292,685 BCE – 292,565 BCE | Episodes 1465–1488

In the morning, the fire had grown small.

The one rose and broke a dry branch. The break was awkward and caught a finger. The sound arrived before the pain. Someone in the group turned in their sleep, and then it was quiet again.

When the fire came back, the smoke lay low. The one knew this meant the wind had shifted — knew it less as knowledge than as something the body carried.

The stomach sounded. The dried meat from yesterday was gone. The one walked to the rocks, picked up a bone that had been left there, and licked it. Only the taste of salt remained. It was set back down.

Turning toward the side the wind had shifted from, the one caught the smell of something burning far away.

The nostrils widened.

Reaching to rise, the one pressed both hands against the knees. The skin there was hard. For a while the one stayed like that, hands resting on both knees.

Did not rise.

Returning to the fire, the one broke another branch. This time it broke cleanly. Placed into the fire, the tip darkened, then reddened, then gave off flame. The one watched it.

The first in the group to move was someone else. An old man stood and went to fetch water. Two children followed behind him. The one stayed by the fire and watched the burning end of the branch slowly give way to ash.

The smell was already gone.

The one watched the three people walking over.

Should they stand. Should they remain seated. No decision came.

In the end, they stood. There was no reason. The body moved first.

The one did not know what it meant, to have stood.

By the river, the one held a stone.

A reddish stone. Rough on its surface. The broken edge caught the light. There was no reason for picking it up. The light had fallen on it. That was all.

A tongue drawn across it. A taste of iron.

Set it down.

Stepped away. Picked it up again.

This time a finger was laid along the broken edge. It was thin. A thumb drawn slowly across left a single white line in the skin. No blood came. With a little more pressure, it would, the one thought. It did not.

A voice came from the direction of the river. A child's voice.

The one stood. Threw the stone toward the river. It struck the surface and sank.

Walked to the bank. The children were digging holes in the mud. Water seeped in. The one crouched at the edge of a hole. Pushed a finger in. It was cool. When the finger was withdrawn, the hole had widened slightly.

One of the children looked up.

The one pushed the finger in again. Did the same thing.

The child laughed.

The one did not laugh. Only did it once more.

The fingers stopped moving after the water hardened.

In the morning, a hand was placed against a rock. The rock adhered to the skin. When it was pulled away, there was a sound. A small, dry sound.

Among the group, the eldest woman fell. She said nothing before she fell. She had been standing. Before drawing her next breath, she folded at the knees. Someone placed a hide over her body where it lay. The one brought a hide as well. But it was no longer needed.

The one stood for a time, still holding the hide.

The man tending the fire called to the one. Not with his voice, but with a gesture. He moved his chin — come this way. The one went. Sat beside the fire. Held out both hands toward it. It was hot. Hot, and yet the fingers would not move.

The man said something. Three words. The one understood only two of them.

That night, white things began to fall from the sky. The fire shrank. The one placed branches on it. The branches were damp. Smoke rose. The smoke entered the eyes. Tears came.

It was not weeping. Only the eyes responding to the smoke.

The one remained there in the smoke, feeding it branches.

By dawn, two from the group were gone. Whether they had walked away or been carried off, the one did not know. Only that the count of people in the morning was less than the night before — and the one felt this through the body, not through thought.

The one reached toward what others had left behind. It was a hide. Heavy. It smelled. The one pulled it close and wrapped it around the body.

Beneath the soles of the feet, a faint sensation.

When stepped on, the earth gave way.

The one stopped. Stepped again. It gave way.

Crouched down. Brushed away the white with both hands. The hands reddened. There was soil. Inside the soil, something was there. Something thin — not like the white things — yellowish and slender. The one pulled at it. It broke apart. Brought it to the nose. The smell was unremarkable. Whether it could be eaten, the one could not tell.

It was set down on the ground.

The one stood.

And walked.

But that evening, near the river, the one encountered members of another group. They were of an older form, with prominent brows. Three of them. They approached the one's group.

A man from the one's group raised his voice.

A stone flew.

Which side had thrown it, the one could not tell.

The stone did not strike anyone. But the older ones did not withdraw. That night, the one's group extinguished the fire. By becoming dark, they hoped to become unseen.

The cold deepened.

When morning came, the older ones were gone. But something else had occurred.

Someone in the group now looked at the one differently.

