After Eve [Conte Philosophique]

After Eve
[Conte Philosophique]


The First Ballad
[The Benediction; the Farewell]

He winked one eye,
After four billion years;
Uncovering the blind,
Naked, and feared.

Then, articulating,
Fibers and cells
He lifted, constructed,
Tailored, and milled.

With soil and soul,
He then conceived
Australopithecus—
Was now relieved.

Now, cries were heard
Throughout the land:
Homo was here—by God’s hand!”




The Garden of Eve
















Preamble

I


Says the Author: “Hidden in the myths of ‘Atlantis,’ the ‘Garden of Eden,’ the prehistoric time of the ‘Dinosaurs,’ and the supernatural, resides the story of: ‘After Eve.’ ”



Map of Rivers and Sumer


This story is really a lot about the Garden of Eve, or ‘Eden’, if one is looking to find the Garden of Eden, s/he need not look too far, it is in the Mesopotamian marshlands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and here, and thereabouts will be our story.
On another note, or should I say, almost on the same note but not quite, if one is looking for Eve, again you do not have to look too far: she is coming out of the garden. Some say, on memorandums she came from Africa: maybe so—maybe not; this book is not going to fight, or debate over or with anyone on this matter, which is not the premise of this book in the first place, that is: where she came from: but rather, where she left; that is, left from to go to.
Next, let’s simply enjoy a story with a tall-tale: and possible we may end up understanding other possibilities; in any case, maybe Adam came from Africa, and Eve came from Adam, while in the Garden and they both roamed back to Africa somewhere along their long journey in life, after the expulsion that is, so many possibilities. In any case, there is much prospective in this area, and one is as good as the other to or for me. But for historical sake let’s stick with some of what is considered history retold over several thousands of years, instead of history repeated from books written a hundred years ago, or last year. Yet we must not forget the bits and pieces of a conglomeration of everything, which makes for a better story. Having said that, and admitting my story is pure science fiction, we can now slip by the DNA, like the Genesis debate that has been going on for over a century and look deeper into our spiritual inheritance.


٭

In the ‘Garden of Eve,’ as it was known among the Horde, until it was called the land of Eden by the Stone-Builders, and then acquired the full and legendary name we all know it by today, that being: “The Garden of Eden,” the ordinary laws of nature were suspended; as a result, there was no struggle for existence within its erosion free garden-continent, or put another way: around its perimeters. By and large, it was an environment free of volcanic upheavals, unlike its outside world, which surrounded it, and was subject to such hazards of nature. This of course was all altered and neutralized upon the couple’s expulsion from the garden [which of course is pure history and recorded for posterity’s sake].

In my simplicity, and imagined dream, there was no conclusive evidence of anything, much resembling the science of our day: with a speculative, mind's eye view at best—I can only tell what came to me as a result of my dream and will not be subject—as it is not my nature to be—of any foolish curiosity by others. So I need not be tired out by trying to prove anything, or bend for any man to prove a fact if my words are doubted—be that as it may. I must end this prelude quick, for it should not be allowed to monopolize what I have to share to the world. But let enthusiasm be your guide in the following story. This book will be an easy and most interesting read; however, embarrassing it may be to/for the elite, the proclaimed dubious honoring, sciences of: Anthropology, Darwinism, Evolutionist, and let’s add, The New Age group: which is in essence, part of the Evolutionist—of which I give sympathetic laughter to: the greatest demonstration being, --to this universal doubt, yet filled to the brim of a quarry —‘Where do we go from here?’ and you got it, they are still asking that same old question: ‘Where did we come from?’ but with more authority of course now; simply this is just another unanswered question, by this quarry. And so it begs an answer, maybe that is why I got this dream. But let’s remember—for the sake of argument—all answers do not have to be the ones you are looking for.


Preamble

II

I wasn’t sure if I was going to put an introduction into this story, but at the last minute I felt I needed some kind of a lead into the story, or so I feel I do now: actually, after the whole story was done, I thought of this, you’d think it should be outlined in the beginning, wouldn’t you—oh well, it might help the story and then it may confuse the reader before he gets into the story, for it doesn’t really add to it, or take from it. And it is not of the same dream, although it is of a part of a dream many years ago. In l984, I had over 50-visions of happenings worldwide and other things, not dreams now; let’s not mix those up. In any case, in the l990’s I had about 10-more of those so-called vision-dreams. I don’t want to get into them at this point, I have already published that book: “The Last Trumpet and the Woodbridge Demon,” but into a new area, that actually links into this story of, “After Eve.”

I was really trying to get away from, or avoid, such things as: Darwinism, and Atlantis, and Aliens, Anthropology, Archeology, and all such things, and just present a nice little dream story, but when you start out a book, you really never know how it’s going to end, or what it’s going to involve, entail; or how it’s going to affect you. You learn while you write it, as well as doing the research, and you learn from so many others also.
While on the Easter Island I met Charlie Love, an Archeologist and Geologist, and an Anthropologist; Charlie has been to the island for the past 26-years or so he told me. We stayed [my wife and me] at the same hotel he stays at, and the Movie Star, Kevin Costner stayed at, of which Charlie help with producing a Moai for the movie, a replica. In any event, Charlie had worked on one of the Moais that now stand at the dock, kind of greeting people as they go down and watch the sunset, as we did often. And he was working on another site nearby when we were there. We had a few drinks one evening together, and on the way back to the hotel we talked on the transportation of the Moais, that is, how they got moved, he was quite frank and soft spoken. Not arrogant about his knowledge, and my possible, lack of it. Yet as he explained no one really knows how the heavier ones were moved, having heard that I couldn’t help but give my idea, especially after he insisted I do. Well I did, and I think it was a bit too supernatural for him, but then who knows. So Charlie, let me know when you do find out. Again I want to say he is probably the most humble and knowledgeable man in this area. Both of us having old medical issues, we both know the precious element of time and life. Life is to be prospected, we need not create hardships or persuade anyone to something that they wish not to be pushed toward, and he was kind in this area, as I hope I was.

Now if I can put a scientific-concept into motion here, call it mine or call it anyone’s, but let’s see how it fits, and then connect into my little story to follow:


Imagine, the Lost Records

Once upon a time, 35,600 years ago [33,600 BC], a space ship landed on earth from a space station from Mars, which happened to stop at the outpost on the Moon, for re-supplying. The Captain’s name was, Ta-mait; their home planet was quite a distance away; so far that the outposts were needed one might say. It was a planet similar to that of the Arctic region on earth, yet for some odd reason they had picked out this planet to cultivate. Their spacecraft, similar to ours used gold for a source needed in space flight, as well as for their planet needs. Much of this was mined in South Africa, and in old Samaria. To the inhabitants of earth, these beings were like gods. With the capability of genetic ingenerating, we ended up looking a lot like them I suppose; their God being the same as our God.
Well, time did go on, and now the year is 22,600 BC, and the gods of yesterday are half-gods of today [but we are not talking about the real One God remember], for the most part anyway [in addition, one must remember, that the good captain surely left some of these beings alone to wonder the earth, and in doing so, we might have a few among us today]. That is half human, and half supernatural. One could point to Gilgamesh, who is said to have been one third human, and two-thirds god [god in this context being simply supernatural to us readers], who lived in Uruk, in the land of Sumer, but Gilgamesh lived around 2700 BC, and our story is not quite there yet. Yes, 11,000-years have passed; the time of Leo is here. The pyramids are being built the Sphinx is built. Atlantis will be a country, given to the half-god, Poseidon [or demigod], given to him by his father a full-angelic-god of sorts. Now the son is to be called a Titan, giant of sorts especially in the land of Crete. He will name Atlantis after his daughter, and so the walls of Atlantis and its civilization come about. And it is built right where Plato said it should be, at the foot of the Azores. The year 9550 BC, it will be destroyed two or three times, the third time forever, 8560 BC [or 11,560- years ago, the time right after Leo, or when Leo the constellation was over looking the Middle East] it will sink 7000-feet in the Atlantic.
It is now 5600 BC [or 7603-years ago]. We have just witnessed the expulsion of Eve from the Garden of Eden. And this is really where our story begins. But for the sake of this story, let me go into the future for the inhabitants of this time. What they do not know is that, in a very short period of time, again, there will be genetic deformity within the human race, in which 4,090,000 giants will die in a flood, that will take place 3850 BC, or in approximately, 1750-years, there will be a flood [from the time of Eve], a monstrous-gigantic-wave that will go 8-miles in the air, and when it lands it will break the landmass of the continents, in what is called the ‘Conventional Drift,’ of which has been said to have happened over millions of years, but it will happen instantly, --upon impact. The Geographic North Pole has also altered its point of origin, it was more so in the Canadian Northwest territories, and now is shifting to where we have it today. After all is settled, most likely monsters will be found throughout the world, the cause, the global upheaval, with its ultra radiation, will cause biological and genetic deformities.
Along with this, the coal and mineral oil from dead organisms will be massive. For mineral oil comes from carcasses in addition to petroleum from inorganic, pressure and heat.
In the mountains of Bolivia, 12,500-feet up, of which I’ve been, hippopotamus and other odd and huge looking creatures will be buried by this huge wave, far from its original hunting grounds. Furthermore, the axis of the earth’s rotation will be altered, to roughly: 23.5 degrees, at one time it was a perfect rotation, which had a canopy over it, allowing for perfect weather, and thus, the right temperature for the growth of huge animals. As a consequence of the upheaval, and the predestined limit put on man and beast, the age of the giants will have gone for the most part, and the age of man from 1000 to 500 years will go to between 70 to 120 years.
And now the year is 2700 BC, the time of Gilgamesh one of the last demigods, the King of Uruk. And this is where I stop. Incidentally, if you’re wondering what happened to the good captain in the first paragraph of this story, your guess is as good as mine.




1


Eden

After Eve was created, of which she was by the rib of Adam, so it is written, the world started to change in the Garden of Eden, better known to the Horde as the Garden or otherwise known as the Garden of Eve. During the time Eve spent in the Garden which has been questionable to many, a mystery to some, the animals got their names, and so forth and so on. But things changed more rapidly after Eve ate from the ‘Tree of Life,’ which was forbidden of course, and thereafter, the tree was guarded by one of God’s angels, in consequence, no visitors allowed. To my limited understanding of Eden, it was quite huge, as far as gardens go that is, it extended to parts of contemporary Syria: to include even the desert [however the desert was not a desert at the time of the garden I expect]; furthermore, it extended to parts of Iraq [old Sumer]: Asia Minor [Turkey], and to a number of islands within the Persian Gulf area. It has been said her husband Adam, is buried in what is called Iraq today, this very day, under a great Mosque in the city of Najaf, --this has yet to be proven, but so it shall remain as legend for the time being, yes, for the time being or until someone digs him up. Just a point of interest I thought.
But for the more inquisitive, outside of this paradise-garden was another civilization, another earth, it was much bigger, but then it needed to be, for it was much more dangerous; in essence, it was not a paradise at all or a garden as we might consider one; God was not care-taking this part of the world, only nurturing it. In point of fact, it was this part of my dream: yes, I say a dream that was more prominent, or better defined. Of course, outside of this paradise-garden was a dissimilar civilization: --a dying, decaying, and genetically cascading civilization–their…continued-existence was dependent on survival of the individual or group who was most adaptable to change, or most able-bodied, and most intelligent—as life would prove, even evil would have its benefits. This dream of mine, with its ongoing images, and descriptions, one connecting to the other I will share with you in a moment: Eden had come to its finality, as would Sodom and Gomorra in the future, and the Great Flood of Noah’s day, yet to be. As it has been written, ‘God is no respecter of men,’ and so the deed was done, and the penalty was laid out for all to see—the Garden of Eve was now exposed.


The Dream


Call it what you will, a vision, a dream, whatever suits your fancy [they were as they came, for better or worse, real to me—that is the oncoming images of this story], but I will divide up the impressions given me as best I can; some are such as I should not know, for I had never thought of such things in my life. Nevertheless, I will not leave them out. The line between the lower primates and the higher ones might be considered based on the lack of certain characteristics of the orders involved, what one might categorize as higher or lower in brain capacity. I have tried to keep this in mind, as I tell you this story, my story, adventure if you will, or dream-of-dreams: but while it is not easy to think of ancestral forms as far as suborders go or classification, even though it may seem needed, I will try—for I was much involved in the dream, and now I seem to have to–somewhat, characteristically speaking—un-primated myself to tell this tale of tales. I do hope this is where I fit in, that is, I, or me, being the character in the story called: Short-legs. Thence, from here on, I will leave well enough alone I think, and be who I was in the dream, like it or not, yes, yes, oh yes, that is what I shall do, must do to get the right mood out. I will share and explain the various species [specifically, primates and humans] the best I can, in my forthcoming narrative that is. As I have indicated to you, I am in the dream, that is, I am the dreamer of the dream— that is, the environment outside the Garden, I am the person called, ‘Short-legs’. I think I was named that by my mother whom was known as Strong-lungs [sometimes called Smiley]. I think she was called Smiley before I was born, and thereafter, Strong-lungs, something like that.
I will not bore those whom this narrative may reach with a long account of why this came about, her second name that is [Strong-lungs], but when she’d call my brother and me to come home for dinner, she’d yell: “Oh, Short-legs, Stern-toes, OH, OH, and OH, come home for eat-time!” The whole plateau could hear her, and all the way down to and through the Valley of Caves knew she was calling for us two boys.
And I will also allude very briefly to a fight and then get on to my nickname. In any case, I was cornered by six Branch-People once as a young Horde-lit, and they beat me; O they beat me pretty bad. I ran home and told my mother this, and she simply said: “Learn how to fight better son,” and patted me on the head, as to comfort me. But we needed to be strong, and too much pampering does not make for a survivor in this world, so the patting was of course short lived: save for the fact it gave me some kind of release telling it to mom.
As I was about to say, Short-legs was a nick-name or whatever, but we all seemed to have such names in my dream, because I could run very fast, which seem unnatural for a person with such short legs as I, --none the less, it was noticeable, and so my name developed because of my physical traits and characterized features I displayed, which was not uncommon for this world at large. In point of fact, what else would you call me? In actuality, I could out run, and run faster than the rest of the Horde we lived with [Horde implying—something on the order of pack, group, or collection of visual look-alikes] to include the Branch-People, and the People of the Fire. But I am getting ahead of my story. I want to say I looked similar to that of Australopithecus, a man, or the makings of one, but this might give a false impression, so I will try to describe myself in a more distinct manner, as well as for my comrades [and perhaps try to draw a few pictures on the side, the best I can: for a picture is worth a 1000-words, so it has been said].
Essentially I could say I was on the evolutionary-line of Australopithecus, but more so with that of the more developed human ancestor called the Neanderthal, or so I thought at the time, but I had to eliminate that idea as well, simply because the brain capacity, and understanding ability was too small in all cases, that ranging from around 450 cubic centimeters, compared to a humans brain of [let’s say] 1300 +. Homo Erectus, which followed this line also, was somewhere around 700 in making comparisons, again a bit small. In any case, I would put my [mine], and the Horde’s, the group I lived with, at about 1000-centimeters; leaving us somewhere in-between this so called human evolutionary line, as far as labeling our ancestry-gene line might go, or my gene line.


