298,445 BCE – 298,325 BCE | Episodes 313–336

He knelt on the hillside and pressed his face to the earth.

The soil was damp. Not from last night's rain. Something deeper was at work here. The smell of water seeping through cracks in rock, that particular coldness. His nose remembered before his tongue did.

He rose and descended the slope.

Summer had come, and the group had grown. Three women heavy with child. The men walked with squared shoulders, their voices staking out territory. Food was plentiful, but abundance only multiplied the seeds of conflict. Who slept where. Who kept himself near which woman. Such small things, and yet growls rose up, and stones flew.

The one kept his distance from these quarrels.

He read the ground through the soles of his feet. The way the grass had been pressed down, the freshness of dung, the depth of tracks. The paths of prey shifted with each migration. He had come to this new camp and had not yet learned its land fully. The northern ridge, the eastern cliff, the southern thicket. He was still redrawing the map that needed to be carved into his body.

At the bottom of the slope, rocks had gathered.

The moss was thick. Proof that water had been here a long time. He worked his hands into the gaps between the stones. Cold. His fingertips came away wet.

He had found a water source.

Before returning to the group, he remained there for a time. The coldness climbed to his wrists. He drank. He pressed his forehead against the rock. The stone pushed back against his cheek.

That evening, there was a fight at the camp.

Two men grappled with each other. The long season of plenty had swelled something in them both. It was not food, not a woman — there was no reason left at all. They simply could no longer bear each other's existence.

The one watched from a distance.

One man fell. He did not rise. He had struck his head against a rock. The others drew close. He convulsed. Sometime in the night, he went still.

In the morning, they dug a hole.

The one dug too. The earth was hard. His nails filled with black.

They covered him. Pressed the soil down. Stood.

The one turned and looked back in the direction of the water source. Beyond the northeast ridge. He had it now. He had fixed it inside his body. There is water there. Whatever comes, that is where water can be found.

That one thing, he repeated it once more, deep in his chest.

A crossing was found at the river. Footprints in the mud. Large. A rounded heel.

Crouching down, a finger was pressed to the edge. It crumbled. Fresh.

Standing again, the one looked to the far bank. The archaic people were nowhere to be seen. No sound, no scent.

The decision was made to turn back. From the rock wall side, evening smoke was rising. The grassland fire was not yet visible.

The rain was coming.

No sound yet. But the smell of the earth had changed. That smell of dry things beginning to dampen from within. The one lifted their nose and breathed it in.

Their steps had slowed. Since the previous autumn, the right knee would not move well in the mornings. It would warm through the walking, and by midday there was no trouble. But this summer, the time it took to warm had grown longer.

The group had moved upstream. Before the waters rose, they left the bank. Children ran about. The young ones stretched animal hides and set them to dry. The one sat at the edge of all this and did nothing.

Sitting had become more common.

Once, they had risen at dawn and walked alone to the water. They had read the tracks of animals. Measured weight by the depth of prints in mud. Returned, and with low sounds and gestures conveyed direction. The others moved. Meat was brought back. Days like that had continued for a long time.

Now it was the young ones who went.

The one watched them leave, then sat again.

On the morning of the third day, they could not rise.

It was not the knee. The strength had drained from the center of the body. A woman from the group brought water. The one received it. Drank. It was good.

They looked at the sky. The clouds were thick, and the light scattered white.

The sound of the river reached them. It was swelling. When the sound of water deepens and the current grows, it becomes this sound. The one knew this. They had never told anyone. They simply knew.

A child came close, then moved away again.

The one did not close their eyes. Still watching the sky, their breathing slowly grew shallow. The sound of the river grew louder. Or perhaps the other sounds fell away.

The right hand lay on the grass. The grass was wet. The fingers moved a little, and were still.

The rains had come.

The skin of the earth drank the water, and the rivers swelled. The animals that had gathered in the lowlands moved to the hills, and the group followed them. They followed while carrying children on their backs and pulling the arms of the old. In this season, those who did not move were swallowed.

The one was on someone's back.

The warmth of a swaying back, and the smell of rain. Water entered a nostril. A sneeze. The one carrying did not turn around, but made a low sound. That sound was neither threat nor reproach — it simply was.

There was tension within the group.

Two bloodlines had long been sleeping near the same fire. A season of abundance had continued, and they watched each other warily even as their bellies were full. The children mixed and ran together, but the adults divided their places by the fire between them. The balance stretched thin as ice over still water.

The one rolled through the grass.

