293,165 BCE – 293,045 BCE | Episodes 1369–1392

Two suns have tilted since the old-ones' band disappeared beyond the hill.

The one sits beside the fire. Not firewood — bones. The large animal bones the group carried in. The drought has taken most of the trees. Bones burn long. Someone remembered this. Not the one.

When the flames sink low, the one lies flat and breathes into them. Heat returns to the face. There is a smell of singed eyebrows, and knowing this, the one draws near at the same angle every time.

Three in the group are sick. They lie curled around their bellies. The one does not go to them. No one said to stay away. The body simply does not turn that direction.

The old-ones' footprints were at the watering place this morning. Large. Deep. Five of them. No children's prints.

The one adds a slender bone to the fire. Perhaps there was still marrow inside — for a moment the flames rise. Light spreads, falling across the rock face beyond. The shadows on the stone begin to move.

The one watches those shadows for a while.

They seem to move. Not the shape of a beast. Not the shape of a person. Only swaying.

The one sits upright again. Draws both knees to the chest. There is only the sound of the fire.

Perhaps the one is thinking of the old-ones' band. Perhaps not. The face stays turned toward the fire, and nothing in it changes.

The bone collapses. The flames sink. The one lies flat again, and breathes.

The group is unsettled.

The one cannot say why, but the voices of the adults have dropped low. When voices drop low, the one knows that something is about to change. The body knows this. A feeling like the skin of the back drawing tight.

The one has been sent out to look for water.

Alone.

Until yesterday there were two. The one who went along had been given a sound — a name of the one's own making — but today that person is not here. Sometime in the night, they went somewhere. They are not among the group. No one speaks of it.

The one descends the hill alone.

A slope scattered with stones. Dry grass brushing against the ankles. Walking without sound. Making sound means being noticed by something. What that something is, the one does not know. Only: walk quietly.

Just before the rocks, something passed through the soles of the feet.

The ground is slightly different here.

The one stopped. Bent at the knees. Pushed fingers into the soil. Hard. But the kind of hardness is different. Knocked the back of the hand against it. The sound was muffled.

Began to dig. Before the nails split, reached for a nearby stone.

When the depth reached two fingers down, a damp smell rose up.

The one brought the face close. Until the nose touched the earth.

There is a smell.

Not water. But the smell of where water has been.

The one sat there and did not move for a while. The stomach sounded. Even when the stomach sounded, the one did not move.

The tending of the fire has continued since last night.

The firewood ran low. It should have been their task to go and find more, but someone else stepped forward first. That one left without looking back. They were left behind.

They watched the fire.

When the edges of the flames tremble, there is a blue region at the center. Every night they watch that place. No one else watches it, but they do.

Morning came, and food was distributed. When their turn arrived, the elder sitting at the far end looked away. What they received was little. They looked at what lay in their hand, then looked back at the fire.

At midday, they carried water. It was heavy. Once along the way they dropped it. Someone laughed. Someone did not laugh. Which was more, they could not tell.

The wind shifted.

Something entered through the back of the nose. Earth and something sweet, something rotting, all mingled together. It was coming from the far edge of the group. The place where rocks were piled.

The feet turned that way.

Whether they had turned them deliberately, or whether the body had moved first, it felt like neither.

They walked close to the rocks. There was a gap between them. A space whose size made it unclear whether a body could fit inside. They did not look in. They only stood there, and breathed in the smell once more.

Then they went back.

The fire was still burning. At the edges of the flames, there was blue.

Before dawn, the one was descending the hill in search of water.

The soles of bare feet pressed dry earth. The crumbling edges of cracked ground gave way with each step. Since the previous day, two companions had been quarreling over food. The one had tried to stand between them and been grabbed by the arm. Had pulled free. That was all it was — and yet, when night came, no one called the one to sit beside the fire.

It had been a long time since sleeping away from the edge of the flames.

The pre-dawn air cut into the skin. The one walked with both arms folded against the belly. Coming to the edge of the cliff, the one stopped.

The wind shifted.