Description


For a description of my character, and that of my comrades in the dream you may want to go to the end of the book to review: the ‘Profile of Characters’ and look at some of the pictures I have provided, but for this part of the book, let me be descriptively speaking, on my looks--: my upper jaw extended out, but not too far out. I didn’t walk quite upright resembling modern man, or as one might say, the more highly specialized primates; but then I didn’t drag my hands akin to the Branch-People [the folks that lived in the Trees, who were really a mixture of primates—I think; some slow-moving, others very quiet and some fast-moving, most were plant life eaters]; we were beyond that stage. My forelimbs, maintained an adaptation for climbing, yet we frowned on it, we’d rather run the solid ground than jump from limb to limb. And we had advanced from sleeping on cliffs, and in trees [or I should say most of us had], to sleeping in caves.
My weight was about 160-pounds, probably I was a breed between a few different species, as I implied before, like the Branch-People, or people that lived in the trees, we had what was called subfamilies [I sensed in my dream we had mated with the Branch-People, and possibly with the People of the Fire; that is, during the first part of my dream; as the dream went on many things were clarified]; as I am describing, please do not infer that I am trying to say: I believed I came from a long line of reincarnations, for that is far from the truth of the dream [again I repeat, I may have been mixture of many groups, like a bowl of vegetable soup one might add]. If anything is to be inferred, it might be that the God of Eve saw pity on the Horde and gave it a cranial uplift; meaning, a bigger brain, or greater capacity to reason. But I am getting off track, let me refocus. As I was about to add, I was not, I say not robust, in body structure, and not as hairy as the Branch-People [thank goodness], nor did I have their dark completion: Plus I could make odd looking tools out of chipped stone, and bone for the most part; where they couldn’t [the Branch-People that is]. Furthermore, I did not have heavy brawn bridges akin to the Branch-People; rather I looked more reminiscent of a specimen from the succeeding stage of human evolution, again possibly Homo habilis, or the next stage. In any event, I ran around naked, with no smugness about doing so, nor did my Horde feel any different in their nakedness. I never knew what cloths was until I had seen the ‘People of the Fire,’ wearing them, and the new breed, whom was to appear on the horizon.




Ways of the Groups


These people, the People of the Fire, lived in a community setting, and had skins covering parts of their body; I often wondered why, seeing as they had the gift of heat from the monster-fire [s] they’d build: of which they created each evening. But they did. However, as time would go on, this would become clearer to me, yet prior to the advent of seeing Eve; it was most oblivious to me.
We ate mostly the things the People of the Fire ate, and even some of the greenery and fruits the Branch-People ate. For the most part, on the side of the People of the Fire, we ate fish [cod, etc], reptile, and mammal [shrew], wolf and boar meat at times: when available --along with dog and sometimes rats. We ate everything raw, but the People of the Fire, let the meat burn until it looked savagely discolored with a brown, and crust covering over it. Little-eyes, my friend and sidekick, and I would watch them as they ate [Little-eyes, my associate, if you will]; we hid in the thick of the forest, among its branches high up in the haughty trees, during the many nights as they ate. Someday I’d try that I told myself, just for curiosity sake, that is, cook the meat, but no sooner had I said that, I forgot I had the idea to do this, and even though I may have thought it again, I never did try to cook meat, no, not in my entire whole life. I think the body gets accustomed to certain things, and so it was as it was, left in a vault in the back of my mind, only to be brought back into focus when triggered by some future need or necessary.

[Short-legs—speaks] Sometimes they did odd-looking movements, someone called it ‘donsing,’ or ‘dancing.’ Whichever it was, with their hitting of hands, and the skins of animals tightened onto wooden drums, it all made quite a spectacle while they did this dance around the fire, the thumping of the drums made my mind and blood boil, I wanted to join them, run and go mad almost with them, mad like them. Sometimes when I was alone (‘I never told Little-eyes this for surely he’d not believe it if he had never seen it for himself ((and in consequence, he had not seen it…’)) I had seen that they even ate their own kind—but they just never did it when Little-eyes and I were together. In the cooling season, the warmth of the burning trees below, would descend up into the branches, and warm me up, I’d even fall to sleep now and then, but I knew it was dangerous to do so: should I fall out of the tree, or off of a branch into their capture, I could very well be their next meal, who would miss me, no one I fear, well, not quite, my mother and brother would. Or for that matter, should a tree snake come up and swallow me whole, oh yes, swallow me whole, they were that big, they could digest me in a moment’s time. All such things crossed my mind, so I’d never slept unless Little-eyes was with me, and then I could sleep, and I never tumbled from my sleep with Little-eyes watching me, and he’d stay awake watching to insure I kept my balance on the branches—be it all night or day. This really was an endless show, I could watch them day and night—every day and night, had I not anything else to do with my existence—that is.







The Begetter

With a Jaguar’s eye,
And a Hawks air
He created terror




The Begetter’s Dance
[Short-legs and Little-eyes—observing]



[The Dreamer] In my dream I noticed the one I refer to as The Begetter [for lack of a better name] had no love in him—only terror, he was a fighter, killer, antagonist, the beast of the group I’d say. The tribe called, ‘The People of the Fire’— somewhat worshiped him, with his big beefy-eyes, lowering eyebrows, flat nosed, thick lipped, heavy jawed, no neck to speak of, short arms, long mid section, curly-long hair freak; his movements were liken to a banshee; his spine was like the alligators, he was all that and more, much more, much more to his unshapely body than words can describe, with unbridled equanimity: a calm that very few can have one minute, and latch out the next—thus changing his composure at will to satisfy his desire in creating in his followers the exact behavior he wanted; like that of a jaguar’s he presented himself to his followers, sly and shifting, apprehensive and still.
Little-eyes whispered to me [Me being, Short-legs] in the height of the tree over looking the Begetter as he stomped his feet into the sand, like a bull ready to charge, stopped next to the fire, reading himself for the: Begetter’s Dance, a dance to incite his people, a dance he did often so they’d whispered him.
“Short-legs, he is a real savage, he scares me somewhat,” said I inside of my mind-eye, he is surely full of destructive chemistry. Yes, I knew Little-eyes was a bit frightened of this specific character, it was evident, also apparent was—the tribesmen—that stood around him, as the blazing fire tried to reach the heavens, and he and his body seemingly separated but not really: his spirit and his body that is, shook as he dances around the encircled fire—even scared them, his followers, their faces were distraught. The drums and-dancing continued with heavy voices of cheers from the tribesmen and women, people that favored him, or pretended to.

[The Dreamer] Instinctively [within my dream], I disliked him for some reason, as he twisted about the fire like a snake around a tree, restless with his naked women standing by, off to the side of all the men, awaiting his command, then I thought as I, Short-legs, if this was not so scornful, I would call it delicious sin, but as I looked on I knew, for every laughter within that group, there would be a death. And here, I continued to look, to and fro, ‘twas, a sight to see—for anyone to see, the nakedness of the dancer, the Begetter himself, pulling onto youthful men, as others watching him dance, boys ready to please this godlike figure: to tame his lust, it could not be overlooked [I actually wanted to get out of the dream, or race ahead of it, to get done with this part, but I feared I’d dissolve the whole of it, the dream should I interfere, and so I did not].
With malignant eyes, the Begetter looked right up into the tree where I was, I, yes me, Short-legs was in it, right into my eyes, or so I thought, or so it seemed, yet he didn’t see us—although with a mild gaze I returned his look, and I did grow serious at its possibility. I wondered if he thought we might be some bears, big snakes, or birds, or whatever lurking about the branches, which often they do. Maybe nothing, maybe he thought nothing and just looked up. We had only made a little noise, the shifting of a few leaves that floated to the surface, as to lie down on other dying leaves.


The Drums and the Fire


Little-eyes had only seen the Begetter’s dance once, I had seen it many times, along with the fire and drums, set the mood of the tribe, as he sought it to be; hence, all the tribe’s men joined in the dance now, as wild creatures of the jungle. The young-boys, and the Begetter danced around the fire with painted rumps, in circles they’d go, as the older folk followed behind, three layers of creatures danced like savages in a circle, whispering, chanting as if there was a spirit they wanted to please. As if the Begetter was a god himself.
Said Little-eyes, to me:
“All seem to have their inventive tools in hand, look, O Short-legs, look…” and he pointed to the men clawing in spastic movements at one another like tigers, like tigers clawing at the limbs of one another, as they danced, as the thick of the night covered our identity high up in this tree. They clawed, danced, sang, and beat the drums, and blew the horns. If anything, it was seductive music, out of kilter; some of sounds were so loud, they seemed to ascend to the moon and cause an eclipse.
Reverberate, echoed the shaman, the Begetter, naked as a sparrow: his many sounds to his danced: says Little-eyes to me:
“He makes the women into animals of un-thinking love.” [It was his way of saying, the Begetter made the women into whores, and he did, and there was no love in the dance of the Begetter, not for them—love was reversed.]

[The Dreamer] The empire outside this tribe—the jungle empire that is, was awoken by this tribes dominating madness: thus, they awoke, the creepers of the earth, the jungle rodents, beasts, snakes and tarantulas, all creeping up to the edge of the camp, looking, sensing, knowing they’d be coked out of life by these pale eyes that circled the fire, sooner or later, coked like the shadow that fades into nowhere. And they continued to dance the night away, inciting themselves unto exhaustion; their skin became fragmented with shades of different colors, reds and brushed colors, pale colors. And the women were raped—in the sense of being taken at will, without protest, and without liberty, as were the boys, as were some sacrificed to calm the hot blood of the Begetter’s dance, and the hot blood of the skilled bowmen, the warriors of the group.

As the blackest rhythms of mankind’s drums faded into sleep, Short-legs and Little-eyes, knew the night was ending, and it was safe now to go home. And so slowly they climbed down the tree to make their way back, as the fire became ash, and the tribes folks were fast asleep, and the creatures of the jungle had left to join their families as well; --therefore, pacing the jungle’s paths back to the Valley of the Caves.


Little-eyes
[Short-legs’ sidekick]


We even watched them [them being: the Fire People] one day capture bison, they chased them over a cliff, and when they landed [the bison, that is]—some on their foreheads, others on their sides, front legs, still others on their feet, and yet others tripping over others, and forming little mounds of crippled bison—they, they were in some kind of fixture, they called it a ‘fence,’ or ‘corral,’ I simply knew it as an enclosure of sorts, as my cave is, but this was open to the sky, whereas my cave of course is not –anyhow, they could not get out, again. Now that I think about it, think hard: I knew it was called a ‘fence’ for I heard them say so, and I heard them say this more than once, hence I can remember things, some things that is, for the most part, when they, or when it is repeated in succession, as they often did, and did in this one situation; I just couldn’t put two and two together on how to pronounce it, the sounds that is. It was amazing, this fence-corral, type object; I must have gawked at it for the longest time, hours I bet. I had never seen the likes of it before. It was shocking, watching those beasts try to get out and hopelessly pinned in; it even occurred to me: how would they like this reversed? –That is to say, for the Stone-People to corral them in. Something resembling that will come next I’m sure, somewhere down the line.
These folk [or so called people] had bows and arrows, again, just a name to me, but they killed and wounded those who got struck with them, much like our carved rocks when we threw these items at them, or sometimes lunged at them with the longer sharpened rocks; that leads me to say they also had long wooden spears with stones in the ends of them, and clubs. We had not yet fastened the ends of rocks onto branches but it was coming to mind to do so, it looked promising, and possibly could become a custom in due time. I had not seen how they did it, but it could be learned I suppose—they learned it, I had told myself, why not me? It looked as if they tied some kind of cord, perhaps from the trees, or animal skins to hold the sharpened rock in place, and split the long-branch they called a spear. Furthermore, we only had small clubs, a sharp bone to protect us with: a tooth or if lucky a horn from an animal; and the Branch-People had even less, sometimes only stones, and nothing more than branches I guess, but they had Gigantic-a, or as we called him, Big-chest, their leader, although, there really was no leaders in our Horde or their group to speak of; on the other hand, I would not say this, or imply this if Big-chest was standing a foot from me.


2


Ancient Language


It might be fair to say, when I had first seen the couple, the two people of the Garden I referred to before, Short-legs, [me, in my dream] they were being escorted out of the Garden and a trifle sad looking at that. Thence, a huge angelic being, creature was behind them with some kind of flaming weapon, the likes of something I’ve never seen before. It was all too incredible to put into words, but my mind, my brain was awestruck at the sight, as was Little-eyes also astounded; I moved the greenery away from me to get a better look [hiding within a cluster of branches], a few branches hitting over my head as I moved about, was a bit unnerving, but I remained calm; I couldn’t believe all this, all that was taking place, happening. Here we were and here we must remain, for the time being, --I told myself if I lived one-thousand years I’d never figure this ominous day out; --yet, on the other hand maybe this all was a warning for some future preparation. By and by, we kept watching these two people, akin to, two fish poking their heads out of the water we were, Little-eyes and I that is, yes, O yes, we were poking our heads out from among the leafy foliage and branches to get a better look


Eve’s Physical Identity

As I Short-legs observed Eve, she had many facial contours showing, and good skin texture, full range of tones to it, rich in quality; she was nude, or one might say almost nude, like us, but unlike us, she was trying to hide it seemed, hide the space between her legs—for some reason unknown to us: us being Little-eyes and me. Her breasts were fully exposed, as was her ribcage. I could see the curves of her back; the light on her was diffused with pleasing shadows. Her skin was much smother than ours; I tightened my mouth, thinking of her smooth skin against the sharp-spiky tall grass ripping the skin open as she left the garden, and the soft sand she was walking in—sinking sometimes in, and the sunlight acutely angled, creating a grave and peaceful mood-yet an intense texture. I could have been tempted to cover her up with one of the ‘People of the Fire’s garments,’ had I had one.
As the sun came out a little more onto Eve, hard edged shadows were created by the directional sunlight, and presented strong shadows in her background; these presented images that were at its peak, she was a beautiful creature, maybe that is what females are suppose to be I told myself. Stern-toes would have liked to have seen this, with his automatic image-maker in his head and eyes—he loved to take pictures, create images, put them on trees and walks and rocks, you name it, if he could make an imprint of it into something, he would.
Her eyes darted with rays of light; --to view her form, front or back, was in both cases remarkable beautiful; her breasts were a perfect form [I must get off them breasts]: bronze and firm; her eyebrows were black-jet that curved with luster.


I would find out in later years, as I grew to more maturity, that their God, idol, spirit, a supreme being of some kind, invisible I guess, had intentions of starting a race or new species, --in lack of a better term, I differ to say, who was who in those far off days, a different variety of animal called human-beings is what it turned out to be of course. I think we belonged to this species, indirectly anyway, and so I felt more and more as time went on—we just didn’t belong completely, meaning full heartedly, yet I do believe we had or acquired a soul somewhere along this line of interbreeding, or time of change over; and along came better reasoning—for us, likely because of them and their God; to this new variety we learned and owe much; this new order of being, which was obvious, had also an insidious dark side to their soul, one we never had I believe—akin to the Fire People, or worse; and this would also be part of our learning process, and adaptation. Maybe our brains in the Horde needed the capacity to mature, grow bigger, and in time it would, I sensed this the day I saw the Eve woman, yes, I sensed this was a day of euphony, but I could be mistaken.


Part Three
Birth of Communication


At any cost, it was these two who broke some kind of rule in the land called ‘The Garden,’ the area being Eden. The other thing I and Little-eyes thought remarkable, while watching this hard to believe happening taking place, was the two had some kind of language: speech. They were actually communicating quite easily with one another. I am not sure how long they existed in that so called Garden, but they had formulated this thing called verbal communication quite well, Little-eyes called it: ‘The Tongue’, unlike our communicational skills, which was most difficult for us to express: this impenetrability we called a blockage, or barrier we had, that is, we had in the Horde; to further this, we proved our communication—time and again—to be somewhat of a hurdle, if not down right a hindrance—so seeing this in actuality, The Tongue working was remarkable to say the least. As I was about to say before I got carried away, the hindrance, was that in time of dire need, specifically in time of calamitous need—we found we could not communicate with one another fast enough, to digest quick enough the presentation, or report that our fellow comrades were trying to deliver to us, thus calamity prevailed often, not always, but often; yet as I look back, it eliminated a lot of useless repartee, or chitchat, that was of course the good omen of the bad communication we had. Their communication was even better than the People of the Fire’s.
Little-eyes and I never did tell anyone all of this: that is, the spotting of the new breed, thus the Horde was unknowing for awhile; --yes, no one really knew the full story, I mean, the all of it. Well, it, it was just too astonishing to believe anyway: it was too, beyond belief, plus too hard to translate.