Whether another child had pulled, or whether the rolling began on its own, there was no longer any way to know. Mud stuck to a face. The coldness of mud lingered on a cheek. Some entered the mouth. It was bitter. It was spat out. And while spitting, there was laughter. Why there was laughter, even the one could not say.

There was a day when a group of archaic ones appeared beyond the rocks.

Three or four of them. Dense with hair, their foreheads jutting forward. The adults of the group raised their voices and took up stones. The archaic ones vanished behind the rocks. That was all. It did not become a fight. Only, from that night on, the adults' sleep grew lighter.

The one slept beside the fire.

The crackling of flames. The smell of smoke. Lying on the belly of the one who carried, the one rose and fell with each breath. Someone was droning as if singing. A monotone voice. A repeating voice. With eyes closing, the one heard that voice through the bones.

Five years passed.

The grasses changed their height. The course of the river shifted. Some within the group vanished, and some were born. The one's feet came to know the ground. What it was to run, and to fall, and to rise again. From the weight of being carried, to the weight of one's own step upon the earth.

Mud seeps between the fingers.

Each time a root is pulled free, the earth gives off its smell. After rain, a fermented smell, something faintly sour. The one remains sunk to the knees in mud, pulling and pulling, until a bundle of grass is gathered against the chest.

The adults of the group had followed the animals over the hill and vanished. Those left behind were the old, the injured, the children. The one is seven, or perhaps eight — the thinness of the bones suggests one or the other — and is now carrying grass toward the skeleton of the shelter.

After the moving, the building again.

Stones placed, branches laid across, grass layered on top. The one imitates the hands of the adults, folding and pressing the grass into place. It does not go well. Things slip. The folding begins again. An elder sits down slowly nearby and shows how it is done. The one watches. This time, a little less slipping.

By evening, the group had returned.

No animal taken. Empty hands. Tired faces. But three others had come with them, unfamiliar ones. Old people. Thick arms, heavy brow-ridges, short in stature. The one stands without moving, the bundle of grass still held.

Among them was a child of the old people. Slightly larger than the one.

The one looked at the child. The child looked at the one.

The low sounds of the adults continued. Neither group moved, each holding its distance. After a time, one of the old people set a dried hide down on the ground. From this side, an adult offered out a bundle of dried grass.

Night came.

The two groups sat apart from each other, the fire between them. The one sat at the edge of its own group, watching the profile of the child. The profile watched the fire.

The one looked down at its own hands. The mud had dried and gone white, cracked across the skin.

The hands of the child were the same.

Before night came, the one could still make it back.

Thinking this, the one quickened the pace. A bundle of grass was tied across the back, pulling the arms rearward. Dry stalks pricked at the shins. No matter.

The hollow beneath the rocks where the group slept lay beyond two hills.

Cresting the first hill, the smell changed.

Not smoke. Something heavier than smoke, damp, pressing into the back of the nose. The one stopped and lifted the chin. Turned the head slowly side to side, as though following the scent.

The direction was unclear.

Walking on. Grass touched the ankles. Stone met the heel. At the edge of the sky fading from violet to black, there was a bright place.

Fire.

But not the group's fire. The shape was different. The way it spread was different. The one looked at that light and the feet went still.

A sensation gathered behind the knees — a slow warmth, something saying *run*.

But the feet did not move.

Within the light, there were outlines. Shadows of standing figures. One, two, three. Moving. Turned this way.

Then voices came.

Low, short sounds. The arrangement of them was nothing like the sounds the one's group made.

Still carrying the bundle of grass, the one drew back slowly. Not stepping on stones. Not snapping dry stalks. Knees raised high — one step, one step, backward.

The shadows moved.

The one ran.

Down the slope, the bundle swaying, the cords biting in, and still the hands did not let go. Leaping over rocks, running alongside the sound of water, over the second hill, not stopping even when the breath gave out.

Arriving at the rock hollow, one of the adults seized the one's arm.

The one spoke. Low, short, repeating sounds. About the light beyond the hill. About the shadows. About the other voices.

The adult listened without a word.

Then called another adult. Then another.

That night, the group built the fire higher. People were stationed at the edges. Few slept.

The one lay holding the bundle of grass, eyes open. Stars filled the sky above. Smoke rose. Somewhere in the distance, an animal cried out.

The far fire was no longer visible.

But the smell was still there, deep in the nose.

The stomach spoke.

When the stomach speaks, it is a good sign. This one knew that. It was the sound that comes before hunger, not the sound that comes after hunger has already arrived.

The scent of grass seeds touched the nose. Looking up, this one saw several pieces of fruit hanging from the low branches of a small tree. Two colors. Black ones and yellow ones.