The wind that had been blowing from the south turned suddenly eastward. The right side of the one's face grew cold. There came a sound of air passing through a gap in the rock. The one, still standing, turned toward that sound. Something was trying to be given. Along the cliff's edge, there was another path downward. The one listened to that sound.

One step, closer to the cliff's edge.

The rock gave way. No sound escaped.

Falling, the one looked up at the sky. Stars were still there. The sound of the body meeting the ground — that sound, the one did not hear.

Rain fell.

At the southern edge of the land, the ground grew so saturated that water seeped through cracks in the rock. Grass rose to knee height, roots gripping the earth and refusing to let go. To the north, on the plateau, the wind softened, and morning mist settled into the valleys for days without lifting. Animal tracks pressed deep into the mud, and before they could dry, new tracks layered over them. Far away, along the eastern cliffs of the land, another group moved through the grass, filling their sacks with seeds. They and the one's group were separated by a single hill, unknown to each other.

The one walked carrying something heavy.

An elder had tied something to the one's back — a leather sack, contents unknown. It was heavy. The skin at the shoulders rubbed raw and red, but no sound was made. The soles of the feet read the ground with each step: where stone struck, where mud ran cold, where roots swelled beneath the surface. The one already knew this in the body — how to confirm the earth, one step at a time.

Water sources multiplied.

Dry hollows filled. The animals that gathered there changed. Where once only small hoofprints had marked the ground, something larger began to leave its trace. The elders of the group spoke to one another at length. Their voices were longer than before — no longer the same sounds repeated, but different sounds linked together in sequence. Their gestures, too, had grown more precise, pointing toward one thing and then another. When food grows plentiful, people begin to speak. When the belly is full, the voice grows long. This was happening to the north and to the south, across the whole of the land.

The one kept watch over the fire.

At night, while the group slept, the one alone remained awake. Watching the wood turn red. The one had known for a long time that there were moments when the edge of the flame turned blue. No one had taught this. It was simply observed, and known. That night too the blue edge appeared, and vanished quickly. The one sat with hands resting on knees, watching the place where it had been.

The group had grown larger.

More children's voices now. In the mornings there were more bodies rising than before. Arguments over food increased, though so did the moments when someone extended an arm and silenced them. Power had come to rest in more than one person, and an order was forming among those voices — a sequence of who spoke when. The one stood at the edge of that order. Carrying loads, tending the fire, sleeping outside the circle of voices. But on the sleepless nights, eyes open, the one watched the flames.

One night, a piece of wood rolled out of the fire.

There was a sound — small, but the one heard it. The end of the wood burned against the ground. The one rose, and returned the burning piece to the fire. The hand was hot. The fire did not go out. That was all. And yet the one remained standing there for a time, watching the returned wood redden, as though confirming once more what had just been done.

There was a night when the group from the eastern cliffs crossed over the hill.

The elders of the one's group raised their voices. The others raised theirs. Neither yielded. Before dawn, the other group withdrew. They were not pursued. By morning, no one spoke of it aloud. It had not been erased — but it did not become words.

The one had reached sixteen.

The skin on the shoulders had thickened. The leather sack no longer left it red. The nights of tending the fire continued, and the nights without sleep had come to outnumber those with it. The one still searched for the blue edge of the flame. Some nights it appeared; some nights it did not. On both kinds of nights, the one watched the fire with the same expression.

The number of people to carry things alongside grew fewer.

One who had walked ahead stopped walking one morning. The one set down his load and walked behind the next person. His throat was dry. There was the taste of sand in his mouth.

On a night standing watch over the fire, the flames were small. There was little wood. Each time the fire threatened to go out, he broke off dead branches and fed them in. Morning came.

The exclusion came quietly. Someone signaled with their eyes. The one was standing outside the group. By the time he understood, there was no longer a way back inside.

Alone, he walked across the sand.

The load cut into the shoulders.

When the one walking ahead slowed, those behind pressed forward. When pressed, the foot came down wrong. When the foot came down wrong, it sank into sand. Each time it sank, the knees took the weight. Each time the knees took the weight, the load grew heavier.

Five days of walking.