[Short-legs had to tell Little-eyes something, and so he did: poorly: and weather-beaten, since no one else was present ((—saying at this point: ‘It’s your fault we’re here.’)) but what he was, was scared, petrified of, the situation at hand, and Little-eyes knew this and smiled, almost laughed—for normally he was the one that got frightened; so this time Short-legs was fearful in a anticlimactic way. Little-eyes shook his head somewhat, as if to say, ‘This is no big thing,’ and especially it shouldn’t be for his care-free friend he thought—who was suppose to be carefree, and lighthearted, the one free of woman’s domination and most worries in life, plus, it being forenoon, the sun was out—and if danger came from these two creatures, they could run like the dickens. On the other hand Little-eyes knew his friend Short-legs had few people to trust his fear to: to let it out: and in a way, that is what Little-eyes figured his friend was doing, trying to do, let it out. And so here he tried to pacify the situation, make light of it; thus, Short-legs quickly got over it, pushing the panic away from him, gaining his composure back; smiling again at Little-eyes.]

And they resumed where they had left off…in wonderment over the new happening they were witnessing, peeking their heads out of the flora, flowers, and vegetation again.


[The dreamer]


I remember what had come to mind during this segment of my dream, as odd as it may seem, I thought of the whole universe seemingly as a spiritual realm, and with its own consciousness; and somehow the Earth with its physical atmospheric-canopy separated from this phenomenon; thus, the inhabitants of the earth separated also from the spiritual-invisibles. As a result, possibly the Garden had belonged to this grandeur specialty that is part of the spiritual-universe. And when the couple had to leave the Garden for a moment stepped into the physical sphere of the Earth [out of its spiritual], and in time, vacated that dominion for good, where time and space were not equal to a clock; --where a minute on earth may have equaled a second in the heavens or in the Garden; --henceforth, the Garden disappeared in its spiritual capacity. And so by and by, these thoughts came, and left and my dream as my dream went on, went forward…


We, the People of the Horde, our sect, reacted to inferences, forecasts created, as well as on responses; this of course involved experience and observation for the most part, --needless to say, but I will, such actions by others is how I, Short-legs and all the rest of our Horde expressed their intentions. There were about 260-folks in the Horde; but only a few elders survived to be of the ripe old age of 50-plus. The number of children compared with gender were pretty equal, female to males that is [at least in the past it was so], yet some of the females were being killed by Big-chest, making the balance a little lopsided. But I will explain that a little later.
We learned to speak slowly to get our messages across—thus, we were double sure to get our meaning to the other, which eliminated often potential hysteria; it was more in sounds and gestures, many hand, face, shoulder, leg and eye movements. I’ll give you a few examples [and we were very keen at this]: when Little-eyes would slap his forehead, I knew he did something stupid, likewise, if I put my forefinger into the center of my forehead, kind of in a tapping motion, he knew I felt as if I was crazy, or mad, that is, I was going crazy or mad. My father always put his forefinger by his forehead, usually slightly to one side of the center line, and tried to let me know he was smart, cleaver; --he was smart alright, in a dumb way, he never did nothing for us, or anyone, just sit in that dumb old tree hiding from the world, eating bananas and acorns; if that was smart, then so be it. We called him, when we wanted to make jest, ‘sitting banana.’ Let me continue: Big-chest used his forefinger to point, it was always a threat involved it seemed, yet when mom did that it indicated direction which was usually a response to follow or come before an action took place.
Most of the Horde did what was called the chin withdraw in times of dread: or danger—we all knew this gesture: the chin was retracted, and it seemed an automatic response came out thereafter. We used this form of communication when we would see the People of the Fire, or the Stone-People for that matter: or the man-eaters [lions]—specifically the man-eaters. Even sometimes when we’d go to the Banana Cave we’d use this response to get out our frustrations. Many of the Horde’s folks used the chest-cross, as did the People of the Fire. That is to say, they and we would put our hands across our chest [s], as if to say: “I swear:” or this is the “truth:” not sure where we learned this from, this form of symbolic-language, but to be honest, I’ve even seen the Stone-People use this kind of language often, we were just better at it than they, and to be frank, we were not better at many things than they, so we were proud of this, our symbolic-language, to say the least; but then they were better at the verbal expressions; which in time of need, was of course better in the long run. And I must add, for the sake of Big-chest, he’d use the ‘chest-beat’ a lot, I think he was trying to say, “I am strong,” ----let me restate that, I do not think, I know that is what he did it for. And of course, he got his point across, for he was very strong indeed; in short, he’d hit his chest several times—as if to heat up his body—with one or both fists, like a drum the People of the Fire used; but then we all knew he was just an uncommon ruffian.
I shouldn’t admit this but I will, by and by, when I wanted to get someone angry for fun, when I was younger of course, I’d do the ‘buttocks slap,’ that is, bend over to show my buttocks and slap them centrally—as I dallied about. That would anger anyone, and was the worse insult you could give a creature [man or beast]. But truthfully, I only did that twice, really, that’s the truth, the very, very true-truth. I told Little-eyes I did it more often, and longer at times, so we’d have a longer laugh of course, but when I did it to him, he didn’t like such goings-on, and just shook his head at me; I relented, and said I’d not do it again, that was the second time I do believe.
The females in our Horde when in a group, sitting around, would play with their hair, and move their legs every which way, cross them to entice a potential mate I expect; they were sneakier than us males—you know, with such physical gestures. They would signal to their female friends a warning by playing with their ears, O yes, O yes—those ears. Sometimes they would rotate their hands back and forth indicating they did not care who they’d end up with, male or female, they just wanted to be warm with someone, caressed I do believe. The Stone-People did the same thing, but the Branch-People never did. When the females were taken to the caves by the males they’d say ‘no’ by shaking her head left to right, although this didn’t matter, especially to Big-chest; even though it did matter to most of the folks in our Horde, and the female was left alone. Matter of fact, many of the females would place their flat hand horizontally on top of their heads to show ‘leave me alone,’ or ‘I’m fed up…’ And the females liked the nose rub, an embrace of some kind; in a like manner, the Stone-People would shake hands, I’ve seen it, everyone is similar and yet different—amazing.

“No,” said I, to Little-eyes, “I’ll just touch the shoulder to show my affection,” he smiled when I said that one day, and similar to wooden trees, we stood there holding our stomachs, touching each others shoulders a few times, then we both laughed, and laughed and laughed harder. Then we darted out from the woods by the Cave-Valley, and I can’t remember where we went or ended up, now that I think about it, but I do remember we ran with the wind, and dust of our feet, sailing behind us, which would somehow get ahead of us to fill our eye lids sooner or later, and we’d have to stop by water to clean them out.

Genetics

Our genes were responsible for these ongoing pronounced effects and/or gestures, --or so I believe which we were automatically and instantly subject to; almost, one might say: possessed to do. We also had what one might call: performance characteristics, an example might be: yelling loudly meant you were scared and the Horde would look about to see why, or on the other hand might run the other way to avoid getting involved; --in any case, what it meant was: probably the enemy was coming, like the People of the Fire, or Big-chest. And still another reason might be, anger at a spouse, or you wanted to kill something, or someone [but we really never killed anyone, we though it though, and expressed it]. We would jump up and down, up and down to build our anger up—almost doing summersaults: then yelled, yelled and yelled some more until we got tired, fatigued, worn out to the bone, and then we’d top that off with a great laugh, and we surely did laugh until sometimes our guts ached, and our eyes could not see anything clear, all blurred from the laughter, tears of/with amusement, obsessive hilarity; and sometimes to settle us down, we had to look the other way [away from each other] so as to, --to catch our breath so we would not look at whomever, and laugh more; this was the only way to try to compose ourselves. I called this ‘hotwired:’ be that as it may, we all had variations in this unromantic custom: within our own Horde, we had what I considered, genetic factors of the old Branch-People’s genes and some of the People of the Fire’s genes, as they had ours, again this was in degrees, I do believe—maybe that is where we got the jumping from, as they do when they play the drums and dance. And yes, I must add, we were diving into a new gene pool of sorts, with the Stone-Builders’ presence—more mystery to be.




The Stone-Builders-Parody

However long our lives maybe
[The Horde felt after the advent of the new Breed]
After death we are free—
Yet freedom seems to be an illusion:
Slaves we may be,
Trending the unknown; --
From tears, to fortune’s spears--:
Up, into death’s grave,
We crawl.





3



The Lizard without Legs
The Great Worm [snake]


Another amazing thing took place that first day I had seen the two human-type-figures [as they are known by, after many years of listening to their kind: Eve and Adam], that is, as they were leaving the Garden, there was a reptile, lizard of some kind, that run: darted into the Garden, then it came out on its belly, similar to a: worm, maggot, or caterpillar. But this was not a worm, or any kind of young insect—n no no, no, it was a lizard without feet, I mean legs—it somehow, lost its legs, yes I said, lost them—incredible, but none the less, true.
“Is this possible,” said I, looking at Little-eyes, arousing the ire in my chest. About this time I thought anything might be possible, but I did ask my head that question: was it possible [?] Both Little-eyes and myself being mystified—myself being Short-legs [in this dream of mine] we looked at each other as in a trance, at which time we both had to cover our mouths: we were moved back a bit in disbelief within the thick of the undergrowth, and we loved to laugh back in those days, so much so, that at times we couldn’t stop, and it didn’t stop this day either, and to be quite honest, this was so funny, so very funny seeing this, we had a hard time holding our stomachs [in the tenseness of laughter], and not urinating right where we stood—yes we both stood in awe in some kind of dimly pious way. [Matter of fact, they both laughed about that until, well, up to the end of my dream, or should I say, to the end of this story—: let me correct that, almost to the end; there was some heartrending moments to be, a trifle sad.]
In point of fact,
Life for us, that is, I, Short-legs, and Little-eyes was to justify everything by way of our humor, yes that was justification enough—let it be heard was our philosophy—but let me also add to this, in a like manner, one might have said: one of my assets might be balance in a discriminating way, whereas his [Little-eyes] was more on the order of ‘twists and turns’, or a better put, he was simply more serious of a natured person than I, and did more rigorous thinking. Yet neither of us, had any limits or bounds—or for that matter, shyness when it came to certain things, such as—and I know I’m repeating myself—laughter being one. Having said that, these twenty some to thirty feet—lizards ran into the Garden, and when they came out, yes, yes, oh-yes, they had no legs, really-really—NOOO…Legs at all!

(As I guessed in my dreaming mind, I thought about Darwin, which might be a natural thing to do for a man in such a dream world ((in jest.)) Darwin whom put feet onto fish, somewhere along the evolutionary line (as Short-legs would most like comment—out of respect of not knowing otherwise, but simply observation), thus, I would guess he took them off of something, conceivably at this point of time and place: most probably the snake who was once a lizard in the garden sacrificed them (again, as Little-eyes would also conjure up). Oh well, all trivializing aside—with a little reality mixed—within this dream—to the two observers: Short-legs and Little-eyes, it was a horrendous event to see this happening, for surely they felt, they would never see it again.


What more can I say: it is truth on top of seeing, said I [as Short-legs]: mumbling to myself. I’ve heard humans call it, ‘seeing is believing,’ so I, Short-legs pondered, dallied about on this thought: discreetly pondered on it, as Little-eyes, looked in shock at himself and me: and subsequently it came to pass, everyone forgot this happening and called these big belly-worms, snakes
Said he [he being: Little-eyes, with a curious tone to his voice]:
“They even have evil looking eyes, slanting eyes, these big belly-wormlike, snakes, Short-legs. More so than the squinty ones they had when they entered the Garden:” yes, so they did, --actually they had, they had piercing eyes: eyes reminiscent of owls, eyes that could paralyze you if you stared at them too long, one might even add: pseudo-scornful eyes.
[Little-eyes] Responding to the situation, said: look. Look: but then he continued to laugh: hard, crying, delirious laughing. Some of the Stone-People started worshiping these creatures, even got to calling them, ‘Serpents of Wisdom.’ Not sure what all that meant, or where this word wisdom came in, or from, but I think the other side of that word is ‘foolishness’ and is a more proper name for the snake, and better fits the occasion for these worshippers, and especially upon on such a creature like that, but I figured it was most likely another order of beings, and the Stone-Builders simply were craving their company—you know, something forming in the world to be, and they wanted to be ahead of things.

[As I, the dreamer, have looked years in Horde’s future: I am leaping considerably ahead of my story here and at times, however, if I am to follow it in a chronological order, the story with its new breed, the Stone-Builders would be less intimated, less guilty. For amongst the Horde, death would be better than to be hemmed in by the Eve people [as they were]: the so called renegades that left Eve and her husband to form their own civilization: thence, to do their bidding by order of their king and be locked behind a fortress wall, which was all too, too much for the Horde’s mental structure. If ever, during this time period, Short-legs and Little-eyes did have great happiness together; a deep attachment grew up between them, even though their happy days would have, and did have: maddening interruptions by this new order.]


Part Four
4



Little-eyes and the Garden Dominion
The Great Tragedy



[The Dreamer] This was supposed to be the: the garden that is, ‘The Garden Splendor of Heaven,’ –if anything, a paradise on earth itself—a restful place, with the ‘Tree of Life,’ which was someplace around its center, tempting as it was; I wonder if I would have ate that apple—which has of course occurred to me a few times during typing this story out; like Eve did, oh well, this was not part of my dream—just a floating notion—just an observation, we all know the overdelicate climate in the Garden by now, or if not, let me assure you, it was to that extreme: sensitive, by the both Short-legs and Little-eyes observations of the couple of the garden, it was not a ‘chum, chum,’ situation they saw. If ever, one was supposed to avoid this tree, and in consequence, did the opposite and created an ongoing tragedy, or possibly, maybe not so, but a new mission was constructed by their God because of their disconnecting with their God’s will, for a will all of their own; as in the days when God gave the commandments to mankind; of which, God I do believe, gave them commandments simply to show—men and women, they could not keep them. Likewise, maybe He put the tree in the Garden for a similar reason; for example, to show the same cause and effect, that is, to teach the same lesson that with free will comes temptation, and one without the other will never work, that is, God and man must act together, in unison. “The Great Tragedy,” I call this garden mishap, which took place that day, in any case, the day Little-eyes and Short-legs knelt hiding behind some shrubbery in the thick of the forest outside the Garden, --at which time inky-black clouds dominated the sky overhead, when the two—Eve and her husband, Adam—walked out of the Garden. Yes, it was quite noticeable by Little-eyes, that cold and dark was now felt by these two new folks entering a new world, or time zone—if you will; whatever it was for them. And yes, oh yes, a cold and dark future was the sum of it all one could point to, yet a mystery to the onlookers. However, this the Horde would not understand for a long time; even if one tried to explain it to them, and Short-legs, tried. Getting back to the odd-couple walking out of the Garden, this time he [Short-legs] never took his eyes off the couple for a second.
What was taking place in the eyes of Little-eyes, while observing with Short-legs this happening, was against the law of nature, yet it was dominated by the law of something else; Little-eyes and Short-legs heard the name of God pronounced, [Jehovah]; --was this the being’s name that put these creatures into the Garden [which came to their minds]? A good question they both contemplated. ‘Oh:’ he mumbled, indicating he could not name, or repeat that name, not for the life of him, but it was as it was, tumultuously for the most part: yet he observed with what wits he could, the sanctification of it:
“Yes:” said the angel that lead, and followed Eve and her mate out of the Garden, Little-eyes heard it said, and seeing and hearing was supposed to be part of believing in any kind of language, of which his mind did the quick translation to mean: “Here is the new miracle—” and “the Greatest of all.”
Thought I,
Of which I did do, that is to say, I brought this happening to the attention of Owl-ears, or tried to, although she’d only draw circles in the sand, figurines within them, and try to relate all of the earth’s happening, as one circle together; somehow, someday in the near future, I might fully understand what it all meant, I told myself: although Little-eyes seemed to be more the observer, yet within the Horde, he was considered as a sort of tag along for me. Yet, he was by far, much more, in all respects I must say. They thought [the Horde] this simply because he was silent most of the time when they saw us both together, but silence did not mean he wasn’t thinking, matter of fact, to the contrary—this I, Short-legs, knew from the start of our friendship: a virtue I’ve never had; it was just his way of learning, he was not as quick or sharp as I was, but a thinker he was, and a learner also. And we made quite the team, and did not allow speculation or even crude gestures by the Horde to break our bondage.

