they were there, the small face was drinking. Not looking at the one. Whether they were pretending not to notice, or truly did not notice, it was impossible to say.

On the dry earth, animal tracks were layered one upon another. Large hooves, slender claws, the dragged trail of a tail. The one followed the marks. Walking alone, away from the group.

Then, from the base of the grass, came the smell of rotted fruit. Sweet, heavy, the remnants of something fermented. The one stopped. The smell was coming from the left and ahead. It was not the wind. When the air was still, that smell alone grew stronger.

To the left and ahead, there was a crack in the rock.

The one drew near. Inside the crack, dried bones lay in a shape that suggested someone had once arranged them there. They were not animal bones. The one crouched and touched them. Cold. The bones were not in order — they had collapsed into scattered pieces — but the form of them held the memory of someone having placed them here.

The one picked up a single bone. Holding it, they did not move.

It was after this that a conflict broke out among the groups. Not over the use of the water. The question of which group had come here first was exchanged in voices and arms and bodies. Someone's shoulder struck the rock. Someone fell. Rose. Fell again. Did not rise.

The one watched. Did not intervene. Had no means of intervening. Only watched.

After that, the way others looked at the one changed.

When they came to the watering place, the members of their own group placed themselves between. They sat apart from the one. When food was divided, the one received their share last. Something had happened, those around them felt. But nothing had been done. There had only been watching. Yet perhaps the watching itself had been something.

One night, the one could not sleep.

They sat at the edge of the fire and watched the flames shrink. The charred branches whitened one by one. The whitened coals, when touched, crumbled. The shape remained. The substance was gone. The one held their palm close to the heat. Stopped just before it became pain.

The bone was still in their hand.

Someone came from behind. Before the one could turn, an arm came. Not a strike. Not a push. A pull. The one could not stand. They were dragged. They slid across the grass on their back. The sky appeared. Stars appeared. Cold. They tried to make a sound, but what came from their throat was a single tone. A sound without meaning.

The grass swayed above their face.

Sitting at the edge of the group.

From the direction of the watering place came sounds — cries, the knock of stone, the movement of water.

The one did not look that way.

On one knee rested a small stone. Round. Unbroken. The one lifted it and set it down. Lifted it and set it down.

The sounds drew closer.

The one stood, still holding the stone. Not going anywhere. Simply stood. The sounds receded. The one sat down again.

The stone was placed in the grass.

The ground shook.

They had been sleeping. The shaking woke them. Before they were fully awake, the body was already standing.

It was dark. Not night — ash hung in the sky. Something entered the throat. Coughing. Around them, voices. Not cries, but short animal sounds.

They ran. Without knowing where. In whatever direction the feet moved.

Behind them, a sound. A heavy sound. Someone's voice stopped. They did not look back. Could not look back. The feet did not stop.

They hid in the shadow of a rock. The body was trembling. Ash fell. They covered their mouth with their hand. Their eyes burned with ash.

A long time passed.

They looked around. Few familiar faces. No children's voices. An old woman sat on the ground and did not move. Still seated, she slowly tilted and lay down on the ash. No one went to her.

The one drew in the scent of the wind blowing from beyond the rock.

Something was there. The nose knew. But the feet would not move. Inside the body, the trembling had not yet stopped.

Ash settled. It settled white. The one pressed their hands into the ash and stood.

Among the group, there were eyes watching. Unfamiliar eyes. Not anger, not fear — some other kind of eyes. The one looked away. In the direction they looked, there was no one.

Ash slips between the lips. The tongue pushes it out. Bitter.

The river she went to for water was clouded. She cupped her palms, brought her face close. The smell of mud. She drank. There was a sensation of something gritty settling in her stomach.

As she turned to go back, a sound came from the right. Low rumbling. More than one.

Her feet stopped.

Her left cheek was, just slightly, warm. From the direction opposite the wind of ash. She did not notice it. She had no words with which to notice. Only her feet turned — not right, but left. There was no reason. The soles of her feet chose that way.

She passed through the undergrowth.

Behind her, the sounds grew louder. Something moving. Something falling.

She ran. She followed only the sensation of her soles striking the ground. Branches lashed her face. Limbs scraped her arms. She did not care.

When she stopped, the sounds were distant.

Until her breath returned, she kept her hands against a rock. The rock was cold. It had gone white with ash.

Pressing the soles of both feet against the edge of the rock, standing still.

The river remains clouded. Even with a hand plunged into the water, the fingertips disappear. It was the same yesterday. The same the day before. The throat is dry, but there is no desire to drink.

Leaving the bank, climbing the slope.

Returning to where the group had gathered, two children were rolling in the mud. Laughing — not with sound, but with breath. The one passed them without stopping.

There are traces of a fire. It has gone out. Ash has spread. Yellowish ash and burned ash have blended together, indistinguishable. The one crouched and touched the ash with a fingertip. Not warm. Not cold.

Someone groaned.