When they reached the watering place, the old ones were there.

The one gripped a stone, as the others in the group did. The smell of the old ones' bodies was not a known smell. It was smoke, and some animal fat, and something older still, all mixed together.

The old ones drank.

The one waited, stone in hand.

The old ones moved away. One of them passed close by. Small. A child. The child of the old ones stopped and looked across. Its eyes were round. The one looked back.

The child went on.

The one set down the stone.

Came forward to the water and drank. The clouded water moved down the throat.

After the old ones had gone, a stone lay on the ground where they had been. Its edge stood up. The one crouched. Picked it up. Pressed the pad of a thumb against the edge. It was thin. A thinness unlike any other stone.

It was pushed into the edge of the load.

Night came.

A fire was made. The one kept watch over it. The flame was carried to dry grass, and thin branches were laid across. The branches burned red and passed the fire on to thicker ones.

The one drew the stone out from the load.

In the firelight, a row of small, flaked marks ran along the edge. The marks of someone's working. The way they had been made was unlike anything from anyone in this group.

The one looked at the stone for a long time.

The fire grew small. A branch was added. The fire grew again.

The one slept with the stone held in one hand.

The night the rains came, this one lay awake beside an old woman.

The woman's breathing was labored. In the years of drought, she had lost something. Not her eyes. Not her feet. Her voice. She had once given directions with her voice. Now she only moved her hands.

The sound of rain reached deep into the cave.

This one rose. Went outside. Was soaked. Grew cold all through. Still did not return.

The ground was drinking. The sand had grown heavy. Stones that had been bleached pale now darkened.

Water was running through the old riverbed.

This one crouched and put both hands in. The water was cold. It moved between the fingers. The hands went in again and again. Withdrew. Went back in.

Near dawn, this one returned. The fire had dwindled. Wood was added. The flames came back.

The old woman was watching. She made no sound. Did not move her hands. Only watched.

This one said nothing either.

Morning came. Among the group, a young woman gave birth. Voices rose. The child cried out. It was alive.

This one watched the fire.

In the afternoon, this one went to the water's edge. There were animal tracks. Large ones. This one traced the edge of a print with a finger. The soil was soft. Mud caught under the nail.

Walking back, this one was thinking about something — without knowing that thinking was happening, simply walking.

That night, the fire was tended again.

Rain had returned to the northern grasslands.

The earth drank. Roots spread outward. Wind came from the south and returned to the north. Small insects made their nests beneath stones, and birds perched along the stones' edges. The world moved without knowing. It had no need to know.

The one walked with a heavy hide sack on their back.

An elder man walked ahead. His pace was slow, his knees worn. The one did not overtake him. Among the group, those at the bottom were not permitted to walk in front. This had never been put into words. It was known through the body.

At the edge of the grasslands, the footprints of another group were found.

The prints were large. The heels had pressed deep; the toes had spread wide. Something with a different bone structure from this group had walked here. The prints were three days old. Someone leaned down and smelled them. Someone else let out a low growl. The group changed direction.

The one stood looking at the footprints.

For a long while. There was no need to smell them. The eyes traced the shape of each print. Some parts were deep, others shallow. The weight had not fallen evenly. The one knelt and placed a hand beside a print. Compared the size. There was no thought that this held any meaning. The hand was simply placed there.

The rainy season ended. The herds moved on.

What remained was churned mud, bones, and dung. The group gave chase. They chased too far and strayed from the water. Two children grew too weak from thirst. One came back. One did not.

The fire watch grew longer. The nights were lengthening.

The one sat before the fire. With the tip of a branch they pushed at the coals and watched the shape of the flames change. The flames obeyed the wind. They held no fixed form. And yet they were warm.

An elder man began to speak.

His sounds were brief. Close to growling. He moved his arms in wide gestures, pointing westward. Another elder moved their arm in a different direction. The voices overlapped. The one listened. Whether the meaning was understood is uncertain. But something was felt in the rising and falling of those voices. This exchange carried anger. That much was clear.

A fracture was beginning to run through the group.