Now that Eve was out of the Garden, Little-eyes had more time to put two and two together, mainly by closer observation; thereupon, he stretched his imagination, looking for some kind of clarification; and made them confidentially to himself.

By and by he thought [very privately]:

‘There was order to things, but there is not anymore order to anything, not as it seemed prior to the appearance of Eve. Reality was now, but where did the now belong, or go, or for that matter, come from? Before life was simple, it was the ‘Horde’. That is what it was. As for danger, it used to be that it will surely come or may come when we least expect it, but now, it was something new. It was not, as it used to be. At length there came a flash, a brightening to his examination, his theory, and the appearance of the Eve-People. He questioned himself, was this the eve of reasoning for the Horde, and was it now their time to advance on the horizon of mankind? Where at one time: time stood still, and now it was counted; he would not explain this to Owl-ears, she was passing on new ideas to the others in hopes of building this new crude but seemingly trait called ‘hope’ into the inhabitants of the Horde, surely, this would confuse her, he told himself, if I can figure this out for myself it will be a miracle; but he’d have to tell her something, as now he kind of understood why she was more intelligent than he, maybe it was seeping out of the Garden long ago, and she breathed wisdom into her head, not the wisdom of the snake, but pure wisdom, because she was smarter than most in the Horde. If not, it will be figured out none the less in time, and kept silent, and one day for the Horde it will just be natural, natural to be smarter; they will think it was always there.’




5


Erudition/Intelligence
And Village Society


[Short-legs brings to mind] A lot of our learning dealt with experimentation, trial and error; nobody in our Horde was born into a musical family, there were no such things as musical instruments, other than a horn type looking thing, and drums. Our interrelations and activities were to laugh, socialize, to climb trees, to live in caves, and fish along the river-way; along with mating, and hunting for food—what more could one ask for, a nice sunny day, a fish on the lap, a drink of cool water, it was by far, all one could expect. Few devices were ever made to create any kind of moderation it was as it was. And when something was done, it was done; we went on to other things, at least this is how it was up until the time of Eve. In a like manner, sleep was often a stranger to us; in that, our nerves were more inured to danger: danger being unseen, seemed afar off to some, yet it was often just around the corner for us. On one hand we had to be guarded, instantly ready to counter whatever the environment demanded of us; on the other hand, we were as free as the birds, as sparrows. Some might think touch plainness, but it was our world, no more, no less.
We intermingled with one another quite unconsciously, and instinctively; -- we were never surprised at how one might ignore their own selfish and hurtful acts on another, and we took it for granted that others had overlooked them also—in all, we never hurt one hurt one another knowingly: but if a quiet life is a kind life, then we lead such a life. However, Big-chest proved this wrong I suppose, or so I, Short-legs took note of this; save for the fact, Big-chest was of the Branch-Sect for the most part, and never forgot anything. And the rest of us, oh well, needless to say, needed one another I guess and now that I think of it, we were a decaying race— promising even before the advent of Eve, but surely we would not have dissolved so quickly had she not appeared on the scene: in any case, we were a dying out one; I assured myself it would be an intermingling one with this New World Order.
As I have tried to imply—and with respect I must admit: no one in our Horde pressed their views upon others, unduly that is, --except Big-chest of course, especially when he wanted whatever he wanted, at whatever peculiar time he wanted it—but again, he was not really part of our Horde, yet he pretended to be in some kind of way and manner; even though his approach was reckless, and careless; --I think he liked knowing he was of a higher race, higher order if you will in the evolutionary line of humanity, even though he did not know these terms called: humanity, evolution: a higher array that is than the Branch-People—which he thought we were. As I was about to say, before I mentioned Big-chest, we had good hearing and could tune into our environment.

[Dreamer] Sort-legs and Little-eyes were quite taken by what they had seen while hiding in the underbrush as these two modern [one might say modern in a conventional sense], creatures appeared—. And here, as time went on, Short-legs got to thinking of them as: humanoids that came out of an invisible garden, possibly even create the term ‘humanoid…’ Short-legs, having brought this to mind, said in essence: that, what was astounding was the way they were explaining: defining, an enculturation none of them had. This he told several times to Little-eyes and that possibly their time was over: and he mean really over. This was a new creature he’d explain, far more advanced than they were.
He would even find out later in life (in my dream), —they had such things as occupations: as such was proven by the Stone-Builders several years down the road; which of course were the offspring of the couple from the Garden. In a short, time would produce this New World Order, as it demanded, and it would demand to have: towers and gates of stone and iron; wood and fixtures not heard of yet, all dominating the world to be.



Village Society
[The Horde]



It was a time of transition for the world at large. When the consciousness, and emotions were on the edge of its next evolutionary step; where thoughts and tools and God, societal-security became issues, a community of wondrous natural reactions were taking place in the souls of the living. This stage of evolution was simply motivated, given a kick-start one might say, because of extenuating circumstances.


According to Short-legs [as he wrote on the walls of the caves, and stones on the cliff prior to his death]:

Food: A lot of our protean came from the nuts of the Mongongo Trees. They grew wild in our habitat. Each year I and Little-eyes would collect the nuts off the ground and some time climb the trees to get them, if no insect invasions were prominent. Sometimes there were plant disease, weather issues, we’d get a short supply of the nuts then, --and for the winter we’d remain unnourished; thus, some of the older and younger folk would die. And so like most any society, we had our issues to bear. When I got bigger I was allowed to go with my bigger brother, uncle, and father and seek small animals for protein; --nothing bigger than warthogs, kudu, creatures of that stature. And again I must add, if there were a short supply, and we could not club them to death with rocks, or make use our tools as weapons, it was simply a matter of less to eat, for there were seasons when the natural world seemed to be plentiful, and then disappear for a spell.

[The Garden] On another note: as far as the Garden of Eve, went, it seemed to be in our backyard, but of course it wasn’t, yet, most of the world either didn’t recognize it as such, as mysterious as it was, or did and didn’t want to announce it—meaning for the most part, our neighbors. For in time, bits and pieces of the knowledge of the garden did seep out and circulate into the Horde.

Money: Our ancestors were compelled to do the ‘Act far’. There was a limited availability of numbers in our Horde, numbers: meaning, in members. So the commodity was the citizen as a whole [the most valuable of assets we had was children]. The son of a family, was used for work when he was old enough, that is, if you could catch him to do it. And the female was used for reproduction, for the most part; in a like manner, the father often times would not let their daughters out into the mainstream of society, in fear someone would steal them, or try to mate them, and run off with them. Thus the father would loose not only his pleasure, should he want her for reproduction within his family, or even for the son to mate with her to keep the family numbers up, but he would loose a commodity, one he might have used to feed the family through winter, should the winter be a bad one, and no food around, hence, he would give her to a neighbor who had no course of reproduction, and we’d get a warthog, or two for the eating; one person even got a Giant Bat-beast once in exchange, which lasted a long while in the eating.

Incest: It was not uncommon for the brother or sister to sleep together; it was more a cultural thing than a genetic element I believe. If things were natural, the Horde would have been making fires by this time, or long ago, we were actually pondering on the thoughts during my formative years. It was neither a custom for us to do this incest thing, not yet anyway, but I did understand the need for procreation; --as I was saying, a cultural trait for some other groups, a few in the Horde, but not for us per se; our family. Although this was considered normal, we still saw it as somewhat a scanty thing at best.

Skin Color: I was not white nor was I black, rather universal brown. Our whole Horde was so. Human skin—condensed with melanin lick protected us from the sun. As far as we knew, these other two races did not exist yet. In a like manner, Eve was not white or black, oh no, she was brown, brown and brown, from forehead to heal—bronze-brown, with a glowing beauty—almost a tint of red in the skin. Unlike the Branch-People, or in particular, Big-chest, they did not have to worry; they were more hairy than we were, a natural sunscreen. Hairlessness was really the signature of the New Breed for the most part. And as I noticed, they always had blisters and rashes, infected skin during the hot seasons [skin cancers]. As it would seem, we in the Horde, had more melanin particles per body than they did, the Stone-Builders that is, and even the People of the Fire, only the Branch-People were darker than us. There were not extremes in our world; cultural selection was yet around the corner, yet the darker the children, the better they were in fighting skin disease–or so it seemed.

Art: Many may think we had no art in those far off days, but we did, we really did. In our caves we had beautiful paintings on the walls from our father’s father, and even beyond their time. I, Short-legs even painted many pictures on the cave walls [and in time petrography], we were only allowed one during our very young years of life [although I did draw much more later on in life] because we were young a foolish I suppose and drew stupid things, and so our elders felt the sand was good enough until we showed some refinery in the art area; but then we ran out of inhabitants, and so I drew even much more than I even wanted to for the sake of posterity, and thus, this is where the ornaments came into being also; or as now I hear those images being called: jewelry making. Yes they came into being, into our creative minds; it was so creative it became an obsession in my older years among many of the tribe’s females—as it did much more so in the other groups of the surrounding world of ours. We had pictures of horses, bison, reindeer, and boars, and some carved with the ivory or teeth of animals that we wore around our necks attached to strings of hairs taken from reindeer.

Bisexual: Younger boys were used to go gather leaves for the Horde, so they could use them for cleaning themselves after they had a bowel or intestine movement, and for the bedding. These young lads, small boys slept apart from the main Horde in a special cave. Little-eyes and I were never selected for this task, which I was grateful for; our mother, Strong-lungs, would not allow it, we were needed at home as was my brother. In any case, we had found out that the Stone-People used them for the same reasons we had, plus, in addition, some times they were used as sexual objects by the men, until they were old enough to find a wife; in particular, they were fun for the older men, thus the People of the Fire were catching on to this new habit, if not sport. The Eve-People and we, the Horde, remained as we did, with the same sex—as far as I know.

Future Generations: It seemed to me that if the Stone-People and the People of the Fire became one united group, integrated, they’d be quite aggressive; and if we ever molded in with the Eve-People, we would be more passive. What would become of the world then [?]? But these were just fleeting thoughts, thoughts that shifted in my head as fast as the wind shifted on top of the cliffs. Dragging-thoughts every which way: for this was a time of much thinking, and deliberation.

Men vs. Women: Most of us men in the Horde were about 5-inches taller than the women, with heavier bones, and less fat. The women were about 65% less strong than us men mostly in the arms chest and shoulders. It is not to say women were less needed, it is just stating a fact. To be quite fair, they were considered, or carried in a much more esteemed class than the other groups: The Stone-Builders and the People of the Fire, to include the Branch-People.

War: War was based on competition for resources, such as: food, soil or land, supplies, or other such needs to include wants—even slaves for labor, normally not for simple wants as much though. But we never had wars per se—not the Horde, yet, we did get a little pushed around by the People of the Fire now and then, off and on, intermittently, for centuries, but now the new breed, the Stone-Builders, were at war with the whole world, all the time it seemed, wherever they went—they dragged war with them: so war was a new word—alas, or at least it had new connotations for us; ‘twas a new invention for the most part. Killing, for killing’s sake, —the New World Order’s mind-set that is, or better put, no reasons for killing were the new and fresh or innovative concept for us, other than the customary cannibalism that was alive and well in stock, in a few locations, frankly, with the People of the Fire, when they got in the starvation mode; that is, a cold winter might trigger such undertakings. And the word ‘compromise’ was not yet invented.

Short-legs continues--:

Seasons: sometimes looking up from the floor of the ‘Valley of Caves,’ the color of the rocks, stones were so intense and in certain areas there always seemed to be strong shadows, especially in fall and winter. Thence the images in winter were always eerie to/for me; in fact, the trees appeared reminiscent of skeletal forms, a lack of color in the environment, which added to the coldness, feeling almost isolated. This was how we could tell the shifting of the seasons, from one to another: empirical data, most practical for us: distinctively, observation.

Yet, summer was the livelier season for the Horde, if not for everyone of the world I suppose. It was the time for tranquility and color; although colorful, it seemed to me it had more subtle hues, also a more stillness to it, with pleasing reflections to my group family, the Horde.



Stone Fortification
[The Stone-Builders]


By and by, as we watched this man and woman appear on the biological horizon, I had the capacity to laugh at how much different they looked compared to us. And now there were three groups in our world—three dominate groups that is, not including our own, the Horde, of which we lived mostly in caves; the Branch-People who mostly lived in the trees [not all that far from us]; and the People of the Fire, who lived in communities, which integrated into such abodes as caves and underground dugouts; as well as, mound dugouts, that is, they would build a mound, or find an embankment, and dig it out, leaving a cavity to live in, a hole; --quite a creative shelter I thought. It never occurred to me the first time I saw them, or us in the Horde, to build such shelters, and after I had seen them again, it never occurred to me a second time, to build them: I’d just go back to the caves and as always—just live there, eat, laugh, and dodge the wild boars: lions, dogs, Big-chest, and the People of the Fire, for the most part. That was my life: my real life. But it was changing, and later on in life, when I got older that is, I did get to thinking about it more so, but the caves served me well, for shelter and protection, no need to trade off a good thing for a new vulnerable object.
I had not found a female to mate with, not as of yet, anyhow—and to be quite frank and honest, I wasn’t looking too hard; --but this new group [the Stone–Builders] migrated all over the place, which it only took a few decades or possibly three to accomplish. They had mates, different ones every night. Family was not the priority, sex was.