The one looked up. Higher on the slope, between the trees, an unfamiliar shadow stood. Not small. Tall, broad at the hips. Heavy with fur. Not looking this way. Turned to the side.

The breath held.

Movement stirred through the group. Two people picked up stones. One lifted a small child. The one picked up nothing. Stood, and watched the shadow.

The shadow moved. Disappeared between the trees.

For a time, no one moved.

The one slowly lowered to the ground and laid a palm flat in the ash. Not hot. Nothing. Still, the hand did not pull away.

Wind came. From up the slope, from beyond the trees, from the direction where the shadow had been.

The one's nose moved.

Not grass. Not soil. Something damp, heavy, unknown. Someone in the group gave a low moan. The one did not moan. Drew the smell in. Drew it in again.

It was gone.

The wind stopped and the smell vanished. The one lifted the palm from the ash. Stood. Looked up the slope. The trees were still. The shadow was gone.

The one did nothing.

The plants along the riverbank had gone dark.
They had begun to rot from the roots, their stems collapsing, sinking into the mud.
Half the group left that bank. To higher ground. To the southern slopes. They scattered, each in their own direction.

The one did not move.

Kneeling on a rock, watching the surface of the river.
The water ran cloudy and fast. The speed had changed since yesterday.
The day before, the current had been gentle. Children had waded in the shallows.

Another group came from the north.
They wore hides, and their foreheads sloped backward.
Their sounds were different. The way they moved their arms was different. The way they positioned themselves when they stood — different.
They did not point upstream. They simply stood there.

A woman from the one's group picked up a stone.
A man spread his body sideways.
Low sounds rose and merged. Low, and long.

The one sat on the rock and did not raise their face.

The northern group did not leave.
They stayed near the water. Even at night they kept a fire. Two flames were visible.
One was this group's fire. The other was theirs.

There was a night when the smell changed.

The direction of the smoke had not shifted. There was no wind.
Yet something drifted over — not the smell of burning, not of meat, not of hide.
The one raised their nose.
A feeling like something being pressed into the chest.
It passed quickly.

There was a sound, upstream, of someone falling.
The sound of something striking rock. After that, nothing.
The northern group's fires became one.

The following morning, blood was mixed into the water at the bank.
The one knelt at the river's edge and pressed their fingers into the current.
It was cold.
They drank.
They stood.

Among the group there was a small child, sitting apart from its mother, behind a different rock.
Knees drawn up, watching the fire.
Its eyes did not move.

The one sat down beside the child.
Did nothing.
The child did nothing either.

For a while, the two of them watched the fire together.

By the end of those five years, the northern group had moved on upstream.
The river grew a little clearer. The stones on the bottom became visible.
The one stepped into the river and stood there, letting the current press against their ankles.

Cold.
Heavy.
Continuing.

A little apart from the group.

Crouching at the edge of the crack, breathing in the smell. Only that. Then rising, walking north. Footsteps swallowed by the sand. No one in the group was watching.

Did not return at dusk.

Did not return the following morning. No one went looking.

After years of drought, the rain returned.

Water seeped into the grasslands. The cracks closed. The soil swelled, and the surface smoothed. The river reclaimed its width, and the current quickened. The white powder along the banks disappeared.

The one was in the shadow of a rock.

Half the group had gone in another direction and never returned. The one still carried their faces — somewhere deep behind the eyes, in a dark place.

The grass grew tall. The herds came back. The sound of hooves rang through the ground. The people of the group moved. They gave chase. The children ran.

The one did not run.

It was not that the legs could not move. They were not moved. The one stood at the back of the group, one hand resting on a rock, watching the herd being pursued. Dust rose. Birds took flight all at once.

The one's nostrils flared.

It was not the smell of roasting meat. Still too far away. But in the grass there was the warmth-smell of living animals. The wind came from the north. The one's chin lifted, slightly.

Something had shifted in the tension of the group.

Since the half that never returned had gone, something had settled in the eyes of those who remained. Fewer people laughed. When a child cried, there was a pause before anyone lifted it. The snarling over food had grown. The one was among the older ones. The young watched the aging body. With different eyes.

The one did not notice.

The third rainy season came. The river flooded. Water gathered in the low places, and the edge of the plain became a muddy pool. Fish came. Egrets came. Children fell in the mud.

The one stood at the water's edge.

Ripples spread outward. The water rose to the one's ankles. It was cold. Mud wound around the soles of the feet. The one stood still. The surface reflected a shape — an aged body, thin legs, a head gone white.

Something was moving within the group.

Not in words. Not in glances. When the young ones seemed near, they were already elsewhere. A movement like flanking prey, closing in from either side. Somewhere beyond the one's knowing, a shape was being decided.

The one stepped back from the edge of the pool.

Nothing happened. Only the water moved. But the body moved. Backward. Like a reflex.

The temperature changed.

At the back of the one's neck, in the thin-skinned place, there was heat. Not the sun — clouds had come in. Still, it was warm. The one raised a hand and pressed it to the back of the neck. There was nothing there. The heat came from inside the skin.