One of them said that the one had been looking in the same direction as the older ones. It was said in a single word, accompanied by gestures. Not a pointing finger, but a motion of the chin. The gesture meant: you called them here.

The one said nothing.

The one did not have the words to say: the fire went out, and so it was cold, and nothing more.

The fever had lasted three days.

It felt as though something was packed tight inside the body. With every breath, there was a sensation of something viscous shifting deep in the chest. The one lay still, watching the bare rock of the ceiling. A crack ran across it, right to left. The eyes traced that crack, again and again.

The others in the group kept their distance.

Their distance came from fear. That touching someone with a fever would make you the same way — this was never put into words, but the body knew. An old woman had come once to leave water. She did not come again.

It was not a matter of knowing too much. The one knew nothing. Had only watched. Watched, from a little distance, as something fractured between the elders of the group and the ones who had come from the north. Only watching — and yet someone had not liked the look of those eyes.

It had been five days since the one was left to lie in the shadow of the rocks.

The fever came after.

From time to time, the one tried to rise. Pressed an arm against the rock, tried to lift the body. Could not lift it. The arm trembled. Lay down again.

The mouth was dry. The tongue clung to the roof of the mouth.

The water that had been left was gone.

On the evening of the second day, the wind came.

It touched the cheek. A dry, cold wind. The one opened the eyes. Looked at the crack in the rock. The crack was unchanged.

Mixed into the smell of the wind was smoke. Someone far away had lit a fire. The one breathed it in. Breathed it in once more. The chest ached, but the smell was good.

There are people, far away.

That was all.

As night came on, the body ceased to move.

Breathing continued. The chest rose and fell. Rose and fell. The eyes remained open. Stars were visible. Above the crack in the rock, a few stars. The one looked at them.

Did not stop looking.

The chest rose. Fell. The next rise did not come.

The eyes stayed open. The stars were there, unchanged.

Two dry seasons had come and gone.

At the edge of the grassland, when the wind shifted direction, the one sat apart from the group on a ledge of rock. Twenty-two years old. Keeper of the fire. Behind, the voices of the young ones carried on the air — the crack of stone against stone, someone stumbling, a sound like laughter that held no tears.

The land was wide. But the space where people lived was narrow. Between rocks, in the low ground not far from where water seeped through. There the whole group slept, ate, moved together.

The one watched the fire.

It was a small flame. Daytime fires were always small. At night it had to be made larger. Only a handful in the group knew this, the one among them. Once the fire had gone out. An elder had spent three days bringing it back. Those three days were still held somewhere in the body of the one — not as cold, but as something that had spread through the whole group. A weight that had no name.

It was the year the ice retreated a little at its edges.

In the mountains to the north, bedrock began to show. Rain fell upon it and gathered, cutting new channels. The grasses changed. The broad-leaved plants thinned; slender-stemmed ones that swayed in the wind grew in their place. The paths of the animals shifted slightly. Trails worn over years grew faint, and new ones appeared elsewhere.

Someone in the group noticed. With gestures, they showed that the animals were coming from a different direction. Half the group did not listen. The other half followed, and waited near the new trail.

The one did not go to wait. There was the fire to tend.

Around the age of twenty-four, the tension within the group changed.

Another group drew near. Not the kind that might be called the old ones. These were similar in form, yet subtly different — shorter, with brow bones that jutted forward. The sounds they made came from a different place. The same sounds seemed to carry different meanings, and the first contact brought confusion.

The one watched from a distance, drawing the young ones close behind.

The other group had children too. The one saw it: a woman from the other side holding a child, the same way the young ones here were held.

That was all. Something in the one went still. The hand that held the rock loosened, just a little.

But the others were not the same way.

Near the water, voices rose in argument. Louder. A stone was thrown. One from the other side fell. They threw back.

Two from the one's group were hurt, and the other group withdrew.

That night, the elders gathered and decided something. The one was not called.

The next morning, the woman who had slept nearby made a gesture meaning go away. Directed at the one.

The one could not understand. What had been done.

At the end of the dry season, something strange happened at the water.

When the one bent to draw water, a face appeared on the surface. This had happened before. But today was different. The water moved faintly, though there was no wind. Ripples spread outward. The face distorted, and seemed to become another face.

The one remained there, watching that distorted face for some time.

Whether it was the one's own face or not — that, too, was unclear.

Twenty-six years old.