One black fruit was placed in the mouth. Held on the tongue. Sweet, and faintly bitter. Swallowed. The stomach did not ache.

A yellow one was touched. The skin was taut. Hard. It was bitten into. Sour — the face twisted. It was not swallowed. It was spat onto the ground.

Another black one was taken. This time, two.

On the way back to the rock hollow where the group sheltered, there was another tree. The same kind of tree. Looking up, this one saw only black fruit. There were no yellow ones. All the fruit on this tree can be eaten, this one thought. Not thought — the body decided it.

As many as both hands could hold were gathered. Wrapped in broad leaves. Carried back.

The old woman of the group was awake. This one held the fruit out to her. She smelled them. Ate one. Nodded.

The one set the rest on the ground.

That night, the stomach did not ache.

That was all. That was the whole of it. Yet the next morning, this one's body went out again to find the same tree.

The rains returned to the red-brown plateau.

Water forced open the cracks in the rock. Grass grew to ankle height, and animal tracks pressed themselves into the mud, only to be smoothed over each morning in different shapes. The group kept growing. Those who could no longer fit beneath a single overhang moved east in search of new shelter. Those in the east used the southern water sources, and those in the south cast hard looks at those in the north. Abundance drew people closer together, and closeness ground against itself.

The one was twenty-two years old.

There was a scar along the ribs. An old scar, long since closed, but before the rains it would pull tight with a feeling like something shrinking. That sensation was all that remained of a memory five years gone. That night, someone had shoved her. Who it was, she could no longer recall.

A band of ancient ones began appearing at the forest's edge toward the end of that year's dry season.

They were short, long-armed, and low-voiced. The sounds that came from their throats were unlike anything anyone in the group produced. They did not come closer, but neither did they leave. Children pointed. An elder growled and tried to drive them off. The ancient ones did not stir.

The one watched from a distance.

She had no wish to drive them away. She simply watched. One of the ancient ones was digging near the water source—breaking the earth with a short stick, pulling out something root-like, and eating it. The one stretched her neck around the edge of a rock and watched every movement.

The next morning, she went to the same spot.

She pressed the earth with her hand. It was damp. She dug with her fingers held upright. A root came free. She smelled it. Smelled it again. Touched it with the tip of her tongue. It was not bitter. She ate it.

No one was watching.

The tension within the group sharpened in the second half of the second year.

An elder man from the northern overhang quarreled with a young man from the east at the water source. Who had arrived first, whose turn it was—there had never been any agreement about such things. There had only been habit. The habit broke. Nails dug into flesh and blood came. The eastern man retreated. But that night, the low rumbling of voices gathered under the eastern overhang went on for a long time.

The one belonged to neither overhang.

She was one who was taken. Several men came to her in what passed for a rotation. One of them was from the north, one from the east. After the quarrel, neither came anymore. Something had already taken hold inside her. Whose it was, she could not say.

The child was born in the summer of the third year.

Small, high-voiced, given to crying. The one gave milk. Gave water. When the child slept, she slept. When the child woke, she gave milk again. That was the shape of her days.

It was around this time that something in the group began pushing her toward the edges.

Nothing was said outright. When prey was divided, her turn came later. When she moved to sit near the fire, those already seated would shift just enough to close the gap. The eyes that fell on her child held a measuring quality. She noticed. She noticed and did nothing. She held the child and sat at the edge.

In the fourth year, one of the ancient ones died.

A child found the body at the forest's edge. No one from the group went near. Only the one approached. It was an old individual—a broken tusk, thinning fur. She crouched and looked for a while, the child still bound to her back.

The rest of the ancient ones' band disappeared the following day.

Before the dry season of the fifth year, the one left the group.

She had not been driven out. One morning she woke and there was simply no space left for her beneath the overhang. That was all. She lifted the child, rose to her feet, and began walking. She had not decided where she was going.

She walked for three days.

She passed two water sources. Near the second, she found the ancient ones. She stopped. They stopped. Neither made a sound.

The child cried.

One of the ancient ones made a gesture as if offering a dried fruit. The one did not take it. But she did not move. The ancient ones did not move.

Night came.

She sat at the edge of the water and waited out the darkness. The ancient ones slept a short distance away. Morning came. They moved east. She did not follow.

She did not turn back either.

She stayed by the rock beneath the water source, she and the child alone. Five days passed. Ten days passed. No one came.

On the morning of the fifteenth day, the child was no longer moving.

She had known there was a fever. After the child stopped taking milk, she had kept offering water. The water had stopped going down the night before. The one held the child and waited for morning. In the morning light, she felt the strength leave the small body.