Some among the elders had their eyes turned eastward. Others looked west. The distribution of food shifted. Certain ones ate in the morning; others only at night. The boundary was never spoken aloud, but it was unmistakably there.

The one walked along that boundary.

Belonging to neither side. Fire watch was needed by everyone. Carrying loads was needed by everyone. And so both sides called out. The one moved as called.

One night, a stone fell.

Not from above the cliff. The sound came from within the group itself. There was a brief cry. Then silence. By morning, one of the elder men was gone. Blood remained on a rock. The children walked a wide path around that rock.

The one walked past it directly.

No wide path taken. The blood was seen. It was dry. The body knew that wind and rain would erase it in time. The one stood there for a moment, then walked on.

The tension continued. Food grew scarcer.

Something close to two groups was still pretending to be one. They shared knowledge of where the water was. They had reached an understanding not to let the fire go out. But that understanding was never voiced. No one let the fire go out — that was all.

The one had been entrusted with tending the fire.

Wood was added. Ash was swept away. When the flames fell low, breath was blown into them. The fire rose. Someone watched. The one felt the watching. But did not turn around.

Then, before winter, someone whispered into someone else's ear.

A sound close to the one's name passed through more than one mouth. A voice raised something in protest. Another voice answered. Near where the one stood, space suddenly emptied.

The one sat alone before the fire.

That was all it was. But the next morning, the one's portion was absent from the food distribution. That was all it was. The night after that, the sleeping place had shifted to the edge of the group. That was all it was.

The edge was near the cliff.

At the edge of the group, the one kept watch over the fire.

The one knew how quickly the wood burned down. Which timber held its flame, which turned to ash without warning. No one had taught this. The hands simply knew.

At night, while the others slept, the one sat before the fire and watched the edges of the flame. Each time the red light shifted, the lines in the face grew deeper.

For about three days now, carrying the loads of the elders had become difficult. The knees would not obey. When lifting something heavy, something pulled near the lower back. Still, the one carried. Told no one. It was not so much that there were no words for it — more that there seemed to be no need to speak.

Among the group was someone who had come from elsewhere. The shape of the face was different. The brow sat differently. The others kept their distance, watching from afar.

At first, the one kept distance too.

But one night, one of the outsiders came and sat near the fire. The one did not drive them away. Simply let them sit on the other side of the flame. No words came. There was only the fire.

Someone had been watching.

The next morning, the one was led outside the group. High voices and low voices tangled together, swelling around the one. Hands pressed against the chest. Shoulders were shoved. The one did not fall, but stood swaying.

The knees gave way not when the stone was thrown. They had already given way before it came.

The one sat down in the grass. No one offered a hand.

By evening, the one had not returned.

Night came. Stars appeared. The grass stirred.

The one lay in the grass. The fire was far away. It must have been cold, but the body no longer trembled.

One hand held a single blade of grass. Not pulling it free — only holding it.

When that hand let go, the strength went with it. Quietly, slowly, spreading out across the grass.

The back of the hand was warm.

Looking up at the sky. There were clouds. Beyond the clouds, light. Standing there for a while.

The grass moved in the wind. Someone in the group called out. The one ran. Toward the voice. Still carrying the warmth on the back of the hand.

Stood facing the direction of the smell for a moment.

Was called by someone. Turned around. And even after turning, looked once more toward where the smell had come from.

Then ran. Toward the voice that had called.

At the edge of the group, the one was shoved.

A hand at the back. Not a strong hand. But it demanded retreat.

The one fell. Knees struck the ground. Rising, there came another push — this time to the chest. Feet slid backward.

Beyond, there was a fire. A fire the one had tended. Three days of carrying wood. Waking in the night to bury coals. So it would not go out.

Another now sat before that fire.

The one said nothing. Words did not come. The mouth opened, but no sound came out.

In the hand, there was sand. Clutched when falling.

Someone raised a voice. A voice from within the group. Whose voice, it was impossible to tell. But there was laughter. Several laughs layering over one another.

The one placed the sand on the ground.

Rose, and looked toward the fire. The flames swayed as they always had.

The feet moved. In the direction away from the fire.