The share of food that came to the one had been growing smaller. The noticing came slowly. At first it seemed only that others were eating more. But as the days passed, more often when the one drew near, conversations stopped. The watching over the young ones was given to someone else.

No reason was given. No one spoke it.

At night, the one sat at the edge of the fire. Not at the center — at the edge. Half the body in the place where the light did not reach.

Looking up at the sky. Stars. The one had no names for them. They existed only as points of light.

The winter of the twenty-seventh year.

One night, sleep would not come. Listening to the breathing of those nearby, the one lay looking at the stone ceiling above. A crack ran through it. From right to left.

The one walked toward the edge of the group. No one stopped it. One man opened his eyes and watched. But made no sound.

The one kept walking. Into the dark.

Where there was any intention of going, even the one did not know. The feet moved. Grass touched the soles. Wind came from the left.

It was cold.

On the rocks before dawn, the one stood at the edge of the cliff. What lay below could not be seen. Too dark.

A foot slipped.

Had it slipped. Or had it stepped forward.

It remained unknown, and only the sound was left behind.

The fever came on a night when a dry wind was blowing.

The one lay down near the fire. The young ones were sleeping. Watching over them, as always. But the body would not obey. The arms were heavy. The one tried to rise, and could not.

The next morning, one of the others brought water — not in a vessel, but in a leaf folded into a cup. The one drank from it. Then closed their eyes again.

Three days passed.

Something burned inside the body. Not fire. Fire belongs to the outside. This came from within. The one placed a hand on their chest. Something seemed to be there. Hot. But without form.

One of the young ones came near and sat down. Looking at the one's face. Saying nothing. The one said nothing either.

The wind shifted.

A scent drifted over. Not the smell of rotting grass, not the smell of animals. Something like dry rock, and water, and some far-off place all mingled together. The one turned their face toward it. There was nothing. Only low clouds hanging at the edge of the grassland.

The one narrowed their eyes.

Trying to remember something. Was it the light seen from the ledge of rock? The face that had been reflected in the surface of the river? Whose face that had been, they could no longer say. It did not feel like their own.

The fingers moved. They gathered a small handful of sand from the ground.

Then opened.

The sand scattered on the wind.

The one watched it. Watched it scatter. The palm became empty. Still they went on looking at the palm. The young one was still sitting there. The one looked toward them. Tried to convey something. No sound came.

No sound came — yet perhaps the young one received it all the same.

Or perhaps they received nothing at all.

By evening, the strength had left the one's hand. The young one was still there.

The back has sunk into the ground.

There is a feeling of sinking. Not rock but hide laid over earth. Someone laid it there. No memory of it. Only the awareness of already lying there when awareness came.

A ceiling is visible. A rock overhang.

Beneath it, sky. White.

The throat is dry. Dry, and yet no strength comes to drink. That someone will bring water is known. Known by footsteps. The weight behind the footsteps is known. Light. A child.

A child brings water.

The rim of a vessel touches the lips. Cold. Drinking. Half spills. The spilled water runs along the side of the neck. That sensation alone is clear.

At night, the smell of fire grew stronger.

Someone had added wood. The sound of burning changed. Flames rose higher and stained the face of the overhanging rock red. The one watched the color of the stained rock. And while watching, thought of the char.

Not char. What char becomes when it has gone white. The whiteness after burning through. For some reason it has stayed.

There is no reason to know why.

It simply stays.

The night deepens. Footsteps grow distant. The fire grows small. Listening to the sound of the diminished fire, the one's breathing changed. Not faster. Shallower.

It went on, shallow.

Went on.

A fire was set in a crack in the rock.

When the wind came, the fire lay down. The one bent close and blew. The fingers were red. The cold of winter's end still lived in the stone.

The group gathered to the fire. Especially at night. Without anyone deciding it, an order had formed for sitting around the flames. The young ones on the outside, the injured closer in, those with children somewhere between. The one had not arranged it. It had simply come to be that way.

The one knew too much.

Not about fire. About who had passed food to whom. About who had walked to the edge of the group in the night and exchanged words with someone from a neighboring band. The one had watched, tending the fire. That watching had been felt. How it was felt was unclear. The direction of the eyes, perhaps. The place where the one stood.

One night, three young ones came.

The one looked up. Watched how the three were standing. One of them moved around behind. The one began to rise.

Could not rise.

The rock struck the back of the head. The one went down on one knee. The fire was visible. It was red. Whether the thought came — *the same color as the fingers* — no one will ever know.