She did not put the child down.

For three days she held it. Then she dug at the earth beneath the rock with her fingers. She could only manage a shallow hole. She laid the child in it. Covered it with soil. Stood.

She walked.

Where she was going, she had still not decided.

The throat could no longer swallow.

Water taken into the mouth. It rolled across the tongue. Somewhere it stopped. It could neither be spat out nor sent down, and simply spilled over.

The small one sleeping beside the body stirred at the wet sound. Eyes met. The one reached out a hand. Touched the small one's forehead. It was warm. The one's own hand was warm too, but there was no understanding that this warmth came from fever.

Three days passed, or perhaps five.

Beneath a rock shelf, at the edge of the group, the one lay. In the mornings came the sounds of the others rising. The sound of feet pressing earth. The sound of water being carried. A voice scolding a child. The one's body did not rise. Perhaps it tried to rise, but the knees would not bend.

The small one came back. Sat close. Brought something. A crushed piece of fruit. Pressed it to the one's lips. The one did not open its mouth. The small one held it there for a time. Then, giving up, put it into its own mouth.

The sun tilted. Shadows stretched long.

The one's breathing grew shallow. Grew slow. The intervals widened.

The intervals widened, and the next breath did not come.

The chest was still. The small one, not knowing, slept alongside. Wind moved through the grass. Someone in the group laughed. Laughed from somewhere far away.

A toe caught the edge of the mud.

One foot sank. Just one. When pulled free, it made a sound. A slow, wet sound — *nhbo*.

The one stood still.

Stepped again.

*Nhbo.*

Knees bent, hand reached down. Cold. Black. When fingers pressed in, they vanished. When pulled back, they returned. Pressed again. Gone again.

A voice came from behind. An adult's voice. A sound meaning *come*.

The one did not turn.

There were footprints on the surface of the mud. Beside the one's own prints, there were others. Larger. Not five-toed. Something had walked here.

The one brought a face close to the edge of the prints. There was a smell. Not mud. Something else. Animal — but an animal unknown.

The adult's voice drew nearer.

An arm was seized. Lifted. The one still held mud in a clenched hand.

Returned to the group.

People gathered around the fire. The smell of meat cooking. Children ran. Older ones carried water.

The one sat near the fire, still holding the mud.

On an open palm, the mud dried slowly. It shrank from the edges. Cracked. Shifted from black to grey.

A finger touched it. Brittle. It became powder.

That night, sleep did not come.

The footprints. Their size. Their shape. Where they differed from every known print. The number of toes was different. The depth was different. Whatever made them was heavy — it had been heavy.

In the dark, the one opened a hand. Nothing remained of the mud. No powder. Nothing.

The smoke stung the eyes.

Eyes narrowed. A hand came up to cover the face. Through the gap between the fingers, the elder's back was visible. A bent back. The firelight wavered.

The one drew the knees up close. Rested a chin on top of them.

And went on watching the elder's back, for a long time.

The night goes on.

The others are sleeping. The fire has become nothing but red fragments. The one is awake. The reason for sleeplessness lives somewhere inside the body, beyond words. Not hunger. Not pain. Something else—a heaviness high in the chest.

The body remembers what happened during the day.

An elder had pointed an arm toward the one. Had made a short sound. The others turned to look. Something in their faces said a thing had been decided. The one looked at those faces, one by one. Tried to meet someone's eyes. No one met them.

After that, the one was at the edge of the group.

The one drew near the circle of those skinning the kill. Was not let in. Followed those carrying food. Was not handed anything to carry.

No one spoke. Only the work continued, in places where the one was not.

The one sat on a rock. The rock was warm—the heat of the day still held there. A palm moved across its surface. Some parts were smooth. Some were rough.

Night came.

People gathered around the fire. The one went near. One person stood and moved to sit somewhere else. Another followed. A gap opened around the fire. The one sat there. No one came.

Now the one cannot sleep.

The smell of leaf rot enters through the nose. It is the smell of earth. Of damp, dark places. The one turns toward the thicket. Does not move.

The smell continues.

The wind comes from that direction.

The one raises the body slightly. Brings the knees up. Whether to stand is not yet decided. The embers throw light across the one's back. Ahead is dark.

What lies in the direction of the smell is unknown.

The one rests both hands on the knees, and watches the dark thicket.

They sat at the edge of the cliff.

From a height where feet could not reach, they looked down into the hollow below. Water had gathered there. Shallow, clear. Grass fringed the rim, and at the roots of the grass, small animal tracks remained pressed into the earth.