The Hermit’s Song

Now silent by cliffs and shade,
In the ‘Valley of the Caves,’
You lay still, breathless, silent—
As the vanishing winds—how’ll
Never—to awake you again…

Eternal traveler—:
Leaving stories to be told—
[For ten-thousand years—or so]
Here: a few tears—
From your people:
Some laughter: that’s
All we have to give…





6




The New World Order


I, Short-legs, knew of no one [as a rule] who went too far north [to the pole], an ice sheet that was still in place there and the low sea level was not accommodating for our kind, with the few that had gone up that far, most never found their way back, and if they did, it was some years later: in which they often described as the dead zone: the frozen place; in particular, Moss had told a story of a trip he took to the North [Arctic region], and of one of the few Giant Bat-beast[s] left in our world, it was so frozen in place, his eye sockets and tongue along with his teeth were frozen in place: staring into nothingness—he must have gone too far north, and on his way back, --well, he just never made it back.
I had seen those Giant Bat-beasts fly overhead several times: down by the river, by the swamp area that is—they came down within several feet of Little-eyes’ head, a few times, so he said: that is down right above his head trying to pick him up with their sharp claws or teeth by the shoulders or for that matter, the head and neck: but only a few times did I see this, and they never get close enough to actually pick him up. He called them the Giant flying-lizard-suckers: Moss called them the Bird Eating Man Giants. As I had said before, there were not many left, but when one was seen, it was surely tracked until it was completely out of sight.
Said I, Short-legs, about them: since I’ve never seen one close—real close that is, like a few feet away, I would call them Goat-suckers [Pterodactyl], because the few times I did see them in the sky, flying high and low, they were up so high, they looked similar to little goats, compared to what Moss said they were: I mean they could pick up a man’s weight and carry him to wherever they went for their next meal: or feast—: once one tried to attack me, actually it tried to attack me a few times—flying about twenty-feet above me, I gave this one, gave ‘it’ a name, --although I/or we [we: being I and Little-eyes] really didn’t know if it was a she or a he—feeling it might remain a ‘it’: we called it, nevertheless, ‘a her,’ –anyhow, her name being: ‘Ptero:’ in lack of a better name—well, it happened to be this one day, the day of this sighting of this beast, lightening struck her, I think she thought it was me, and flew off as fast as she could in the opposite direction I was going
But normally, they would sweep down so fast, I mean so very, very fast, one never had time to turn around twice to run, --and they were so huge, as I mentioned before—and so I was told, they could pick a man up and take him to their nest and that would be the end of the story. Their teeth were reminiscent of snakes, but they had two rolls of them in the front, and their hands were connected to their wings. Some have called this winged animal a dragon, others a phoenix. I don’t know what to call it, except what I’ve mentioned already; it was just a big winged bird with a huge head, and wide wingspan, so concurs Little-eyes with this description, and confirmed by Moss also. Others in the assembly, that is the Horde, saw them also, when they went on longer trips and gave similar metaphors, I of course, never went on trips to speak of, so I missed out on these so called great adventures: I guess I was akin to the sparrows never really going any place, and just stuck around the Valley of Caves: sometimes down by the river, and within a certain radius of our homeland [their territory]----, I just stayed put, and let some mysterious unknown force provide food and my keep, as always, you know, like the sparrows. Now that I think about it, Mom should have named me: Short-legs-the Sparrow, but then, it would be too hard to remember, you know, such a long name and all.





The Flying Giant Bat-beast
[Of the North—Pterodactyl]



And to the far south was a vast desert of heat [which was across a Great Sea], much, much too scorching for us [our kind]: too devastating for/to our ventilating, or respiratory systems: this was of course information given to the Horde through some of the folks who had gone astray and found their way back after many years, one being a hermit named Moss. I was not that adventurous to go to such far off spots in the first place: I liked it right where I was. My family was near-by, --that is to say, my mother: Strong-lungs: my part-time father and brother who lived in caves that were not far from our Horde [let me correct this, my father lived in the tree by the cave I was born in, mostly]. They were part of the Horde at one time and in a way, remained so, yet they stayed-put, in the old environment, which was a distance from the Valley of the Caves, because they did not want to migrate with us; authentically, at one time this was our original location, where my mother lived, where we were raised and born: let me add to that by saying—at one time we all lived in a small cave there, yet, I should explain about my father, whom was from the Branch-People initially, and so I repeat myself by saying, he lived in the trees, for the most part, more-so than the cave for this was common for his kind. And for my brother who was not around much [yet remained in close proximity of the caves], lived within our family structure with our mother in the cave. But they came to visit me often, and I visited them, off and on, or at least my mother did.



[The End of Chapter Six]


As I was saying, or about to say, the climate here—in the Cave Valley area, where I lived, where the large cliffs browed above us to heights that seemed to touch the clouds—was for the most part, quite soothing, just right; it got hot at certain times of the year, and cooled off at other times, --even cold, but only a chill, not like the far north by the ice-sheets. For a fact, it seemed never to go to extremes, so like my family we all stayed within the region of our ancestral boundaries: there was no reason, no real need to leave. The sea which was far from us: far but not so much that it was not reachable, brought in some breezes now and then to cool us off in mid summer—and the rains cleaned everything up quite well. I just couldn’t imagine what the Garden was like, for this was home to me; I doubt I would have gone into it, the garden that is, even if I was ordered to by Big-chest, in fear I’d not find my way back out.



7


Owl-ears
[The Wise One of the Horde]




Owl-ears
[The wise one]



Like in most cultures: groups or animals, people or subgroups, there always seems to be a ‘connector:’ in essence, a philosopher: seer of some kind, or person who shows guidance: some may refer to this person as the wise one. Our Horde had such a person, she was a little female called: “Owl-ears:” for she’d heard everything going on within the structure of the group—listened to everyone on what they had to say: in essence, she was very well informed. Sometimes in the Banana Cave as well as at other times, and places in the valley or even in ones personal cave, she’d come and give advice, lectures. I think she was the first one to relate thinking [the brain work] and emotions [work of the heart] and connected them together for us. Kind of showing us they were different, yet both needed.
I can also recollect what she said to me one day, she said:
“Short-legs, you are always so inquisitive, you will be one of the few to see the changes take place rapidly, before most of he Horde’s citizens do; you see Short-legs, changes occur one way or another, weather we see them or not.” I guess she knew I was witnessing it at first hand. And for some odd reason she felt she had to inform me that she was aware of it, likely so I might help the Horde in someway in the future.
Another thing she said kind of stuck in my mind—or things she said, was she related things to us as they were, and really were, not how we’d like them to be. Such simply things when I look back, but at the time quite profound I thought: she’d say: life would end, or there was pain to be expected in life; or again, this change thing, that it was inevitable; plus, something to do with transitory, --that, not just us, but everything passes on. I liked that part and was hoping the Stone-Builders would pass on quick, so we could have peace and laughter again.

In a similar form, that is a similar form of lecturing, she one day, in the middle of the valley, about 50% of the Horde stood around her, and she symbolically drew pictures in the sand. She drew on the ground little circles with figurines in them, for the Branch-People, and one for the Stone-Builders, and another for the People of the Fire, and one for us, the Horde, along with a few others I couldn’t decipher. Then she drew a big circle around all the little circles—it was quite profound for us—she then pointed to them and jumping up off her feet at the same time, “Ya, ya, ya—!” then pointed to us and said: “uuss, us:” we all smiled, I guess we felt [prior to this] that we were not part of the great circle of life, just a rock thrown into it, but this explanation seemed to affirm we were more of, than less of, the circle; so call it pride or the gift of hope, but we all felt better after that.



8



The Tiamat


Along with this New World Order, which was brought about by the Eve-People, in particular the Stone-People, who came from the loins of Eve, or at least her family tree, appeared at this same time a primordial being, whom many were talking about. I never could understand the legacy of it or the personifying description of it—‘a’, as they called it—: a. The figure, outline, form—sounded and looked like a male being, but its predominate representation was female, so it was claimed; this creature came out of the Garden, but was much older than the inhabitants of the Garden; --confusing to say the least. But with this creature came chaos. I did get its name, matter of fact I got a few names it was called, along with a description. I didn’t give this much thought, nor put this together much until I was a good deal older though, and I still to this very day do not quite understand it. The creature was called ‘a she’, the full name being: the Tiamat, or Serpent of the Sea. Eve, whom I’ve seen a half dozen times or so, said in so many words: it came from the watery vaults of the heavens, unto the deep of the sea onto the land where we stand. I heard her say something else, in the vein of that, I sure did, absolutely: I’m not sure what it all means though, but what it implied I think was: on one hand I got the impression, there were two unsealed forces working for and against mankind—and being older now, I placed myself into that category, humanity that is. For myself, I guess I didn’t feel I belonged in the group of ‘mankind,’ so I’m not sure if these forces were for or against me at the time anyway, but it seemed the Eve-People prayed to one God, and then when they turned into the Stone-People, the ones that left the Eve family to be on their own –with the aim of—praying to multi-gods, and some beasts they even prayed to, -- one being they called the Tiamat, others [a pause] I forgot their names already, but it’s of no value to me. They say she was huge, the Tiamat—that is, even bigger than Big-chest, and was of a green color, and could live in or out of water…

As I was about to say, before I got onto the Tiamat that is, far to the East were the huge cliffs, or so they were known as, over looking a passage. They, the Stone-Builders, were building a monstrous fortification on top of it. And across the sea they were building the likeness of a lion, and great mounds of stones as fortresses; such things, the likes of which had never been seen before by the Horde.
Said I, to Little-eyes as we sat night after night in what I would call our medium size cave, [medium meaning: just a little larger than normal, making it comfortable for the two of us to sleep and eat in] in symbolic gestures I expressed: the world was coming to an end for our kind—as I had expressed before. He paid me little attention, and was not sure why I brought that up again, or for that matter, I couldn’t tell him why he had asked. In any event, he had a little blood, you might say, or I do believe, call it a genetic touch of the Branch-People in him, or so I always sensed—but never said; that is why he had a hard time understanding such little things I do trust, but he understood death was looming. We were young, very young during this time of course; he now has built his intellect up four-fold, as I have probably six-fold.

Some of the cave dwellings in our valley were huge, very huge, gigantic to say the least, and went down deep, deep, and deeper into the cavity of the earth. I called the biggest of them, the ‘Banana Cave,’ because as you would first go into it, overhead was openings, and vegetation was growing here and there, and bananas were all about. Skulls of our ancestors were also kept on the walls of the caves. They were placed into the walls, as one would dig out an opening and place it there. This is where we would come to if we were bored, and wanted to socialize, or yell without alerting the Horde to or for danger; and at times we’d come here to grieve a lost one. But we didn’t grieve resembling the People of the Fire, or the Stone-Builders, they grieved as if they had died themselves. We grieved as if it was expected, normal, --such as the Branch-People, which to be honest, I never did see them grieve or mourn, yet I did catch a little sadness, unhappiness on their faces during such periods of distress.
We were in an isolated community of sorts. Yet we did not understand the community dynamics per se; just that it was safer than living alone. Nor did we understand selective mating at this stage of our advancement or breeding, we seemed although to be stable; I suppose this was because of/that our conditions were undisturbed, the process of change was very slow, except for now, given that the Stone-Builders had arrived. Yes, there was a feeling that things would change faster, that filled my brain night and day sometimes, my mentality, my cranium; even the Branch-People knew something was different; something was changing in the world, and it seemed—all concerned were, everybody that is, everybody in the world in our area was compatible to mate with; or most were it seemed, where as before only a few like-minded were. And the same goes for the People of the Fire, and the Stone-Builders. This all was a mysterious phenomenon to us; --to repeat myself, we were well-matched, much more than ever before, for conception purposes, or better put, procreation it seemed. You can sense such things. Change was imperceptible for Branch-People as a group, they had no tools, weapons, or reasoning power to figure them out, we had but an ounce of those ourselves. They learned by repetition of the same act. Their leader was Big-chest, as he was known. He had more animals in him than anything else—I say this factiously, for I do not know one way or the other to be truthful. He stood eight feet tall; he must have been a 400-pounds, long arm, instinctively brutal. He looked more ape-like than anything else, yet he could reason, but just barely. I do believe his mother was from our Horde, and that is why he liked stealing our women; raping them, and leaving half of them dead when he was through with them—that is, when he wanted no more from them. Some of them with children, others simply mangled; —he’d steal the wives from the Horde and to tell you the truth, if one of the males went to help, he would die along side of her, so very seldom would they help their mate because of this. Actually it never occurred to us to try and gang-up on him I suppose, for we never did, not sure why, yet we were all complaining to one another about this. Most of the males felt their day would not come so why get involved, but it did come, and they did have to share their wives. I don’t think there was a woman he didn’t rape in the whole Horde, sooner or later that is. One might simply conclude: who could stop him, and it would be no one.



Part Six

9


Big-chest



In our Horde, we had no leader as I tried to imply before, and Big-chest was only considered the dominated one, being he was the largest of all of us in the Horde, and of all the Branch-People, matter-of fact, he was the largest in the known world I would think—excluding the Tiamat of course, for I never saw any thinking being larger than him; and by no means was he a leader like the People of the Fire had; I’ve seen a young strong looking male once among the Fire People—other than the witch doctor, otherwise known as the Begetter: anyhow, this young person, strong looking, like a bull, possibly the Begetters son, he pointed his fingers and several of the People of the Fire obeyed him, just jumped at his command, did what he was told. He had no name that I knew of so I nick-named him Kcihc—that is what we called the chickens that ran around wild, for he looked like a chicken, and when he danced he had fathers all about him like a chicken, and like his –I think father—he ran around like a chicken. And the Stone-Builders did the same to even a more stern extreme, they actually, I really mean this, they totally lost it, they bowed to a male who looked like them and even laid on the ground begging him for a blessing, to spare their lives, for this and for that reason; he never even did an ounce of work—these two kings, other than lift his finger and point, saying: “OK,” or “This shall be so,” as others protected him. Had either one of those so-called kings been in our group, they’d have starved to death out of indolence. The other thought I had been: why did he need protection? It was most chilling to see people controlled resembling ants. He wasn’t even half as big as Big-chest. I think he needed protection because he forced the people with other people to do for him, what he wouldn’t or couldn’t do for himself. Matter of fact, I could have pushed him around if he didn’t have people protecting him. But I’ve seen it with my own very eyes, I mean I never even took a glance to the right or left it was so shocking, I just stared in wonderment, paralyzed to the arrogant leader, and so did my friend Little-eyes, he was almost laughing at the people that called him King, and some other high esteem words. He just bullied people to call him king, and so he was. We both couldn’t figure out why the people needed him to lead them, for what; lead them where—they were already here? To go to war, to kill, to bring him food, when they had little themselves, and to be quite honest, the King had more than they, and did less. For the life of me this will remain a mystery. They went to war for land, when they had so much of it. But they didn’t care to have this or that land, then wanted land ever one else was on.
Little-eyes and I told one another we’d never let this happen to us, that should some crazy people want us to bow and run around and kill other people for them, and feed them, and all that kind of stuff, we’d go hide and never let them find us.
To add water to fire, Owl-ears once told me something I’d not yet forgot, she said,
“Some pleasure, if not all pleasure bring with it a reflex experience of regret and remorse—kind of a finality after all is said and done.” Then she sadly added, “For our Horde, the price of peace and being passive maybe extinction,” an undeniable path I said to myself when I heard them words. But she knew as I knew, you can’t change what is inbreed into a culture, that is to say, you can make the person do the motions, but that does not necessarily mean they are thinking as you are.
In any case, Big-chest was to be feared not this puny king who could not even defend himself with a rock, and no one, I mean no one could overcome Big-chest. I kind of wish the King would go for a long walk in the woods and bump into Big-chest, and then we’d see who did the bowing—but that is my other nature talking, my evil side I do believe. In any case, should my wish come true that is, the king and Big-chest ever meet the wars would stop for everyone I bet. Maybe not, maybe they’d, they’d have war with Big-chest then, and just find another king to bow to. It is similar to the grasshopper leading the wolf-boars.