The fire swayed.

The body of the one tilted, quietly, to the side.

The fire kept burning. The three left. Morning came. One of the children arrived to tend the fire and found the one lying there. The child did not cry out. Stood for a while. Then added dry branches to the fire.

The fire kept burning.

The sky changed.

In the northern highlands, ice crept over the mountain ridges. It descended, carving through rock. Limestone cliffs fractured, valleys were sealed, rivers began to find new directions. At the southern edge of the first land, sleet fell on days that had once brought rain. Where there had been grassland, hard earth appeared, and only the stems of plants remained — roots that had found no purchase, then given up.

Children have short legs. They cannot keep pace with a grown person's stride.

The one fell. Small stones bit into the right palm, and when the one grabbed a rock to stand, the hand bled. No one looked back. The group moved forward. The one licked the palm clean and ran on.

There were traces showing the old ones had moved east. Remnants of fire, different patterns in the way bones had been broken, the shapes of stone tools. They had felt the same cold and chosen a different direction. Which choice was right, the time that followed would record. In the first land, only the footprints of those who had gone remained.

The group had grown smaller.

The one did not understand this. Where voices had sounded until yesterday, now there were none. That was all. At night, curling close to the mother's body, the one felt no pressure that had once been there. No one lay alongside. The one drew both knees to the chest and stared into the dark with open eyes.

Grass dies from below. When the roots freeze, the green above still holds. But the following spring brings nothing. In the north of the first land, several such grasslands simply vanished. The animals that fed on them moved south and began to compete with the human groups for water.

A man collapsed before a cliff face. His leg was broken. The night cold held, and by morning the strength had left his body. The group waited half a day. Then they walked on.

The one had been watching the man's face. His eyes were half-open, already white. The mother took the one's hand and led them forward. The one looked back several times while walking. The mother spoke. The one faced forward.

The night they found water, the group gathered around a fire.

The one sat at the edge of the fire. Smoke drifted to the right. Something reached the back of the nose. Not the smell of charred bone. Something of wet stone — cold and heat folded together, something without a name. The one lifted the nose. Tried to catch it again, but the wind shifted and it was gone.

The cut on the palm had dried. The one traced the edge of the wound with a finger. It had hardened.

There were voices.

The one stood in the shadow of a rock. The voices of adults. Sharp voices. Not like the sounds made when driving animals. Not like the sounds between companions.

The one had no words. Only the shape of the voices could be understood.

A man stood there. A man who had come from outside the group. Such figures appeared sometimes in the first land. They carried a different smell.

The man's hand gripped the arm of an old woman.

The old woman belonged to this group. She had borne many children. Half of those children were already gone.

The one knew the sound of her footsteps. Had stood beside her at the watering place. Had worked next to her, making the same motions, when they beat animal hide against stone.

The adults did not move.

The man made a sound. The old woman made a sound too — whether she made it or whether it simply came from her, the one could not tell.

The one did not step out from behind the rock.

The old woman's feet scraped at the ground. She wore nothing on her feet. Her nails went into the soil. That was all.

The man withdrew. The old woman stopped moving.

The adults dispersed.

The one sank down behind the rock. Pressed forehead to knees. Stayed that way.

There was a smell. Not the smell of overripe fruit. A smell of wet earth mixed with something else.

The one did not look up.

Evening came. No one spoke to the one.

The next morning, the one went to the watering place. Walked the usual path. The feet remembered the way. Drank from the water. Then looked to the side.

No one was there.

The surface of the water trembled. The one's face appeared in it, and trembled, and came apart.

A dry wind began coming from the south.

The grass had gone white at the roots. Not frost. Salt. Something was seeping up from deep in the ground and drying at the surface. Walking along the riverbank, there was a catching sensation underfoot. Not soil — flat, layered masses of sand-hardened earth. The traces of a waterline. Water had once been there.

The one had turned fourteen.

Following at the heels of the adults was something the one no longer did. There were fewer heels to follow. The one knew the place where the old woman had stopped moving. Some days, birds gathered below the cliff. The one did not go near. Only from a distance, the one simply knew where the birds were.

The group swelled, and quietly grew smaller.

A child was born. It cried. After three days, it no longer cried. Another child was born. One leg was bent. The mother set it on a rock and walked away. The one watched this. Did not walk away. When night came, the crying stopped. The one remained seated before the rock and waited out the night.