The one had known this place for five years. A place where water lingered through the dry season. The fold of the rock formed a basin.

But today they did not descend.

From the north came a sound. Not a growl — something struck against something. The same impact, again and again, carried across the distance.

The one rose.

They walked along the cliff's edge. At a place where the rock had split, they lowered to one knee. Leaning out over the rim, they looked.

Beyond the hollow, deep within the undergrowth, there was a shape they had never seen before. It stood on two legs. Its arms were long. Heavy with fur, the body looked weighty. It was picking up a stone and striking it against another. That was where the sound came from.

The one held their breath.

The other had not noticed. It simply kept striking. In a certain slant of light, flakes of broken stone caught and gleamed.

The one's hand closed around the rock at the cliff's edge. The pads of their fingers felt the temperature of the stone. The heat of midday still lived in it.

The one did not move.

The other kept striking. After a time, it lifted one of the flakes and ran the pad of its thumb along the edge, as if to test it. Then it rose and disappeared into the undergrowth.

The sound ceased.

Water shone in the hollow below. The one remained there for a while — still gripping the rock, still kneeling.

Then they rose. They turned back along the cliff's edge.

On the path back to where the group rested, they stopped at the edge of the undergrowth. A stone lay on the ground. It was shaped like what they had just seen. They picked it up. The edge was thin and sharp.

In the palm of their hand, the one traced the edge with a fingernail.

They walked on.

At the far end of the group, they went to the old one and showed them the edge. The old one looked. They did not reach out. They did not growl. They only looked.

The one sat down on the ground, still holding the stone.

That morning, the one did not go to the water.

Sitting at the edge of the group, the one touched the remnants of the fire with a finger. Black ash clung to the fingertip. It was rubbed against the rock. Touched again. Rubbed again.

Two men approached.

The one did not stand. The men made sounds — low, brief, repeated. The one looked up. The men's eyes held a color different from yesterday's.

The day before, the one had been looking at a hollow below the cliff. Water had gathered there. At the base of the grass, there were tracks. That was all it had been. And yet.

The one moved to rise.

A man's arm came. The one fell. A shoulder struck rock. Tried to rise again. Another came. From a different direction this time.

The one lay still and did not move.

The sky was tilted. A single branch crossed it. No wind. No birds.

Beneath the stomach, the feel of rock. Cold.

The men's sounds grew distant. Footsteps withdrew. Then returned.

And then, after a time, the one went still. The breath grew thin, and thinner, and was drawn up into the sky.

The rock was still cold.

It pressed a finger into the edge of the print. The sand gave way.

Large. Far larger than its own hand. But alike.

Five toes.

The one spread its own hand open. Looked again at the print. Looked again at its hand. No sound came. It did not know how to make the sound it needed.

Between the ages of twelve and seventeen, the body of this one changed.

The soles of the feet grew thick. Running across stone no longer hurt the way it once had. The shoulders broadened. This was noticed while breaking a branch — the sound of the breaking had changed.

Where the one stood within the group had changed as well. Standing now outside the circle of children. Not yet within the circle of adults. Poised at the boundary between.

The water had diminished. Everyone knew it. They knew it through low sounds in their throats. The body had known it first.

The one was in the line moving toward the watering place. Dry wind. The earth underfoot. Soil laced with sand.

Then, from the right, a smell came. Damp. Like the roots of grass. Like earth near water.

The feet stopped. The body began to turn right. From ahead came the sound of the others moving forward. The rhythm of those footsteps pulled at something inside. The body rejoined the line.

The smell from the right was gone.

They walked on for a while and reached the watering place. There was little water. When a hand was lowered in, the mud at the bottom rose in clouds. The murky water was cupped in both hands and swallowed. It was not cold.

That night, the one sat with back against a rock. The wind came. Perhaps the same smell came with it.

The body did not move.

With every dry season, the riverbed went white.

Across the bone-dry gravel, different kinds of footprints crossed one another. Tracks with wide heels. Tracks where long toes had spread and pressed. Those who had come to drink the same water left their marks layered in the mud, then lifted away again.

The one lay on their stomach at the water's edge and cupped the surface with both hands.

For a time, the one looked at the reflection of their own face in the palms. When the water moved, the face came apart. The hands withdrew. When the ripples settled, the face returned. This happened several times. It was not boredom. Something was being confirmed. What was being confirmed, the one did not know.

In the high ground to the north, a group of the old kind was on the move.

They were short, with shoulders dense with muscle, and they used all five fingers to grip the rock as they descended steep slopes. Their number was small — enough to count on one pair of hands. But they were quiet. They did not cry out. They kept their growls low. That quietness, to those who shared the same mountain, was more unsettling than any howl.