Walking through the grass. Beneath the soles, a hardness different from yesterday. The soil where the water had shifted had not yet fully dried. Sinking, slightly. Rising back, slightly.

The one walked on.

Night had come. The voices of the group grew distant.

Curled behind a rock. The stomach sounded. Nothing had been eaten that day. The wound on the knee, meeting the coldness of the stone, ached with a dull throb.

Stars filled the sky.

The one did not look at the stars. The surface of the rock was what held the gaze. A finger drew a line. It faded. Drew again.

There was nowhere to go.

Five years of unbroken rain.

The grass along the riverbank grew past the knee, and the mud held the prints of many animals. Children were born, and then born again. The group grew larger, and more people sat around the fire. On nights when there was enough meat, someone would cry out and imitate something — perhaps the gait of a beast. A sound close to laughter spread through them.

The one sat at the edge of that circle.

Since being shoved aside, something had stayed in the one's back. Not pain. The memory of a hand. Someone in the group had tried to push the one out of the way. The one's body held nothing more than that — and nothing less.

The fever came a little before the grass turned yellow.

First, the one drank water. Then lay in the shade. There was nothing else to do. The others went out to find food, tended the fire, moved through the noise of children. The one leaned against a rock and watched the sky.

The clouds moved quickly.

A sensation of something lodged deep in the throat persisted. The one tried to retch, but nothing came. Drinking water unsettled the stomach. From somewhere inside the body, heat kept pressing outward.

At night, someone was near the fire.

Not close to the one. But not far, either. They looked at the one, then looked at the fire. Said nothing. The one said nothing.

Wind came from the direction of the river. The smell of water reached them.

The one breathed it in. Tried to breathe it in once more.

The breath did not come.

The chest seized as if pressed from within. A hand gripped the mud of the ground. The grip held, and then the strength left it.

The fire burned. The river ran. The night grass swayed.

Someone's shoulder is swaying.

Within that swaying, eyes open, close, open again. The sky breaks apart through the leaves, and fragments of light drift and shift. Because they move, the eyes follow. Because the eyes follow, the face turns. Something so small uses the whole of the body.

The feet do nothing. The arms do nothing. When a voice comes out, something arrives. When something arrives, there is warmth. That is the world.

The one who holds the child has a scar on their neck. An old scar, raised skin that meets the fingers. Every day, those fingers find it. There is a soft part and a hard part. When the child grips the soft part, the one who holds them makes a low sound. It does not seem to hurt. The sound is not a sound of anger.

The river is somewhere far away.

Nearby, other voices rise. A high voice, a low voice. They are saying things to one another. The exchange goes on for a long time. The arms holding the child grow slightly rigid. Inside those rigid arms, the child's breathing becomes shallow. There is no knowing why. Only that the arms are rigid, and so the breath is shallow.

At night, a fire burned.

Beside the fire, someone had fallen. A large one. Someone who had been standing was now on the ground. Others gathered around. The child, still held in someone's arms, remained at the edge of the gathering. The face of the fallen one could not be seen.

The next morning, that one was gone.

That was all. Clouds came into the sky, and the sound of the river was still there. The arms holding the child stayed rigid. Then, some days later, they eased. The rigidity left.

By the time the child was five, they were walking on their own. There is a feeling of grass against the legs. There is the dampness of earth. Being held had grown less frequent. The world had grown wider, and with it, the unknown had grown wider still.

At the edge of the group, there were others with different faces. The brow was shaped differently. The eye sockets ran deep. They carried no fire, yet they did not fear it. They neither approached nor fled. They simply were.

The child looked at them. One of them looked at the child.

Nothing happened.

On the night the children huddled at the edges, this one was among them.

A face pressed into someone's side. Voices could be heard. The sound of stones being struck. The sound of shouting. Then the song.

While the song went on, the body was warm.

The song stopped.

The body was still warm.

The arms were thin.

They had always been thin. At birth, and after learning to walk, and after learning to run — thin throughout. All of it.