Beyond the southern hills, other smoke had begun to rise.

Not their own smoke. When the wind shifted, a smell came with it — close to burning animals, but not quite. The adults gathered and raised their voices. Some pointed. The voices grew louder. The one watched from behind.

Around the age of sixteen, the one had taken to picking up stones.

Not for any purpose. The one searched for shapes that fit in the hand. Stones from the riverbed, broken fragments of cliff, things that differed in color from the ground. Picked up, then set down. Picked up again. Not stacked — simply held. Since the old woman had gone, the one's hands moved often.

There came a day when the wind changed.

Moist air arrived from the north. The ground softened slightly. Water began returning to the riverbed. The one went down to the water's edge and submerged both hands. Cold. The sensation of water slipping between the fingers — repeated again and again.

By then, the southern smoke had drawn closer.

One morning, a grown man climbed the hill and did not return. Another man went after him. Both returned. But as if dragging something behind them, both came back in silence. That night, the group built the fire large. The one sat a little apart from it.

From around the age of eighteen, the one's voice began to change.

Until then, it had been single sounds. Now those sounds had length. The one sustained the same sound, raised it, lowered it. Made the same sounds toward another child. Sometimes they came back. Sometimes they did not. In either case, the one's expression was the same.

Within the group, a certain gesture had spread.

An open hand extended — a gesture of stillness. No one could say who had begun it. Adults made it toward children. Children made it toward children. When someone moved too close to the southern hills, a hand came up from behind. It had been directed at the one as well. The one stopped.

At the end of the nineteenth year, the one sat at the edge of the cliff.

There was a stone in the hand. Flat, gray. The one cast it out over the cliff's edge. The stone fell. There was a sound. The one listened to the sound. Wanted to do it again, but there was no stone left in the hand.

Sitting behind the rock, holding the bone. Running a finger again and again across the broken surface. It seems it might cut, but does not. Pressed against the skin, the flesh goes white. Released, it returns. The one repeated this for some time.

Voices from the group came from far away.

The bone was set down on the ground. The one stood. Sat down again. Picked up the bone and tucked it into the leather cord at the waist. Stood, and walked toward the voices.

She woke in the morning to find no one beside her.

The man who had slept next to her until last night was gone. Footprints led northward. The one rose and followed them with her eyes. They disappeared behind a rock.

She did not follow.

The ground beneath her feet was hard. Since the rains had stopped coming, the color of the earth had changed. It used to give a little underfoot, but now it gave nothing back.

The women of the group had gathered around the rocks, splitting dried fruit. Striking with stones. The broken pieces flew. The one sat among them, took a fruit in her hand. Struck it. Hard. Two times, three. When it finally split, something shrunken and white came out from inside.

She ate it. Bitter.

In the afternoon, two of the old ones walked the northern ridge. The one watched from behind a rock. They were large, broad at the shoulders. Their way of moving was different. The way they placed their feet — heavy. The two did not stop. They only walked. They crossed the ridge and were gone.

The one stood there for a while, looking at that place.

Among the group, an old man had grown thin over these five years. His ribs had become visible from the outside. That morning he had tried to drink water and choked. Each time he choked, his shoulders folded forward. The one had been nearby, watching. The old man said nothing. The one said nothing. Each time his shoulders folded, she felt something narrow in her chest. The words would not come.

In the evening, everyone sat gathered around the fire.

On the far side of the flames, three children. Two of them were wandering around the one who slept. A woman pressed her hand to the sleeping child's forehead, then stood without making a sound and turned to face another direction.

The one watched her back.

Night came. The fire burned low. The one sat hugging her knees, watching the embers. The charcoal was turning white. As the white spread, the red core sank beneath it. White. Red. White.

Somewhere, the cry of an animal. Distant. Nothing answered.

There was a smell of smoke.

The one raised their face. It was not the direction the wind was coming from. Only the smell came from there.

They stood still for a time, drawing air through the nose. Again and again. It came from the same direction each time.

It was the smell of fire, but not their fire. Something was different. Whether what was burning was different, or the smoke, or the distance — the one had no means to put it into words.

Only that the body kept turning east.

One of the group called out. A gesture meaning: come with us. There was work to be done — hides to be stretched and dried. The one turned, then looked east once more, and began to walk.

Striking the hide against stone. Striking. Striking.
Even while the hands moved, the nose alone stayed pointed east.