Among the one's own group, tension had been rising.

The elder male walked the edge of the group each night. He stopped again and again, as if testing for a new scent. The young females drew back behind the rocks, children held close. The one watched from a short distance. Something had changed — that much was clear. What had changed could not be put into words. There were no words.

The one knew too much.

That the one knew too much — this was not a thought anyone in the group had formed. No such concept existed. Yet when the one was near, the others had stopped meeting their eyes. When food was divided, a pause had begun to open in front of the one. Were they being kept at a distance? Were they doing it without knowing? Perhaps neither. Only the pause opened.

Downstream, two groups came upon each other without warning.

One held stones. One held branches. But they did not fight. For a long time, they simply looked at one another. Then one side withdrew. No one knew why. Something had been in balance, and something had given way. Without a sound.

When the one stood at the edge of the rock shelf, the wind changed.

It came not from behind but from ahead and to the side. Mixed into the dry smell was something scorched. The one's body knew — somewhere in the group beyond the group, others were there. The lower part of the belly grew hard. The legs did not move. The one remained standing, in that place.

Night came.

The one moved into a gap between rocks, a little apart from the group. No one called out. The one called out to no one. The cold of the stone passed into the back. That cold was exactly right. Something had been burning.

In the morning, the elder male looked at the one.

He looked for a long time. The one looked back. The male made a sound — not a word, but something that rose from deep in the throat. The one did not receive it. The male turned away.

The one stood at the edge of the group.

Five years had brought the one, little by little, to that place. Not pushed there. Perhaps drawn.

From the edge, one could see far. The river caught the light. Upstream, an unknown bird was gliding.

One morning, the others in the group changed direction.

They said nothing to the one. There was no way to say anything. They simply all turned to face another way. The one stood for a time looking at their own shadow. The shadow stretched forward. The sun was behind.

The one did not move. The group moved.

Which was right, no one could say. The one could not say either.

***

Splitting meat.

Using the edge of a stone to open the belly of a small animal brought back from the hunt. Blood wet the surface of the rock. A finger slipped. A tongue cleaned it, and the work continued.

Then the wind touched a cheek.

The hands stopped.

A scent. The scent of animals, yes. But not animals within a herd. Something else — the scent of those who were not of this group, not of this gathered life.

Standing.

Wiping bloodied hands against a thigh, the eyes moved to the rocky ridges in the east. Nothing visible. Nothing moving. Yet the scent did not fade.

Nearby, a child still nursing. The one who held that child looked across. A low sound, as though asking something. No answer came.

The ridgeline was watched.

Toward evening, the one moved close to the oldest among the group. Nothing was said. Only a chin turned toward the east. The old one narrowed their eyes.

That night, the group lay down to sleep with their backs to the east.

Only the one could not sleep. Through the whole of the night, the nostrils searched the air coming from the direction of the ridges. By morning the scent had thinned.

Had it gone? Or had the wind simply changed?

The one could not say. Only rose, and split the meat again. The hands were faster than the day before.

It was near the end of the rainy season when something began to accumulate inside the body.

Not in the stomach. Not in the chest. Deeper than that — somewhere close to the back of the ribs, a place no hand could press or reach. A heaviness, dwelling there.

The one was twenty-seven years old. Young by the standards of the group, though being young meant nothing particular — no role, no burden especially assigned.

The archaic ones who lived at the edge of the group had been appearing more often at the rocky ground lately.

The one watched them from a distance. Their outlines were different. The way the shoulders held themselves, the way shadow fell across the face. The body knew, without fear, simply knew: this was something not the same.

When the one drew near the rocks, an elder of the group swung an arm. The gesture meant: go back. The one went back. This happened several times.

One morning, the one did not go back.

The archaic ones did not flee. Neither did the one.

They stood apart from each other, and for a long time, neither moved.

One of the archaic ones made a low sound — a sound that came from deep in the throat, thick with vibration. The one tried to make the same sound and could not. Instead, an open palm was offered.

The other did nothing.

The one went home.

That night, after returning to the group, the elders gathered.

The one could not understand what was being said. The grunts and gestures were more forceful than usual.

By morning, the one's place had been moved to the far edge of the rocks. Nothing was said. There was only the indication: sit here. The one sat.

The heaviness began to spread a few days after that.

It was not the growling of an empty stomach, nor the lightness of too little food, nor the onset of fever. The body simply grew heavier, little by little. Each movement carried a sense of something being worn away.

The one drank water. Chewed on berries. Lay down on the ground.