The group had grown larger during the previous rainy season. More food, more children, more voices. The one was among them too. Seated at the edge of the circle, listening to the sounds the adults made. Not understanding the words. Receiving them as sound alone.

During that season of abundance, the one witnessed something.

One of the adults raised a stone toward another. It was not night. It was daytime — bright, open daylight. The one could not follow the sequence of how it had come to that. Only that the stone was raised, and in the next moment it lay on the ground. The man was lying on his side.

The one had been watching.

Someone learned that the one had been watching.

It was after that when the food began to diminish. This had nothing to do with drought. Someone had simply stopped passing food to the one. At first only a little less. Then days came when nothing was passed at all.

The one searched. Grass roots, remnants of fallen fruit, the leavings of animals. With arms so thin, there was no walking far. With legs so thin, there was no running fast.

One morning, the one sat beside a large stone.

The shadow was short. Close to midday.

The one placed a hand on the stone.

It was warm.

The hand was lifted. Then placed again.

A sound came from the belly — not quite a sound, more a sensation. Something wrung from inside the body.

Somewhere in the distance, a voice rose. Like singing. The sound of the women in the group gathered around something. It did not reach the one.

There was only the warmth of the stone.

The arms went slack, as though the bones had given way. The forehead came to rest against the stone. The stone was warm. The eyes stayed open, but the gaze no longer moved.

No one came.

Toward evening, one of the children found the one.

Came closer. Did not touch. Ran back.

That night, the fire of the group burned.

The sound of rain was something to love.

The leaves spoke, and the ground shone. Leaning close to a puddle, there was a round self inside it. Poking it with a finger, the self rippled.

There was something white at the child's feet.

It was picked up. Put in the mouth. Sand. Spat out.

But not discarded.

Running, still holding it. Falling. Knees turned to mud. Standing, running again. The bone was still in the hand.

The largest one in the group sat before the fire. The child went there. Sat beside. The fire was warm. The bone was held toward the fire. Too warm. Pulled back.

The large one said something. The meaning was unclear.

The bone was held out toward that one.

The large one did not take it.

The child set the bone on their knee. Looked at the fire. Looked at the bone. Looked at the fire.

When sleep came that night, the child curled up still holding the bone.

In the morning, when the hand opened, it was still there.

There was no pain like skin pulled taut against bone. Not this year.

Grass seeds spilled through the fingers. Gathered again. Kept running.

The one stood a little apart from where the larger ones were reading the signs of prey. Not called over. But stray too far and the shouting would come, so the one knew in the body how to stay exactly one stone's distance away.

On the dry earth there was a thin line, like the mark of a fingernail.

The one crouched down. Brought a finger close to the line. Did not touch it. Breathed in its smell. Something coming from beneath the soil—not rotting grass, but the damp presence of an animal.

Stood up.

Looked at the backs of the larger ones. No one had noticed.

Made a sound. A single tone. Something that was neither demand nor refusal came out of the throat. No one turned.

Again, this time from deeper in the body.

One of the taller ones turned around. Their eyes met. The one looked at the ground, then looked up again. That was all. That was enough.

The larger ones moved.

The animals were deep in the brush along the river. Three of them. With young.

The one stayed behind. Held a stone. Did not throw it.

The smell of blood spread.

The meat came in the evening. A larger one held it out. The one received it. Chewed.

Before the fire, the group ate.

The one was at the edge of that. Today, being at the edge did not trouble the one.

When night came, something had changed.

Two of the larger ones were raising their voices. Gripping stones. Whether they were fighting over who had first spoken of the day's discovery, the one could not read. Only the pitch of the voices and the angle of the bodies came through.

The one slipped quietly into the shadow of the grass.

Sat with knees drawn up.

The quarrel went on. The firelight swayed. Shadows grew large and then small.

The one thought of the line in the earth from before.

Thin, deep, the trace of something that had passed through.

It seemed as though no one would remember that it was the one who had found it.

There was no wish to be remembered. No wish—and yet, deep in the belly, something burned. It was not the fire's warmth.

Three days later, the one had been separated from the group.

Led to the far edge of the grass. Left alone.