That night, lying down, the one kept their eyes open. No clouds in the sky. The cold was settling in.

Beside them, an old woman breathed in sleep. Somewhere distant, an animal called out.
Not from the east.

The one slowly closed their eyes.

The next morning, a sound rose among the group. On the eastern edge, two unfamiliar silhouettes stood. Not approaching, not retreating — simply there.

The one held their hide and watched those silhouettes.

Someone picked up a stone.
The one did not.

The rains returned.

Along the southern edge of the first land, on a gently sloping plateau, grass rose. Not stalk by stalk, but all at once. As though something had decided it, on the same day. The sound of roots loosening, of water being drawn upward, could not be heard — yet the warmth of the earth announced that something had changed.

The one woke one morning to find droplets of light on the rocks. Reached out and touched one. It was cold. Tasted it.

In the highlands to the north, ice thawed into shallow streams and spilled down into the lowlands. The streams pressed the grass sideways, then receded. The shapes of the fallen grass remained. Later, small grazing animals followed those impressions as they moved. Other animals followed those animals. The chain unfolded without anyone having commanded it.

More were being born within the group. Two young children stumbled and rolled at the one's feet — ones who came only to the one's knees. The one would stop from time to time and wait for them to catch up. While waiting, looked up at the sky. Followed the direction the clouds moved. What was being confirmed, even the one could not say.

On the eastern slope of the plateau, beneath an outcropping of bare rock, another group was encamped. Their build was slightly different. Heavier brows, shorter necks. They too sat near the water and drank. Each group looked at the other. Looked, and did not move.

The one watched, from a distance, one figure among that other group. A woman. She held a stone in her hand and struck it against another. The sound carried. It was a regular sound. The one listened to it and sat down in the grass. Drew both knees up.

Light fell beside the one's left hand.

It came through a break in the clouds and landed just there. On the ground lay a flat stone. Its edge was unlike the others — thin, with a corner that jutted out.

The one looked at it. Then turned away.

One of the young children fell and cried out. The one rose, went to the child, and lifted them. Blood was seeping from the child's knee. The one scooped mud from the ground with a finger and pressed it against the wound. The child wept. The one patted the child's back. Stopped. Patted again.

The light was still on that stone.

The group had grown. In the season of abundance, bodies had stored their strength. More gathered around the fire at night. More voices. More of the sounds that resembled laughter. One evening, someone began slapping their knees in rhythm. Another joined in. The sounds layered over each other, swaying. The one slapped their knees as well. Did not know why. But did not stop.

The distance between the group and the one to the east slowly narrowed. As it narrowed, something held still. Neither crossed over. The boundary had not been drawn in the earth. It lived in the air between them.

The following morning, the one went back for the stone.

Nothing had drawn the one back. The feet simply went there. The stone was still there. When the one picked it up, the edge pressed into the palm. It did not hurt. The one did not think of it as sharp. Only held it.

Walked, holding it.

With no destination in mind. Simply walked — stone in the right hand, a child's hand in the left — to the far edge of the plateau. Looked down from there. The river shone below. The one was still holding the stone.

Woke in the middle of the night. There had been a sound. What kind, could not be said.

Rose. Stood. Turned to face the south.

Fires were visible. Far away. Far, but closer than yesterday.

Sat back down. One of the children turned in sleep. A hand was placed on that body.

Until morning, there was no more sleep.

No longer the youngest in the group.

Children were born. Then more were born. Some had grown to knee height. Some had reached chest height. Without quite noticing it, the one had become the one who is followed, rather than the one who follows.

There were nights when the one was entrusted with keeping the fire. When the wrong amount of wood was added, the coals would be dead by morning. This happened several times. Each time it did, someone else made a sound like a click of the tongue. The one said nothing. The following night, the one used less wood. The coals survived.

A group of archaic humans was nearby. The one knew by smell. Animal fat and smoke and something sour, all mingled together. One of the group stood up gripping a stone. An elder-like figure pressed down on the arm. Without a word. Simply pressed.

The one watched both. Watched the hand gripping the stone. Watched the hand pressing it down. There were no words to think with about which was right. The one only watched. There was a feeling like something contracting deep in the stomach.

By the following day, the smell of the archaic humans was gone.

That night, one of the children fell feverish. The small body shook. The one placed a palm against the child's back. Not to feel the temperature. Simply to place it there. The child slept, trembling.