Rose again. Lay down again.

After about five days, the one could no longer rise.

The sky was visible. Clouds moved through it. The clouds did not stop.

The one moved a finger. A little soil shifted. Moved it again. A little soil shifted.

Wind came — from the direction of moisture. It passed over the stomach and met the face. The one narrowed both eyes.

There was a smell of grass. A smell close to mud, rising from the roots. The one drew breath through the nose. The breath became long.

The hand remained open against the soil.

In the morning, the soles of their feet were numb with cold.

The ground had changed. Something had happened in the night, and the roots of the grass had gone white. The one crouched and touched it. A sharp pain pricked their fingertips. They brought their fingers to their mouth. Water. Cold water, made hard.

The group was moving. The small ones were crying. Their cries continued, and then stopped.

The one stood and walked.

The work of gathering had not changed. Searching for fruit, digging for roots, stripping bark and carrying it back. But what they had known was gone. The fruit that had always been there, season after season, was not. When they dug for roots, the earth was hard, and the bone tool broke.

That winter, a third of the group disappeared.

The old ones vanished first. Then the young ones. The one was still twelve, and kept gathering. They sniffed through the snow to find what lay beneath, and dug where the scent was faintly different.

A group of the older kind was visible in the distance. Twice, they were seen. The third time, they were not.

By the time the one reached fourteen, they had become the one who ranged farthest in the work of gathering. No one had taught them to. Those who had gone before were simply gone, and there was no one else to go.

One day, at a distant outcrop of rock, they caught a scent.

Not the dry smell of an animal—something sharper. Like scorched earth. Like a shift in the air. The one stopped. Something thin seemed to pass through them, deep inside.

They did not go toward it.

The reason could not be put into words. Their feet simply did not turn that way. Instead they moved around to the east, crossed a low hill, and found a frozen river on the other side. At one edge, the ice had begun to thaw. The one lay down on their stomach and drank the water with both hands.

In the spring of their sixteenth year, the one fell from a cliff.

They had been on the way to gather. The rock they stepped on was slick with frost. By the time they noticed, there was only sky.

Three days had passed since the hunger stopped making itself heard.

The one sat on withered grass, knees drawn to the chest. In one hand was a small reddish fruit, just enough to rest in a palm. It had not been eaten. Whether it could be eaten at all had become unclear.

For some time now, the one had been made to stay at the edges of the group.

When someone raised a voice, they looked toward the one. Then looked away. Another voice rose. A gesture: move off. The one did not move. There was no strength left for moving.

A few days before, the one had approached someone from another group. There had been a smell of food. A hand had reached out — not to receive, perhaps, but to show. Even that was uncertain. The other person cried out and ran. The story passed through the group.

It was not a matter of knowing too much. Only a feeling remained — of having seen something that was not meant to be seen.

The sun tilted.

The one set the fruit on the ground, pressed fingers into the soil, and buried it a little. There was no knowing why. It was simply done.

A wind came. Dry, threaded with sand.

The one lay down on the grass, knees still bent. Eyes open. Thin clouds moved across the sky — not fast, not slow.

A palm rested against the ground. The earth was cold.

In time, the palm felt nothing. The clouds were still moving.

Nothing in the belly.

Water, three days ago. Food — there has been a gap before that too.

Sitting beside the fire-tending enclosure. Back resting against the rock. One stone held in the hand. No intention of using it. Simply held.

Smoke drifts into the eyes. Waved away with a hand.

When morning comes, light enters through the gaps between the stones. This morning it came again. Orange fell onto the ground. The one looked at the place. Vine roots had emerged from the soil. Pale, slender, gathered in a bundle.

Looked.

Did not rise.

From the direction of the group came a sound — a low moan. A child's voice, or an animal's; there was no telling. The one raised the head. Looked at the fire enclosure. The smoke was still there.

Sat again.

Set the stone down. Pressed fingers into a crack in the rock, scraped out a little sand. Held the sand in the palm. The wind took it.

The belly moved. Something contracting inward. Then it stilled.

A presence — someone from the group approaching. Footsteps near. Heavy.

The one did not look up.

The footsteps stopped. The presence grew. Not one person.

The one looked at the space between the fire enclosure and its own hands.

A sound came. A low rumble. Another rumble folded into it.

The one stood. Stood before the fire enclosure. Spread both arms wide. The smoke moved sideways.

The rumbling continued.

The one did not move.

The knees cracked.

They cracked every time the one rose. They had been cracking since past forty, but now they carried heat as well as sound. In the mornings, both arms were needed to lift the body from the ground.