Not because the one knew too much. No one had even considered whether too much had been known. Simply, in some vague way, the one had been a nuisance. What had been at the edge had been pushed a little further over it.

There was water.

There were a few grass seeds.

Night came.

The one walked. Not toward anywhere in particular. Just walked.

Toward the sound of the river.

By the next morning, the group had moved on. In the opposite direction.

Near the river, the one remained for two days.

Pulling up roots from the earth, smelling them, chewing them. The difference between bitter and sweet was known. The difference between what would pain the belly and what would not—the body had not yet learned that.

On the morning of the third day, the one could not stand.

Lay down. The sky was visible. Clouds were moving.

The strength left the body first. The awareness kept listening to the sound of the river until the end.

The water did not stop.

It was the dry season of the year the one turned sixteen.

The one stood at the edge of the group. Always there. Beneath the feet of the larger ones — speak and be struck, stay silent and be forgotten.

Each morning, waking brought hunger. The grass seeds had been picked clean the day before. Perhaps there would be something at the water's edge. The one rose, and walked out across ground still dusted with sand.

Before reaching the water, there was a smell.

The smell of others. Smoke and sweat and something rotting, all wound together. Not from one's own group.

The one stopped.

Perhaps it would have been right to turn back. But the one's feet did not move. The stomach was empty. There was thirst. Nothing more than that.

Three figures emerged from behind the rocks. Stones in their hands.

The one made a sound — a single syllable, brief. What it meant, there is no knowing now. A demand, perhaps. A refusal, perhaps.

The stones flew.

The one fell onto the sand. Cheek met ground. Grains of sand entered the eyes. The sky was visible.

Clouds were moving.

Slowly, slowly, the clouds drifted. The one's arm moved once, and closed around the sand.

The sand fell through the fingers.

A knee met the earth.

The stone was heavy. Even cradled in both hands, the edges threatened to slip from the fingers. Still, it was not let go. The woman had gestured — *farther* — and so the one carried it farther.

The group was moving.

After the drought ended, they changed their place. The old water source had shown its floor and gone to sand. Beyond the next hill, the new place carried the smell of water. The adults knew that smell. The one did not. There was only the carrying of stones, the bearing of loads. When the soles of the feet were cut by rock, that was the work. That was all.

Nothing had changed since the age of ten.

At night, the one kept watch over the fire. The fire could not be let too small. Neither could it be let too large. One piece of wood, then another, fed in slowly. Each time the flames shifted, heat reached the face. Light flickered across tired eyes. But to sleep was to be kicked awake by the woman. So there was no sleeping.

In the year of turning twelve, a beast came.

It was the middle of the night. The sound of grass moving, and a different smell. Without thinking, the one cried out — a single sound, drawn up from deep in the belly. The men woke and ran out, and the beast fled. That was all. The woman did not look at the one. The men did not look. The beast was simply gone.

But the next morning, an old one came and sat nearby.

Sat beside the one. Said nothing. That was all. The one did not know what this was. But that day, the stones felt a little lighter.

In the year of turning fourteen, there was a conflict within the group.

Two families raised their voices one night. Single sounds piled upon single sounds, gestures grew fierce, and at last fists moved. The children withdrew to the edges. The one withdrew as well, watching from behind a rock. A man knocked a man down. The ground shook with the fall. The fallen man rose and pushed back. The women held their children and called out.

By dawn, one family had gone.

The group was smaller. For a time, those who remained did not look at one another. Even sitting around the fire, few made any sound. The one kept carrying the loads. There was nothing else to do.

At the beginning of the fifteenth year, another group appeared beyond the hill.

The one was returning alone from drawing water. Across the way, a single figure stood at the water's edge. The face was a little different. Narrower eyes, heavier brows. The one stopped. The other stopped. Neither made a sound. Neither fled.

The wind moved. The grass swayed.

The one tilted the vessel and let a little water fall to the ground. There was no knowing why. It was simply done. The other watched. Then the other turned and walked away.

The one returned.

Nothing was said to anyone. There were no words for it. But something had moved inside the chest. It was not stone. It was not fire. It had no name. It was simply there.