In the morning, the child woke. The fever had not broken.

The one brought water. Let the child drink. Brought more. Let the child drink again. That was all the one did.

The feet ache.

The pain had always been in the same place since youth, but now it took longer after waking in the morning for the pain to fade.

Within the group, the one was no longer the youngest. Somehow, children had grown to knee-height, and had begun to follow at the one's feet.

On the way to the watering place, the one noticed the smell of grass.

Stopped.

On the grey soil, in a patch that had not been stepped on, a cluster of thin grass grew. Not green — yellowish white — but it had not fallen.

The one crouched there and touched the base of the grass. It did not come free.

Touched another. That one did not come free either.

For a while, the one remained like that.

At the watering place, the others called out. The one rose and walked. But while walking, looked back once.

That night, beside the fire, the one held a small stone in the palm and looked at it. Not grass — a stone. Why the one had picked it up, the one did not know. It was simply there, in the hand.

In the palm, the stone was faintly warm. The warmth of the fire. Nothing more than that.

The one closed a hand around the stone, and slept.

The sand was dry.

The soles of the feet knew it. From heel to the base of the toes, the hardness of the ground had changed. For this hardness to come in this season was wrong. The one understood that. Could not put it into words. Simply stopped.

It had grown difficult to walk in the others' wake. The feet fell behind. When called, the one caught up. When not called, the one crouched where it stood.

More and more, the one kept close to the fire.

When someone added wood, the one turned toward the flames. Watching. What was thought, no one could say. Fingers scratched at the ground. Scratched again. A groove formed. It meant nothing.

Children ran past underfoot. The one reached out a hand. Did not touch them. Drew the hand back.

One morning, the one could not rise.

Lying still, looking up at the sky. Clouds moved from the south. The smell of the wind had changed. Dry earth, and the far-off scent of scorched grass, and something else — something that could not quite be named — were mixed together.

One of the others came and looked at the face.

The one made a sound. A single note. Not a sound that carried meaning. It simply came.

The one who had looked stayed a while. Then stood, and went.

The sun tilted.

The shadows grew long. It was not that warmth fled the body — only that, quietly, the body came to be the same temperature as the ground.

The fingers, once, closed around the sand.

Then they were still.

The sand remained where it was, between the fingers.

There were bones in the grass.

Small bones. A bird's, or something smaller still. The one picked them up and held them in an open palm. They were light. A breath sent the slender bones rolling.

At the edge of the group, this was often how it went.

When someone called, the one would go. When no one called, the one looked at the ground. The movement of insects, the way stones layered over one another, the manner in which dried dung crumbled. Everything was saying something. Something that was not words.

On this day, the group was moving.

From somewhere distant came the smell of another band. Smoke, and cured hide, and the scent of unfamiliar bodies. The voices of the adults dropped lower. The one understood what that lowness meant. Not through words, but through the body's own knowing.

The one set the bones back on the ground.

Rising, the one slipped in among the adults from behind. From where the one stood — small, shorter than the rest — there was nothing to see but backs and heels. The sound of heels striking earth. Tension seemed to travel upward through the soles of the feet.

The two groups stood facing each other.

On each side, a handful of people. Short, low sounds passed between them. The one could not grasp their meaning. But the tension in the air was legible. The skin was reading it.

One of the adults extended an arm.

Something rested in that hand. A stone. A split stone. Its edge caught the light in a thin gleam.

Someone from the other group received it.

For a time, there was silence.

The one looked at its own hands. The hands that had held the bones, just moments before. Now they were empty. With those empty hands, the one felt that something existed between the act of receiving and the act of giving. There was no word for *felt*, but something moved inside the body.

Somewhere just above the stomach.

A dry wind moved across the plain.

The grass bent in one direction. Rose again. Bent again. The ground was cracked. Along the fissures, red earth had mounded up, and with each rain it crumbled a little, trying to become flat. Still the cracks remained.

The one sat at the edge of a fissure.

Not with legs dangling. Knees drawn up, peering down into it. The bottom was dark. A finger went in. Soil crumbled. The pad of the finger came away red.

The voices of the group were distant.

In the shadow of the rocks to the north, the adults were exchanging something—by the pitch and speed of the voices, it was clear this was a dispute. Another group had been beyond the rocks since yesterday. They were different in shape. The way the brow jutted out, the way the shoulders sloped—different from the people of this group. A difference known since childhood. Fear and familiarity moved through the one in turns.