We lived in strange times I’d tell my mother, and she’d smile, and say [in her symbolic way: gestures, sounds, with a few words]:
‘Look at me, do you see me getting all shook-up for this little stuff, let it be, you’ll die before your time otherwise:’ she made sense, but things still bothered me, besides the high side of it all, by getting a good laugh with Little-eyes out of it, was due compensation. It is funny, as I think about our world, our groups within the world, when I look in the faces of all them, that is, all them different groups faces, cultural-faces, whatever, or however we are to call them, I see in the faces of the Fire People: eyes and mouths of fire and steel, and when I look at the Stone-Builders I see eyes of unbending steal and fiercest punishment waiting. And when I look into the Hordes eyes I see boyish eyes. The ugliest savage of them all being the Begetter, with his gazing eyes, sobering breath, grotesqueness as if he was a heroic figure; his antagonist seemingly being the heavens and the all creatures on earth—save for one: his son. Now the Begetters eyes could creep into yours like soft due, [Short-legs gives an uneasy laugh], yes and then he’d burn them out of you like a bonfire.
As I was about to say, before I got too much involved with eyes and the Begetter, and so on: the Stone-Builders situation, he: Big-chest: was wild, arrogant, and strong, I mean strong, I mean real strong, I say as strong as any four of us men in the Horde. Matter-of-fact, I doubt any of the Stone-Builders, I mean not even one, could have beaten Big-chest, yet Big-chest did not make noises when they were around, he feared their long metal swords, and metal spears, arrows with metal tips. They were a deadly bunch, and had no pity on killing anyone that was not of their kind. They were cleaver, more so than we, and smarter of course; none the less, Big-chest was sly, that is to say, he’d sneak down to where the Stone-Builders were, and the People of the Fire nested, and steal a female now and then. He would find them washing themselves after taking their skins of clothing off: in the pond most likely they’d be, or picking berries, or even feeding their children with their breasts, and he’d snatch them akin to a piece of fruit from a tree, drag them into the woods and rape them. Big-chest tried to limit this activity to the Horde and the People of the Fire, but couldn’t resist the new-breed, the Stone-Builders, now and then, and found him at the outside walls of their fortresses waiting for whoever would walk astray. Having said that let me add: sometimes he’d even take them back to his tree, or his cave by us. Some of them he’d let go after weeks of toying with them, or they’d figure out a way to get away from him, if he didn’t kill them first. The females he took from the People of the Fire were more cleaver than he as were the Stone-Builders more cleaver than the Fire People: and once given the chance to figure things out they often made their escape. He did keep some women for longer periods of time and that is when they made their escape with less harm I might add, for he did show pity now and then; --and had children with them, but sooner or later he’d abandon them, as he abandoned everybody, feasibly that is why he was living a long life, longer than all of us.
The People of the Fire, looked high and low for him at times, but Big-chest was always on the run and eluded them, as he did everybody, everywhere, all the time, no matter what. If they came in twos, he’d sneak up on them in the middle of the night, for he could see well in the dark, and like the Bat-Birds, the Flying-Lizards Suckers, he’d crush their heads with stones or rip their heads off their necks, or rip their arms off their bodies; some got away with body parts missing, others were his next meal; actually, sometimes the odds were even greater than two against one, sometimes: three and four and even five—now and again he’d even hide in our Banana Cave: and once in my cave he hid [with the hunters after him with weapons]. Little-eyes and I slept elsewhere then—during these episodes: no need to provoke a giant unless need be. Big-chest could hardly get in through the entrance of our cave though, that being of his hugeness, and often ended up bruising himself: if not at the same time, ripping some of his bushy hair off his: arms, chest, or butt. He would not harm us as long as we did not pester him, or try to take women from him. Reminiscent of all men, or most men, he had his urges, or nature: his drive for sex, but he had more than his share.
It did cause trouble for us though, that is, Big-chest using our caves for his hideout, his getaway: his home away from home—for by and by, the People of the Fire would come looking for him—instead they’d find us, thinking we were harboring him, and in a way, I suppose–I presume we were, but we had little choice in the matter, yet none of us ventured to show to the enemy where Big-chest was—even though they had brought upon us a coma of death, that is, we did not point his cave out; --in any case, they’d throw arrows into our caves, and spears, and often times would wound a few of us; and now and then—kill a few of us: payback for his dirty dealings.
Again, there was nothing I, Short-legs or for that matter, any of the Horde could do concerning such matters: do what? Possibly tell him: “Say, Big-chest go or else!” or else what? You see. Nothing could be done or said. If they found the Branch-People resting in the trees, again out of revenge, they’d shoot an arrow into the tall-leafy trees, killing or wounding them, it didn’t matter who, just butchery: again I believe for retribution on behalf of this ongoing menace, or threat, which was becoming part of our history as well as theirs, --with no aim, just our history in particular with Big-chest.

[The Dreamer, Dreaming] As the years passed, Short-legs and Little-eyes became of full maturity, at which time, --more stone structures were being built by the descendants of Eve. And conflicts, otherwise known as wars worsen, even among themselves. The Stone-Builders didn’t see them as urgent, not even critical: just a means to an end, a beginning, a fulfilled need, want: reasonable, no:
Said Little-eyes,
“I suppose we’re next:” meaning to be conquered—as far as he could see, they were not even worthy of conquering to the Stone-Builders [the Horde], --of course, that is only my view: but that is exactly as I saw it. They were going on among themselves, doing what they had always done. As it seemed to them [the Horde], everyone else wanted to be a: chief, the person in charge, the boss, the so called king of the Stone-Builders, as well as leader of the People of the Fire; this was the gossip of the Horde (and so envy and jealousy was born—crept into the world, or at least this is when the Horde first become aware of it ((if not born at this stage of human evolution, at least it was something new for the Horde to observe, as it reach its costly heights)): and within this gossip came bewilderment, the lack of understanding of the price one had to pay for having another bow to them, not even sure what good that was the for—the bow, or did for anyone, as it has already been mentioned, and the king hid from his people fort hey also tried to kill him to become king, it seem to be a distortion someplace hidden in all these lies. They already bowed to many so called gods, --and here they were bowing to this one person they called king, or leader, as if he had done them a favor, when in essence, they were running all over the place for him, and working for him like crazy, and he did nothing in return but point his finger: very baffling. Yet, somehow, they were dominating the whole known world, to include the Horde’s world: so the bow must entangle some kind of dominant spell, so thought the Horde.

[Short-legs—comments] I do believe they believed [the Stone-Builders], they were building a new and powerful civilization, and acted as if they had captured the heavens in their arms, and was in control, in control of everything, but they were finding out they were mealy abandoning peace for the battle-cry, and killing everyone in the process, and being killed in the procedure—even the kings.

The Branch-People were often times killed by them out of sport or practice, and as their wars continued, inexpugnable, they now were taking the People of the Fire as slaves, for replacements towards their military needs. No one knew what it was all about, not at least with the Branch-People or us in the Horde. We only knew we were in danger. And no one had a way of figuring out its outcome. We’d go down to the Banana Cave and yell, jump and get our anger out over the killings of our folks of the Horde by the People of the Fire, and now the Stone-Builders. The Stone-Builders thought we were half-breeds of the Branch-People, and did not take us for: slaves, or as a serious threat, or even valuable—rather, they played with us for sport, and then killed us, and let our carcasses rot where they lay most of the time. It was the coming of the end of the world for us: no reason to think otherwise.
I, Short-legs would sit on top of the cliff overlooking the valley below, my valley I’d call it, and the sense of extermination seemed to pass through my blood, my veins, my little hard black pupils, would expand as I thought about the death of the Horde, and I’d just sit and think, think, and think…

[As Short-legs, reach over to the water he had put alongside him in a container on top the cliff, he seen the reflection of his eyes in the water, and then as his chest would UN-tighten his pupils would get bigger, he couldn’t name the logic, only feel it. It was a sad expression that hit his bowels, innards, his stomach’s insides, and dried his throat; it wasn’t natural for him or his Horde to kill for sport. He knew the Stone-Builders had a capacity to reason beyond his capability, but this wasn’t logical-reasoning he told himself; --they, the Horde, really had no place to go. And in lack of any reasoning beyond formal reasoning, he knew they’d have to allow their extinction, looking about in the dim light that covered the cliffs—his lovely beautiful cliffs, his sanctuary, his place for meditation. With his last fleeting thoughts: Short-legs knew it was hard enough to outsmart the People of the Fire, let alone take on the intelligence of the Stone-Builders—even Big-chest knew better, other than crushing their skulls when it was dark, or if he’d happen to run into them by accident; and so options were really only wasteful hope, or wishful thinking at best.]



10




Big-chest and the Lion



The Man-eaters [as Short-legs called them], as they were known, otherwise called: lions, jaguars, tigers along with other names, depending on who was doing the calling, seemed to have acquired a thirst to hunt for prey more; were searching more in numbers now for a victim, --in view of the fact that the Garden was opened, in actuality, they were not much different than the new breed, the: “The Stone-Builders.” As Short-legs now had made the connection being between these two groups, animal and human, he saw they had no second thoughts about killing the members of our Horde, nor the Branch-People for that matter; rather they both seemed to harbor thoughts and acts as if they were summoned to do so, a duty that had to be announced; as a result, with this in mind, all the inhabitants who got slain in and around the Horde’s habituate became beastly trophies to them; -- they [the Stone-Builders] even ate [like the cats] the flesh off the victims, in a similar way to how the lions did, unbelievable; and on the other hand, the Stone-Builders killed the lions, as the lions tried to kill them likewise.
Indefatigable patience is how Short-legs had seen it, on the part of the Folk in the Horde, along with several others of the Branch-People, who were terrified in a way of the new invaders of the land, the new neighbors, and their fathomless predator style of hunting, yes untiring patience. But what other choice was there? It was enough, they said: that we have to contend with all the other beasts of the land, and now to add a much more intellectual-beast to the list was down right horrifying. They were a threat more serious than the famine or the plague that had vanquished the land in the past.



Part Seven



The Stone-Builders
[By their Weapons]



[Big-chest was a reluctant hero, for the most part, that is, in killing the Stone-Builders; yet when he could, he did so of course, --but I say reluctant I suppose with reluctance; for it was not unlike everyone at this time to be disinclined to kill them, they seemed to be in the vein of the gods, un-killable: yet he killed them and fought them, more so than anyone else—less out of conviction than out of desire to avoid dishonor and social embarrassment for himself.]


Said I [I, being: Short-legs], I had seen one time Big-chest walk into a campsite of theirs, the Stone-Builders that is, —I tried to tell this story to my brother, Stern-toes, once, but I never could explain it right, but I think he got the jest of it, if not the seriousness, we did both laugh at the Stone-Builders for hours on end, afterwards. As I was about to say, Little-eyes and myself witnessed this whole happening from a distance of course. The Stone-Builders were full of what they called: ‘wone, or wine,’ something along that order, some sounds take me back a bit, they had new sounds all the time, yes O yes, inventing new sounds like the growing of leafs on a tree, coming into our brains like new winds, dragging it into a mode of thinking more everyday, instead of being fond of the birds, and just living: eating, sleeping and dying—these words we never heard of before were floating everywhere in the air, ever since that is, the arrival of the Stone-Builders on the scene: before this, before Eve walked out of that Garden, things were dangerous, but much more quiet.
Well, Big-chest, noticed one evening—not being too far in the thick of the foliage by their campsite [the Stone-Builders site]—they had killed a man-eater [lion]; there were four of them, called ‘soldiers,’ at the campfire-site, a resting place to them: just laughing, and drinking, and being playful like a group of little cubs: lion cubs—wild and whimpering [whiny] lion-cubs, that is exactly what they were like. I could see Big-chest laughing to himself—inside that big muscular oversized chest: as he watched them wrestle around with one another, actually they did get a little over physical with one another, like the wild boars whom would chase after one of us, wanting to eat us for a feast, and then they’d settle down again. It was a cold winter’s night that day, so there was a real chill in the air, and not all that much leafy undergrowth for us to hide or for that matter to slap the chill away: nor for that matter Big-chest: although he had a coat of hair all over him to keep him warm anyways—showed a bit of chill in his face also. Although—I was grateful for the few large trees with the plant-life tucked around me, it absorbed some of the wind—the brisk, cold winds seeping by us, around us, and almost through us: the shrubbery covered us, as we remained in the distant woods, with a pile of leaves up to our knees: leaves for warmth and camouflage, --camouflage being a plan incase we figured we’d have to duck, hide ourselves-quickly should they get the best of Big-chest, but we doubted that: Big-chest was just the opposite of us----mean,--plus
As always, Big-chest was confident of his abilities, he stood in the woods, no shadow—not sure what he did with it, but he was cleaver; just a big blob of muscle, hair and sharp eyes, small squinty eyes pinned on the four Stone-Builders, at the camp site, and their man-eater, that was going to be his dinner. He was actually blocking our vision a bit, but I think he did that because he wanted to show his audience—which was we—who was the braver. I actually had some kind of a feeling for those men who were about the meet Big-chest, a gloomy feeling at best, and a thankful feeling: thankful, it was not us in their place; yet both I and Little-eyes, both surely held feelings of revenge for the Stone-Builders, and this was kind of a good time for the revenge to seep out, but I don’t care for revenge for the most part, not really, it takes too much energy, saps you—in review, all was quite mysterious to me.
Then unsuspected, he walked into the camp, tall as a mountain, hairy as a leafy think forest, long, a very long mouth from ear to ear, his teeth showed—he walked reminiscent of the king of the Stone-Builders [I think he was mimicking him—he like to do such things], he must have seen him walk, for he was arched just like their king, head back, eyes slanting down as if they were subordinates; --among the four he crept up, not a word, not a sound, the dark-dragging behind him, the sky had very little light given by the stars, but it followed him overhead none the less, a cloud covered the moon—as if he and Big-chest were pals; now he had seen their weapons by the fire, where the dead lion lay, if anything, Big-chest was shifty: sly, observant: he was swaying his body akin to the huge trees in a storm, not sure exactly why, but I think it got his blood moving and his limbs more flexible for swinging when he used them for clubs—and it made for a good showing: his hands were as big as large branches of a tree: and as hard. Closer and closer he came to the fire, no one noticed him yet, can’t figure it out, no one, no one at all, --could they not hear him a little, just a tiny bit, I asked myself, for both myself and Little-eyes could hear his foot steps even in the woods, at twice their distance, I was about to learn we had better hearing than these new creatures. But then this new breed of course, can not have all the advantages, thank goodness, thus, our senses were better, we were tuned higher one might say, and they were tuned with more and a higher intelligence than we.
His fingers now, almost touching the ground—I could see—he, he had long thick arms, and fingers, and perturbing muscles, he was impressive to look at, huge to digest with your eyes, and frightening if you did not see him on a daily bases, and dangerous to be around, at any time. Then all of a sudden two of the four turned their necks to see what was in back of them; not sure if they heard him, sensed him, or just did out of an automatic military checking ritual, --whereupon, they almost went into shock: two stood up, all four were some fifteen feet from their weapons. The two who were squatting, the closest to the fire, were in a panic, the other two were a little farther away, standing now, unsure, thinking. I think one was releasing him; he made a puddle and was trying to cover it up by kicking dirt, how modest. I figured why waste your time, this was precious time, run, run, run: that is what I’d do, but I really was hoping they’d not run, I must have an evil side in me also, just like them; you know, they got this pride thing, and I was hoping they would stay with this pride and arrogance, and then as I stopped thinking for a moment, Big-chest knock it out of them, if that is, they had any pride left. I think I was starting to get like them, that being: aggressive thoughts.
In any case, Big-chest took his right hand swung it backwards to build up momentum, and with the force of a giant tree, hit the head of one of the squatters as he was about to stand up, it sounded faintly similar to thunder, and I could hear it snap, and rip, similar to a timber falling after lightening strikes it, strikes a tree out of its roots, its stretching roots out of the ground. He fell on his chest, and then pushing himself, flopped over and onto his shoulder as if it had nothing holding his head in place, like a dead fish flopping, jumping in a creek—he lost his inner breath. The other one tried to get to his weapon, but Big-chest, akin to lightening, jumped with one leap over to him, picked him up by one leg, his penis showing, as Big-chest looked strangely at it, as if to laugh at a small ugly worm, for they all liked covering them up for some odd reason, and Big-chest now must have figured out, he knew why. And we both in the bushes started to giggle, snicker, laughing at the sight—I wanted to say laugh again—but we had to hold our laughing inside our stomachs for a while, so as not to spoil his feat. Then after our expressions of amusement, a stern grin appeared on Big-chest’s face—I think he heard us—in any case, he tossed him into the fire when he got bored looking at him, after twisting him about for a few seconds, breaking his leg in several places I imagine, for I kept hearing crunches, as if bones were cracking, and then there was his screams.
Then one of the two standing routed himself through the woods yelling something on the order of: “Hhhhh eel pppp...!” Not sure what that meant. The last one, I call him the brave one, or definitely I could call him the stupid one, or should I say foolish one, none-the-less, he pulled out a sharp object, about the length of his hand, and stood in front of Big-chest as if he was going to fight him. At this point I said, and Little-eyes thought: this was the end for him; he [the soldier] looked like a banana compared to Big-chest. I asked myself, ‘is he crazy? Run, and run while you can,’ and I was on Big-chest’s side now, more than ever, but it didn’t sound like it for that split-moment, but I felt it was a little unfair, size and all. But the man, whom I am calling a brave-soldier, stood his ground, and actually looked at Big-chest in the eyes. My-gosh, the man must have been half his size, about 175 pounds, quick on his feet though, for he was dancing around Big-chest, trying to stab him, and poke him. He looked more like a bee trying to sting someone, but that just irritated him more. Big-chest had taken arrows out of himself one-hundred times before, I bet; arrows deeper than that knife would have ever penetrate, if the person had gotten a chance to lunge it into Big-chest, and he didn’t get that chance: and it never hurt him much: those pokes. These little wounds were nothing, --but should he leap and get a good stab possible in the upper chest of Big-chest, or eye, then I’d worry.
To make a long story short: Big-chest just looked dumfounded at the figure in front of him dancing in a circle, and didn’t move very much, except around; I’ve seen Little-eyes close his eye-lids now, he knew, he knew what was about to happen, and with his waving quick long arms, Big-chest picked up the seven foot lionesses, and put it over his shoulder, the crazy Stone-Builder charged at him, and Big-chest with a quick sweep, with a turn, knocked the man flat on his back, onto the ground, he had hit him with the man-eater, as he balanced it over his shoulder. Then, somewhat, disparate, or so it seemed, reminiscent of a dying fish jumping about trying to get back into the water—he: Big-chest—kicked him in the mid-section of his belly, sweeping him into the fire like trash, now almost a dead fish. The Soldier could not move, he surely had a broken spine I thought, had he not, he would had gotten up and run fast out of the fire, and he didn’t: or couldn’t, for Big-chest couldn’t run with the man-eater on his shoulder so it was a good time to escape, if he could. But he didn’t, or couldn’t, nor do I think he intended to. But again, the man tried to move out of the fire with no suitable means other than his arms which were now on fire, for surely his ribs and legs were broken. Big-chest simply turned away from him as if he was insignificant, as I did myself. The defeat was predictable, and most unnecessary. I got thinking: what kind of creature fights when they cannot compete. It has always been the law of the land—to run, unless cornered: hence, when you can’t battle, don’t. It wasn’t necessary to die like that. I was learning about pride and arrogance quickly from these new creatures though; all in time and observation I told myself, and I’d be well informed on their unusual habits.