One of the young ones approached.

Carrying prey. The entrails hung loose. There was a smell of blood. The young one came close and set it down — at the one's feet. Nothing more. No eye contact. Then gone.

The one looked at the meat.

Picked it up. Smelled it. Ate.

Night came. Bodies gathered around the fire. The one was at the edge — not beyond the reach of the firelight, but not at the center. The voices of the young carried over. Sounds without meaning. And yet they had rhythm. Sounds close to laughter. Sounds close to anger. They reached the one's ears, but did not enter the body.

The moon rose.

The surface of the water turned white. Something was moving beyond the plain. Not animals. The shapes were different — tall, slender, standing on two legs. Not just one. Four, perhaps five. They moved, then stopped.

Someone in the group noticed.

A low growl rose. The fire shifted. Children were pulled close. Stones were gripped. The distant shapes stood still. Did not move. Under the moon, far away, they simply stood.

The one rose to its feet.

There was no knowing why. The body moved forward — outside the edge of the group, out from the firelight. Feet pressed down on grass.

The distant shapes were watching.

There was distance between them. No voice could carry. No scent could carry. But the one did not stop. Walking through the grass. The dew was cold beneath the feet.

The growling inside the group grew louder.

The one was not listening.

One of the distant shapes moved forward. The body was large. The arms were long. It stopped. Looked at the one. The one stopped too. Two bodies faced each other in the middle of the grassland. There was only moonlight.

A sound came from the one's throat.

It had no meaning. A single tone. Only the throat trembling.

The distant shape made a sound.

A different sound. Long, low, passing through the nose. A sound the one had never heard before. A sound that reached somewhere deep inside the body.

The two of them remained there.

Neither moved. The sound faded. The grass swayed. There was wind.

From the group, footsteps came.

The young ones came. Carrying stones. They stood behind the one. The distant shapes did not move. After a time, they turned. Disappeared into the grass. One, then another.

The one stood the whole time.

Even after they were gone, the one stood. The grass settled back. The moon was there.

At the end of the fifth year, the one fell near the river.

It was morning. Going to fetch water, and then collapsing onto the grass. The body came apart as it fell — knees first, then hands, then face. The face pressed into the grass. A child from the group was watching. Came closer. Shook the one's shoulder. No movement. Shook again. No movement.

The child ran back.

The adults came. They looked. Some touched the body. Some did not. After a time, the group moved on. Leaving the one behind. The body remained in the grass near the river. There was the sound of water. There were birdsongs. The sun rose.

Four seasons had passed since the rains returned.

The one sat beside the river. Not on rock. On earth, knees simply folded beneath. The ground had grown so soft that feet sank into it — in the dry years, this had been a place too hard to sit.

When had it become impossible to stand?

The oldest in the group, the one no longer carried anything, no longer broke anything. Simply was there. When children ran past, there was no turning to look. When the young returned with animals across their shoulders, there was no cry of greeting.

The river moved before those eyes.

The one's eyes had grown narrow. Less light reached them now. But the water's movement was still clear. There was sound. The sound of water spanning the full width of the river, striking stone. It had always been there. When the one was born, when small and unable to stand, when the feet were fast, and now.

A sound escaped from the throat.

It held no meaning. No one heard it. The one did not mind.

The day tilted. Shadows lengthened. The grass along the bank swayed in the wind. The one did not sway.

Toward evening, a child approached. The child looked at the one's face, then ran away again.

Night came.

The one did not fall. Did not lie back. Seated still on the earth, amid the sound of the river, strength left slowly. Left, and left, until there was nothing left to leave.

The river flowed on, unchanged.

Beneath the young man, young grass lay spread.

No one had cut it. It had pushed up through the earth itself, filling the cracks between rocks, turning ground that had offered no footing into ground that could hold weight. He stood on it, then lowered one knee to the earth. In his right hand he held a thin bone. A broken leg bone. From which animal, he did not know. Someone had carried it back before it whitened and then abandoned it.

He scratched the soil with the bone.

For no reason. His hand simply moved. A stone emerged from the earth. Not white, not black — a color close to ash.

He picked it up and looked at it for a time.

Set it down.

Picked it up again.

The sounds of the group drifted from somewhere distant. Someone made a noise that resembled laughter. Several voices overlapped into something that sounded like an animal fleeing. Perhaps they had found food. He did not look that way.

He pressed the bone into the soil.

Drew it out. A hole remained.

He pushed a finger in. The soil was damp. It had rained a long time ago, or so it seemed, yet soil clung to his fingertip. He wiped the finger against his knee. The skin there was hard.

His stomach growled.

He stood. The grass returned — or rather, the grass had always been there. It was simply that no one had noticed it until he stood up.

From somewhere far off came the smell of fire. Someone in the group was burning branches. It was not night. To make fire in daylight meant something was being charred over it. He began walking toward the smell.

As he walked, he was holding the stone from before.

When he had picked it up again, he could not say.