Still, the one went to the fire.

The fire had grown small through the night. The one crawled close and broke dry branches, laying them one across another. With each break, the wrists went numb. The fire released a thin thread of smoke, then grew large again.

The one crouched before it.

To look into the fire was how this one began each day. There were no words for it, yet something was there. Only by confirming it each morning did that day continue to hold.

The group had changed.

There were more young ones now. Faces the one did not know had begun to appear among them. They had come from the south, and their bodies were shaped a little differently — foreheads prominent, chins drawn back. They came near the fire but did not know how to tend it. One of them moved to throw a stone into the flames. The one made a sound. A low, rolling groan. The other stilled their hand.

Such things were tiring now.

Past fifty, the one had begun to eat less. Chewing brought pain in the back teeth. Softer things were chosen. There were nights when the belly clenched and tightened. By morning it would pass, but the next night it came again.

The one kept watch over the fire.

On rainy nights, the body curled around it. On windy nights, stones were stacked into a wall. When the group moved on, the one buried an ember in ash and carried it. An attempt was made to show others how. Words did not carry it. When the one demonstrated, a young one mimicked the motion. Once.

It was the autumn of fifty-three years.

On the night the pain in the belly did not return, the one lay down near the fire. It was no particular place. It was simply where the one always slept. The fire was burning.

The breath grew shallow.

The belly contracted, several times. The toes went cold. Sound moved further away inside the head. There was the sound of distant grass. Perhaps it was a river. The river had always been far away.

The fire was still burning.

The one's eyes remained open, resting on the edge of the flames. Whether they were seeing or had already ceased to see, it was impossible to say. At last the chest grew still.

It took a little while before anyone in the group noticed.

The grass reached to the waist.

With every step, the one felt the stalks brushing against the legs. Everything was dry. The season was beginning to turn.

The one had been following traces of a small animal. Droppings. Scratch marks at the base of a root. The direction of flight was roughly known — it would veer before the rocky ground, move toward the scent of water. The one made a wide arc, circling behind the rocks and waited.

It never came.

Something moved beyond the grass. But in a different direction. The one stood still for a long while.

Before returning to the settlement, the one stopped at the watering place and drank. When the head lifted, two figures from another group stood on the far bank.

The one went still.

They went still too.

Neither made a sound. Only bodies facing bodies. The one's belly drew tight. The fingers closed. One of them raised an arm. What it meant was unclear. The one shifted weight back half a step.

They drank. Then they left.

The one stood at the edge of the watering place for a long time. Wind moved through the grass. Light caught the water's surface. The tightness in the belly had not left.

Back at the settlement, one of the elders made a low sound. The one nodded. Something needed to be conveyed, but there were not enough sounds for it. A hand gestured toward "over there." Two fingers for "two of them." A sweeping palm for "they left."

The elder changed the sound.

The one did not understand.

That night, the one slept near the fire. A child lay close by — not the one's own child, but in the settlement, every child born was everyone's. The child's breathing was steady. The one listened to it for a while.

Sleep would not come.

The light of the watering place remained behind closed eyes. The angle of those two bodies on the far bank would not fade.

Three days later, the one went outside the settlement.

There was no reason for it, or none that could be named. The feet simply turned that way.

It was a different direction than usual. The grass grew lower, the stones more frequent. At the edge of the rocky ground, the one stopped. Beneath a stone there was the remnant of a burrow — old, dug open. Something had disturbed it, or perhaps someone had come before.

The one crouched and traced the rim of the hole with a finger.

Dry earth crumbled.

When the one stood, there was a presence behind.

Turned.

Two figures from the same settlement. Companions of the elder. One of them made a sound. The one answered. The other began to move around.

The one's feet moved.

Running.

Through the grass, the stalks cutting the arms. A fall. Back up. Running again. The sound of pursuit did not fall away.

Into the shadow of a rock. Breath held.

The sound grew distant.

The one remained with back pressed to the rock for a long time. The heart was loud. The mouth was open.

The light shifted with the sun.

There was no more sound.

The one walked in a different direction. Did not return to the settlement. Passed the night in the grass, curled tight. It was cold.

At dawn, walking began again.

Where it led was unknown. The feet were deciding.

Three days of walking. Drinking wherever water was found. There was little to eat. A few berries. Some roots dug from the ground. The belly never filled.

On the morning of the fourth day, the one could not rise.

Remaining on knees, the one watched the light change. The ground brightened. Shadows shifted. The one's hand rested on the grass.

Beneath the hand, the grass moved.

Wind was coming.

The one felt it.

That was all.