11


Early winter


We had no way of knowing which winter would be good to us or bad for us, and winter this particular winter had come early, and therefore our food supply was exhausted, depleted that is, rather quickly. When Little-eyes and I returned back to the cave the following evening, we had told in our symbolic way: expressed at the Banana Cave that is, to the entire Horde how Big-chest had killed the Eve People. And you could hear the laughter for miles around. I tried to explain how Big-chest had seen or sensed their movements, their evil objective, and their killing intent: as he always seemed to be able to sense survival quite well; he had a special quality of seeing through a person to his evil side, as he could see through us, thus, he could see through the Stone-People as well. I explained how one of the men stayed to fight him, trying to outstare Big-chest, and got kicked into the fire, and died. They all shook their heads in wonderment, we were not the smartest of the inhabitants of earth, but that was sure dumb we all thought, no vocal language was needed for that understanding or response. I think Big-chest had taken his trophy to his cave in our area, and was having a formal meal at this time. We liked anyone who could out smart the Stone-People I suppose, they were smug and we were helpless to them most of the time; they had well groomed weapons, and we had simply rocks and some clubs, along with a few sharpened stones, as they now were being called, knifes, up to the appearance of the Stone-People, they were just tools. And so it felt good if anything, good to see the odds turn for once, and to be frank, they didn’t turn much, if ever in our favor after that episode. But our surprise would come in the morning: --yes, we would not be forgotten for once.


Morning


In the morning when several of us looked out of our cave entrances, in the center of the canyon below our cliff dwellings, as we often did to be sure we were safe from man or beast, in the open area in the valley below us, we saw half a lion torn open, lying in the center of our domain, for us, it was a treasure, a gift, a donation if anything, and all of us quickly ran to eat what meat Big-chest had left for us. Big-chest was not always so generous, or kind, but for some odd reason, he knew we were starving for some protean, and our bodies were starting to show our ribs. Aimless to say, this never happened again—not in such a quantity, but we all gave Big-chest a super big smile as we walked proudly out of our canyon-caves and ate the raw meat [for he appeared standing erect by a cave entrance observing the feast he provide]; yes, some of us even were tarring at the red meat, animal protein, liken to wolfs.



12


The Hermit by the Sea


It was a short period of time from when Big-chest appropriated the lion [took it from the Stone-Builders] and we all ate the meat, when I joined the Horde in the valley on a crisp morning—a morning that told me, the seasons were about to change, thus, leading into spring; I could see my breath: it was so brittle, so I knew winters end was near. There was great commotion in the valley below, as there often was when someone or something new came about to celebrate, I had noticed from my cliff dwelling a gathering of the Horde, looking down, I quickly dashed along the sides of the cliff until I reached the floor of the valley to see what it was, as did Little-eyes, as I had woke him, trying to explain a happening was taking place.



Thin-hips of the Horde
[Sister to Moss]


When I reached the bottom and many of the folk were going to and fro, some with sad and hungry faces, very sad posture, I made my way through several folks now gathered around this one section of the cliff; old-Moss, the Hermit by the Sea, was laying dead, his sister, Thin-hips, was there pacing, walking back and forth, kind of chanting, humming something, sounds on top of sounds—death had waxed his face I noticed. Old Moss was the oldest folk I had ever known, ever heard of. He must have been 60 or 65 years old—I doubt Big-chest was that old. No one ever lived that long, no one that is but Moss, I suppose. You could tell by looking at him, half his death was caused by starvation, the other by his long walk back to the Valley of the Caves, the strenuous walk; a walk many took to come back when they felt their time was short on this ground, like some fish, we all seem to know our dying ground; he came from the far off place, called the Great Cliffs by the Sea. I had only seen him when I was a kid and then once or twice coming and going, within a twenty-year period. He lived in the sand hills far from the Horde as I was saying, to the extreme East, and not far from there to the south was the Great Sea and the cliffs he always told his sister about, much larger than ours, higher than ours he’d say. He add, this place was somewhere between the Sea, and the cliffs, and the strait, and this valley was a flat area, plateau, this is where he wondered off too often, or so he’d claim, upon his return. He knew my father quite well, Long-arms, and did visit him, it was always when I was gone it seemed. They appeared to get along quite well, as one might expect, two strange folks to say the least; not sure what they had in common, matter of fact, if anything, one was lazy—my father, the other, Moss, was quite active I heard.



The Great Sea



But he did bring back information to his sister, who shared it with us, and of course he’d tell other people also of his journeys, or try to describe them best he could, and we were all quite interested in his tales—it was entertainment: yes he was a man of tales, I guess in one way I admired him for that, it was almost like some of the occupations the Stone-Builders had, or called occupations, which were really doing things by order of their king and getting fed by someone else because of the king—strange. Thus, Moss was our entertainer, and Moss did get fed by most of the Horde’s residents for doing so, I think they’d call him in to their cave to hear him talk, or draw pictures, or act out his strange adventures. Half the time we never knew what he was saying, but then, so what and it was amusement. Everyone liked him, and so did I.



Part Eight


Map of the Stone-Builders Fortress


I guess I did find out about the fortress being built on the other side of the Great Cliffs, by the Stone-People, by way of Moss’ information, whom gave it to his sister to my understanding. All in all, maybe he wasn’t so bad, just a lonely old coot.
He also provided some stirring information, information I thought rousing: his sister claimed it to be true: that being, deep in the vaults of the fortress, in which one afternoon a few years back, Moss had snuck through the gateway (to be exact, the Acripagni gateway ((which was the only one with no doors but an open entrance)) of the fortress; thus, past the demonic-gatekeeper Moss went, and witnessed a young man with a tall looking animal with a hump on it, just holding it, not sure what it was, Moss asked the young fella what he was doing with it, but the boy called it a ‘kamanial, or a camel’, something along that order, in any case, he moved forward into the heart of the compound and found himself looking through a window in which he saw a selected group of misfits, as she tried [Thin-hips—telling me this of course] to describe them: the lowest of the low she called them, all very unclean, they lay about like worms in the stone vault, she said, ‘…vermin creatures,’ she called them, that huddled in the corners, the women, with children and dogs, while their mates paced the floor; and the privileges which were permitted them to nurse at the breasts of the human mothers, suckling babe on one side, a dog on the other, --said Moss to his sister, these strangers were filthy and looked furious, and seemed to have [the males] a storm inside of them. Hence, he made his escape. That is the word she said he used—escape [her brother: Moss]; of which he heard this world being used I suppose from the Stone-Builders themselves: escape, meaning: to run away. A new word I’m sure will be imprinted in our memories soon. I was more or less astounded at this story, I was unable to fully understand his experience, and chuckled a bit, out of some nervousness I think. After she had told that story, I was stiff and sore from the long sitting and went for a long walk through the valley rejoicing my good fortune of being free, looking for Little-eyes.


The Camel and the Boy
[At the gates of the Stone-Builders]


I think I got to appreciate Little-eyes and our time together a little more after this, learning there is very little in life that brings deep satisfaction than the possessing of loyal friends, such as Little-eyes, yes, such friends are rare and valuable and one should guard this kind of friendship to keep it intact.
He [he being: Moss] talked about the wild winds of the sea, the great storms that came from the leaping winds of the sea, the Tiamat coming out of the Great Deep, some strange and greenish monster; he even drew pictures of vessels that floated on the water with the Stone-People in them. Something that never occurred to me, but why not; I had seen leafs float, why not a tree that looks like a leaf, as Moss had described it to be, to a few folks of the Horde. He knew much by way of his travels, and so I did believe in what he had relayed to his sister. No one knew how to get to the Sea though, but Moss would always say: simply go to this/his plateau country, and follow the crows, they all go to the Sea. But nobody ever wanted to go see the crows or the sea, we were happy here for the most part. And most of the ones that did go, never returned. I looked at Moss laying there, pale, leathery skin, his life was kind to him in age—he lived a long time, but now he looks so weather tarnished, with many, many wrinkles, and feet that look so very worn out, like leafs from last summer. I was sad for his sister, sad because he was all she had as far as family went; he was all she really cared about. For some odd reason she could never have children and never did find a mate, that is, one to live with, although she had a few visitors now and then, that is, off and on the folks, some folks, stopped in her cave to visit her. Now that I think of it, I must say, the way Thin-hips described he Gate Keeper, it resembled the Begetter.


13




The Longbow Man
[And Big-chest]


[Short-legs talks] We were formed—that is our character was formed—by something inside of us, something un-seeable, or so it seemed, as it was learned by us; --character being what the Stone-People called the soul, whatever that may be: liken to their God an invisible thing [being], as was their soul invisible. This character was formed by all the conditions that made us, as it was for Big-chest to be evil, and at times good; in a similar manner, it was equally common for our character, for us to be guarded, and open and possibly even passive. It was our nature. I had in my mind a lot of questions as time went on: but no answers, only guesses, and so it was, I daresay, but I will say, as we were getting older, I often looked back to see where we came from: finding we had learned more in my life time than one-hundred life-times before us. Knowledge was becoming more readily available: another mystery to ponder on I thought.

Little-eyes had brought to my attention one afternoon; as we talked about the affairs of the world, as such do men among men at times. And now that I am on the condition of character, it is a good time to share, or bring out some wisdom Little-eyes brought forward from, Owl-ears—to my attention; I sensed he was still a bit confused on the matter. He reminded me that Owl-ears told him [I think she told him this because he was so naive about human nature]: “Be not fooled by the charm you witness and ability of others in high positions [referring to Big-chest, or the King of the Stone-Builders, or the Begetter for the most part] whom seem to come up with the right and intelligent answers all the time, and try to say it is from experience, for this is not necessarily true, for behind their actions, thoughts and answers resides the equitably of criminal intent. They know what you want to hear, and say it; they are not like the Horde, who says what they mean.” She then concluded, “These people are highly destructive, and adept at portraying exacting what people are looking for.” I listened to Little-eyes as he told me this, for he really couldn’t understand what she was saying, again it was because he was a bit short-witted, I hate to say that. But I addressed the issue the best I could and told him these people had—dinosaur-minds [psychopaths], he understood that a lot better. I like Owl-ears, but sometimes she talks above us.

Now as I was about to say, as I brought into this realm ‘character:’ I, Short-legs and Little-eyes were picking berries one day—we must had been our 15th year of life back then, picking berries by a huge White Pine Tree, some two-hundred-feet high, with a trunk diameter of some six-feet. It was this day that—a violent act took place, called Revenge: a character not quite put into words or expressions—in the past, the near past, that is to say, consciously after this day it formed its roots quite rapidly among the Horde, and the Branch-People, thanks to Big-chest. As I was saying, or about to say, I, Short-legs will explain: we [Little-eyes and I] were picking berries—eating most of them—as we picked them and carrying some in a big leaf for later on, in the dark of the evening it was, whereupon we heard the bushes being moved about—slyly. It was a lone youth from the People of the Fire. He had seen our heads, knowing this; we quickly dashed and hid from him, seeing his weapons, that being: quiver and bow: and their deadly potential. I could tell by his smile, he liked the power of his presence, or what his presence did to us. He was chewing on the leg of a rabbit, consequently, his belly was full, or better put, surely he was not starving.
Next, he came upon a big pine, looked up, and saw three of the Branch-People; they normally would scoot upon seeing a hunter with a bow, but more often than not, they knew [the Branch-People] that they wanted food if they were hunting, and this lad had already gotten his food, that he most likely was hunting for, or so it was believed by not just the Branch-People in the tree, but by myself and my sidekick [as most groups or individuals did with a bow and arrow hunt for food], therefore, if they had food in their hands eating it, why kill?
Well, we learned something this day, one can kill for the fun of it: and so being up some twenty-feet, they remained in place chatting and laughing at how funny the young lad, stranger looked, especially with the loin covering and a portion of a rabbit hanging from his mouth and other hand. I doubt the youthful lad could have been over three or four years older than I— potentially, seventeen or eighteen years of age.
Then a peculiar thing came about, yes, oh yes, quite witty: he positioned himself as if to be getting ready to shoot an arrow into the tree: aiming through the branches, --unbelievable, what for? I asked myself, he couldn’t be hungry. My mouth opened wide, I wanted to say something, anything would do, but nothing came out—I, I seemed [was] frozen, paralyzed for the most part—stunned. The three in the tree, were not even looking at him, they had felt overly safe. Then the bowman, positioning his bow closer to his nose, his long stretched out piece of wood with a string on it, cocked his bow farther back, placing the arrow close to his check-bone, zeroing in on his prey: in its center, and in a millisecond the arrow left its wooden arch and it screamed, as I, I yelled: “Haahaahha…!” out of my mouth it came, out of my mouth like a dry dying gesture, not sure what I was trying to yell, but it came out that way: at that point Javaa-girl, looked at me, and her boyfriend jumped to another branch instinctively--: the screaming arrow went right into her, through her skin, entering her inner body, halfway through her chest. Then, she, she then, was stunned like me, but deadly stunned: her eyes wide open still looking at me, I had gotten her attention, but the arrow was too fast, my head now was completely popped out of a bunch of leafs, she was all but clear headed for me to see: --I don’t think she knew exactly what just happened, not sure what just took place—unknowingly she had but a few, and only a few minutes, seconds to live: she started falling, helplessly falling, trying to hang on to branches as she fell, down—falling, falling, falling: her arms stretched out—kicking her legs in the air, every which way, the weight of her body forced her to descend even faster once started.
As she fell, she hit several branches on her way down, ripping her sides open, and breaking several bones I’m sure. When she landed, you could hear the thump, it was similar to, when Big-chest kicked that soldier into the fire and he landed, the sound was a grave whack, a severe punch, or cruel blow. She landed about three feet from the tree, almost on top of the bowman. He looked quite proud of his kill: more like slaughter, as she lay there still, as if it took some skill to shoot an arrow in a tree at a target not moving and looking elsewhere; her tongue perturbing out of her mouth now, an anguished death circled her eyes, as they shut. I took in a deep breath, and let out slowly whatever was inside of me, dead air, dry dead held in air. He knew he had an audience now—us, but he didn’t quite know it all, that being, what was behind him. He saw the top of my head, as I quickly ducked, not wanting an arrow to strike me, but wanting to see what came next.