The wind stopped.

In that moment, cold air rose from the fissure. The smell of earth's depths came with it—rotting plants, water, something ancient, all mingled together. The one breathed it in. Eyes narrowed.

The sounds of the dispute grew louder.

There was a cry. Then a long, low groan. The one stood and moved toward the shadow of the rocks. Did not run. Walked. And while walking, watched the fissures in the ground branching beneath the feet.

A man from the other group had fallen.

He was not moving. On his back. His face turned to the sky. Two men from this group were breathing nearby. Their shoulders rose and fell—fast, shallow. Each held a stone. Something dark was on the stones.

The one looked at the fallen man.

His eyes were half open. The sky was reflected in them. The one did not approach. Only looked. Confirmed that the man's chest was not moving. Not because the one knew how to confirm such things. Only because the body understood what stillness meant.

The other group made sounds beyond the rocks. Footsteps, short voices. Then they grew distant.

What remained was the fallen man, the two with stones, and the one.

The sun tilted.

The two set down their stones. They dragged the man's body. Tried to carry it somewhere. The one followed behind. The two did not look back.

At the far edge of the plain, where the grass grew deep, the man was laid down.

The two returned. The one stayed.

The man lay among the grass. The sky was wide. A bird called somewhere far off. The one broke a single blade of grass. Placed it on the man's hand. There was no meaning in it. Because there was no meaning, another blade was broken. Placed again.

The wind blew.

The grass swayed, and the broken blades swayed with it. The man's hand did not sway. The one remained crouched, watching for a long time—watching the grass move, watching the still hand among the grass.

Three days in the shadow of the rocks.

The separation from the group had begun that night. The old male snarled and swung his arm. The one did not move. Could not move. So the arm came. Into the chest. Then the stomach. The one slammed back against the rock and fell, and still rose again.

That was the mistake.

Because the one rose, it came again. This time with a hand holding stone.

The right side of the head went dull and hot.

The one did not run. Perhaps could not run. Only stepped from the edge of the group to the outside. The grass came up to the knees. The feet parted it. The grass closed again.

When the rocks were reached, the sun was tilting.

Three days of drinking water. Water that seeped from the base of the stones, gathered in both hands and lifted to the mouth. No eating. Whether food could not be found, or was not looked for, the one no longer knew which was true.

Sound had left the right ear. The world was heard through the left alone. Wind. Distant birds. The sound of water.

On the morning of the fourth day, light ran at an angle across the face of the rock.

The one watched that light for a while. Not thinking anything in particular. Only watching. A hand was raised into the light. The back of the hand grew bright.

The wound on the head had swollen through the night. Heat was coming from somewhere inside the skull.

The one folded at the knees and leaned against the rock. The body tilted. And stayed there, and lay down.

There was a smell of grass.

The earth was cold.

Born.

Air touched the skin. It was cold. A sound came out. There was no knowing it had come from oneself.

Someone's arms were there. Rocking. Rocking. Then still. Then rocking again.

There was a smell. A warm smell. The mouth moved toward it. Drinking. Drinking.

Light came. The eyes closed.

There were sounds. Low sounds. High sounds. The sound of wind. Something calling from far away. These were not distinguished from one another. They simply were.

Someone stumbled and fell. A cry rose up. A different voice. Not one's own. The one did not move.

The smell of fire came. The body grew warm. Sleep came.

A year passed.

There were attempts to stand. Falling. Then trying again.

The ground was hard. Sand pressed into the palms. The face lifted. The legs of larger ones came into view. Legs moving. Legs stopping. The one moved too. Stopped.

Two years passed.

Running was possible now. When running, wind came. That was something liked. Why it was liked, there was no knowing.

An old male growled. The one's body went rigid. The legs would not move. The old male left. The legs moved again.

Three years passed.

The group moved on. The one was almost past the age of being carried. Walking on one's own feet now. A stone underfoot. It hurt. The stone was picked up. Thrown. Picked up again. Thrown again.

Someone made a sound like laughing. The one made a sound too.

Four years passed.

A river was crossed. The water was cold. Sinking to the waist. A hand came. That hand was held. The river was crossed.

On the far bank, there was an unfamiliar smell. The one stopped. Looked back. The river was still there.

Five years passed.

The one was alive. That much was certain.