They stood at the edge of the cliff.

The water was rising. Three days of unbroken rain had filled the valley floor with brown. The group moved upward, ever upward — carrying loads on their backs, holding children close, dragging along those too old to keep pace. The one stayed at the rear. It had always been this way. Carry the heavy things. Walk beside the slow ones. That was this one's place.

Two hide pouches hung from their shoulders. Inside were the fire-seeds: charcoal and dried leaves wrapped in cloth. The woman had gestured — *do not break these*. The one had nodded. Knowing how to nod was something they knew.

The sound of water grew louder.

The cliff path was narrow. The back of the person ahead was visible. Then that back tilted suddenly to the right, and was gone. There was no cry. Only the sound of water remained. The one stopped. To the right, there was nothing. Only mist and the smell of water.

One step back.

The earth gave way.

The pouches slipped from the shoulders. The one's hands reached for them once. Fingers found only air. The body slid down the slope and did not stop. The brown surface of the water drew close.

It was cold. That was all there was.

The pouches were floating. Both of them, moving away across the water. The fire-seeds were wet.

Something wet touched her skin.

It was her mother's arm. The arm felt thinner than usual. Or so it seemed — and that seeming came only later, in retrospect. In the moment, it entered her body simply as a texture that was different from before.

There were moments when sound stopped inside the group.

Those moments came more than once. Someone would lie down and be still by the following day. This repeated. She could not yet put into words the connection between these things. Lying down, not moving, the smell changing. These came one after another, in order.

One morning, her mother did not move.

She pulled at the arm. Pulled. Pulled.

Someone came and lifted her up.

In another pair of arms, she moved her head as though searching. She did not find what she sought. Without finding it, she was hungry. She cried. She fell asleep while crying.

When she woke, there was an unfamiliar smell.

Another woman tried to bring her to the breast. She resisted. For a time she resisted. At last she stopped.

She sat in the grass and watched the light fall on the ground. Something seemed to be there. She had no words with which to go and find out.

The tip of the grass brushed against an ear.

Running. Each time the feet struck the ground, the impact traveled from heel to hip. Breath caught. The back of the throat burned.

A sound came from behind. Not a shout. Something lower, something that continued longer. It was the sound of a pursuer's breathing.

The one had been running since the age of six. Now eleven, the legs had grown longer. But the one who followed also had long legs.

At the edge of the grassland there was a rocky outcropping. The one moved toward it. There was no reason. Only that it was a place where the grass ended.

Into the gaps between the rocks.

The pursuer stopped at the edge of the outcropping. The sound of breathing grew distant. Even so, the one did not move. Back pressed against the stone face, knees drawn up to the chest.

Why had the one been pursued? There was no understanding of it. Something had happened within the group. Near the water, the older ones had raised their voices. Afterward, a young one had been dragged off alone into the grass. The one had watched. Perhaps it was the watching that had been the problem.

Through a gap in the rocks, the sky was visible.

The light of past midday had turned the surface of the rock white. The one pressed a palm against it. It was hot. Pressed it again. Still hot. Even so, the hand was not withdrawn.

Evening came.

The voices had gone silent. The one left the rocks. There was no returning to the grassland. The one walked east. What lay to the east was unknown. Only that the grass continued there.

While walking, the throat made a sound. Water was needed.

But there was no returning to the water.

Between the grasses, there was a small hollow. Rainwater had collected there. The one knelt and drank. It tasted of mud.

When the drinking was done, the face was not raised.

For a while, the one remained like that, looking at the ground.

At the edge of the hollow, there were tracks of some small creature. Small. Three toes. The one traced them with a finger. What had made them was unknown. Only the tracing.

Stood up.

Walked again.

The grass rose past the knees, then continued to the height of the belly. When the wind blew, the seed-heads of the grass swayed like waves. The one moved through them. Like a stone swallowed by a wave.

Night came.

The one gathered the grass and lay down. Across the sky, grains of light were scattered. The one looked at them. Thinking nothing. Only seeing the light.

Morning came.

The one was still alive. That was all.