14


Revenge of Big-chest




I had not known sport hunting like this before, up till now that is, for that is exactly what it was turning out to be. I actually knew her, or better put, I knew of her. Her name was Javaa-girl; a sweet looking, not too large [Chimpanzee-looking] primate; and light did she laugh, when she laughed, for there was love in her breast (Javaa-girl, Javaa-girl!). Big-chest had what I would call a fling with her mother sometime in the far past--: and actually lived through it. She was quite young for her kind. Oh it is hard to tell this story, for out of her life she gave but a moment, and then all of her life was taken—yes, yes, in a rapture of calm-rage did he take it. He was in ecstasy’s utmost core, this hunter, this careless youth who has no guilt: like the dinosaur-mind [the psychopath].


[Short-legs: thinking.] All creatures have natural senses at the expense of others, I daresay, for some of us we gain information through smells and seeing and hearing and we do not trust anything other than that. While others, like the People of the Fire and the Stone-Builders only have limited capability in this area—as I have partially mentioned before, we used these senses, as was needed, and optioned to use other measures for such needs as needed, like symbolic words, or some sort of language, or sounds: in a like manner, it maybe compared to images, as now we paint or draw images on stones within our caves.
As a result, we came to learn, and know also the seasons by the equinox, that is, when the seasons separate, and at the beginning both night and day are equal in length; this is more sense than knowledge to me, akin to the birds when they leave this area, they go to warm areas; --they know when to go and when to come back. But this was always hard for me to tell, as it was for many of us in the Horde, I just waited for the leaves to fall, the colored leaves, then I knew when fall was. But what I’m getting at is, Owl-ears, was the smart one in the Horde, she told us when the seasons were changing so we could store foods and leaves so we could keep warm in our caves, and sneak down to the Fire People to warm up at night. Owl-ears were the seer, or better put, the wise one. I would have to ask her why such a senseless killing has to happen; likely she will have the answer. [Short-legs now begin to refocus on the Javaa-girl.]


Javaa-girl
[A female youth from the Branch-People]


As I refocused my thinking to the immediate, she [she: being Javaa-girl] lay dead still on the ground [Javaa-girl—my mind screamed], my eyes just stopped blinking automatically; I think I was frozen in some time zone. What just took place, my brain was trying to decipher. And this was not the all of it, as I peeked through the tall prickly-grass and bushes; I’ve seen the young hunter do something even stranger. A peculiarity I would consider new to this world, a first—meaning: no one that I knew had ever seen this before, something I had never considered, something for Owl-ears to explain to me, again: or at least it was new to our Horde and our reasoning. He cut off her ears, yes, oh yes; he cut off Javaa-girl’s ears, for what! I asked myself? And dug out her teeth, yes O yes, dug out her teeth…
I would learn down the road of life, they were called souvenirs and trophies. In time I presupposed in my own way of thinking, this might become a new-fangled trend in life with the latest breed of people being brought into existence, not sure what it was good for, or the ‘why’ of it, and to be quite direct, I’d had no notion of such a thing, it simply never would have transpired in me, but it was, as it be, and I would not change it one way or another, that I knew for sure, I had not the power or the will to do, or try to do such a thing.
After the young hunter acquired all he wanted from the slaying, and none of it for nourishment, and I say that because encouragingly, what took place hereafter, may not have taken place had this youth chosen to take her to his camp site and distribute her wealth of food-protean to the group, but he left the carcass there to rot, become rancid: that is putrefied. Nonetheless, as I was about to say, the youth turned about, and to his overwhelming surprise there was Big-chest, standing but three feet behind him. If one could have jumped off the face of the earth, I’d have done it right there, and I think he would have also. Face to face they stood, Big-chest with his intensive eyes, looking with his deep engraved dark colored iris from the opening of his eyes: into the youth’s tiny-stone-scared eyes, as if they belonged to a paralyzed rabbit. At a moment, within that moment, the youth dropped his bow and trinkets as his eyes; his pupils opened even wider than mine did a few minutes ago.


A Soldier, of the Stone-Builders


At that moment, at that very second, Big-chest picked this man up, pinning him against the big pine, that was in back of him, holding him a few feet off the ground, his body dangling like a branch snapped off a tree ready to fall; there he held him, looking at him, strangely looking at him, almost stamping him into the tree. [At this point and time, Little-eyes was learning what Owl-eyes had tried to tell him, the nature of man is not what it may seem to be; or what it is he is portraying.] The eyes of Big-chest were paralyzing with its gaze: its dark haunting-bloody deepness to them. The man closed his eyes, surely feeling he would be dead within the second, a millisecond. But Big-chest just kept him pinned against the tree, like stepping on an ant, he pushed the youth’s chest into the tree, I could hear his ribs snap, he, the bowman, couldn’t move, couldn’t hardly breath. As I looked with placid eyes, for some odd reason, I was glad Big-chest had the upper hand, but that was simply a fleeting forgotten thought, as my mind strayed and stayed on the ‘here and now’ the invention of life and Big-chest taking one. It seemed, he had him pinned there for hours, yet it was but a moment, a very tense moment to say the least, for him, and somehow for me, but it was really a matter of minutes to be exact.
At this point, the strangest thing happened, Big-chest took his hands off the stranger, whom still had his eyes shut, and next Big-chest stood back from the tree, possible three feet again. Another moment passed or two, everything was silent: --the woods, even the wind seemed to stop, the sky was motionless, the insects, the insides of Little-eyes, and me all hushed: we were all frozen in the moment; everything stood as it was noiseless as quiet can be. The birds were nowhere in sight, they never are when there is trouble. Slowly the youth opened his eyes, nothing was now touching him, he must have felt safe, free, oddly safe I’d say, --very slowly his eyes opened, as his face turned at the same time into a half smile or smirk, as if to say: ‘he beat the odds, the giant was gone.’ But good fortune did not sway his way: as uncanny as it was, nothing happened, his eyes half open, opening up more, confusion filled his face instantly, the smile disappeared, his world stopped, the storm that was seemingly over, had not vanquished, it only hid for a moment, then in a second, no a millisecond, his eyes opened all the way to see the giant figure in front of him, standing, still staring, swinging his body back and forth, back and forth, back and forth: standing firm as a stone-cliff, a mountain: standing two feet in front of him, liken to a monstrous volcano. In the second, that millisecond I was talking about, he noticed from his peripheral vision [the corner of his eye] the picture of a hand coming towards him with ferocious velocity; you can see those things in slow motion sometimes, even if they are faster than lightening, don’t ask me how, it is simply a fact of nature. And Wack-wwwwwww
Wwww
kkk…zzzzzzz
No more was heard, Big-chest had hit, shattering his lower neck, along with the side of his upper face coming off—hit it so hard—it ripped all the bones and flesh right off his upper torso also. He lay next to Javaa-girl, sprawled out like her, like a bear stretching all his limbs out on ice, lying on his stomach. That is how he looked.


Part Nine

Rare Beauty

With truth ablaze
No falsehoods to gaze at
We found terror with beauty
Purged in death
By Little-eyes


[I must say when this happening took place with Javaa-girl, he: Little-eyes, got emotional, and did one thing for mankind, he opened up his mind, and he spoke in a poetic way, and I have now recited it on stone]




15


The Devourer – Mantic ore


Mantic ore
[A lion body with a human-demonic face]


One creature other than the Stone-Builders that scared Big-chest, that is, made him nervous, if not down right panicky, even though he’d not admit it, not in a hundred years, and I’d not say it to his face, and I doubt if he could even express it the fear he had for this creature whom was called: the Mantic ore [Manti Cora]. This creature appeared about twenty-two years after the arrival of the Stone-People, where it came from, I’ll never know, and I guess in a way, I blame everything on the Garden, so I thought at the time it might have come from there, but to be truthful, that’s not necessarily fact, it could have come from some another place. I had seen up to that point many strange things, that is, since the two beings walked out of the Garden—Eve and Adam, but this was among the most outlandish, bizarre, and weird.

[The Dreamer] I must first think on how to present this: you see even words are limited in this brief of what took place in this dream vision. Short-legs had on occasions, witnessed the Stone-People, and we must not relate them to the Eve-People, for again, they were the descendants of Eve, but did not go according to the great Mother’s wishes and left their habitat to build great brick cities, and fortifications—alas.
But what I was going to describe was the sex preferences of these renegades—hoping to explain the existence of the Mantic ore—if I may call them, or those creatures—renegades that is, and if I can even give explanation to it. For time and again, Short-legs caught them, the Stone-People, forcing animals to have sex with them, and in a liken manner, had their spouses do the same. Yes, oh yes, with: dogs, sheep, lions, and many other four-legged animals, beasts; this may sound crude and demeaning, even mortifying, but none the less, it became part of the history, their history—like it or not—, yes their world history: and possible mine. What wasn’t expected was what developed down the road: the interplay: sex, that the Stone-People had with what they called ‘demonic-spirits’ [for they also were about roaming the world as they pleased: so it was said; one life form called the: ‘Dog-face Demon’]; yet, it was the Mantic ore [Leucrocuta], the man-beast that was given birth [by the new-breed], as he was known, thus, he could claim the birthright of an innovative breed from their foreplay. He had a treble row of teeth, sharp as a sword; lower body resembled a lion [Lyon], with a face similar to that of the Stone-People [with some demonic configurations], and a tail of a scorpion.
He would devour people faster than Big-chest could kill them, actually, he could kill three at a time, and three or four humans who were trying to capture it and it would mangle, contort, and twist them to pieces. Some of the Mantic ores, and there were more than one, had goat’s heads to the Lyon body, and horse’s heads. But most, and I say most, because Short-legs, only saw three in his many years of life in this Cliff Valley of Caves he lived: they all had feet, faces and ears though, of men; again, with the Lyon body.
[Short-legs—explains] I did also see the Dog-face Demon, creature once, he was huddled up with two others so called evil-spirits, talking away the night, as the Stone-People worshiped them, laid on their bellies rolling around in the dirt, jumping up and down, as if to call, or summons the demon to do some fanciful tricks, and sometimes they did. But back to the Mantic ore, that damn tail that would sting, oh he had a long, freighting end-to his tail, to say the least; --it was sharp-pointed with quills all over it. And its voice was high pitched, a most wild thing to look at, and its nature, its natural world, temperament if you will, was of that same wildness, evil packed tight with a dragging-dread wherever it went, a ferociousness that was only calm when it conquered; it was born to kill.





Mantic ore II
[The Horse Beast]


Mantic ore


The only way to kill it—the Mantic ore that is, or so it seemed (and if there was another way I didn’t know of it): and I saw it done, but I only saw it completed once: only once, was when one of the Stone-People shot an arrow into its butt—no, no, I didn’t mispronounce the word—BUTT, thereupon, it dropped, absolutely dropped to its belly, and they cut the tail off quickly, and then subdued it (had my mother saw this she wouldn’t have believed it).
The world had completely changed in such a short time, a very short time, since my mother had passed on. I thought if this was the case, it wouldn’t be long before everything went upside down --but let me conclude this brief statement on the Mantic ore. We didn’t see them much, but every time Big-chest saw one he’d hi-tail it the other way, make a 360-degree turnabout, and run. He wanted nothing to do with them [yes he’d suck in his pride]. I always felt it might be a good fight between them two, but who am I to say, or even hope to see such a thing, the Mantic ore was even more coldhearted and deadly than Big-chest. But to kill a beast, you got to find a worse and hungrier beast, so my mother used to say, or become one, or become shrewder: and I was neither of these.



16



[The advance of the Stone-Builders: the victories they had over all the land and peoples, to include the ‘Valley of the Caves,’ where the Horde lived, left the people of the world in a ‘no man’s land,’—that is to say, no one had a real means of security, or better put: protecting themselves; or being protected by the advancing adversary. For the world at large, it was a no win situation, and just a matter of time before the new breed dominated it.]





The Great Transformation


[Short-legs] What I call the Great Transformation, of our time, others may have called simply, the changes that were taking place and gave it no more thought. Still others used such expressions of thoughts as, ‘The Conversion:’ still others, ‘The Great Makeover,’ whatever it was to others, to me it was the beginning of the end that is exactly what was started—what was taking place. The People of the Fire now were copying the Stone-Builders by stealing the males and females of the Horde, our people, as well as the Branch-People; --using both of our lifelines, our children that is, for free labor purposes. Furthermore, they mated with our kind like never before, and we mated with the Branch-People to keep our Horde intact. As the Stone-Builders, year after year came to get more slaves from the People of the Fire, the People of the Fire did the same with us: they did not know [The Stone-Builders that is] they were getting interbreeding slaves: namely us, it took several years of this activity, and you could see a change in the children of the wives and females they took from our tribe, our Horde.
After a decade or more years of this ongoing activity, we had but fourteen members in our Horde left, only fourteen members that is it [out of almost-300], no more to come; my mother and brother being two, myself and Little-eyes making up four--: my mother who was getting on in years now, now whom was not stern as in her younger days, hard as a rock some say—was less rigid now: her nature had turned soft and kind. Quite different from being the matter-of-fact person she used to be: she was soften by age and tiredness, and at peace with everybody and everything, so much love for us two boys was evident in her face, we were her world, or at least a lot of it. A rainy cloud had left her: it was as if the stress to life had dragged everything out of her—she couldn’t battle anymore, even at times lifting her arms were hard for her to do. Although the weight of the world was off her, she had gained weight, and her heart was old and worn: dog-eared; --she breathed hard, walked slowly, and if she could stretch those arms, brought her relief. She knew she had lived beyond her time, longer than she had expected, possibly she was grateful for that, grateful to have seen me and my brother grow up, grow to manhood, grow old in front of her almost: maybe even grateful that she was to die before us, yes, I think so, I really think she was grateful for that, would be indebted for that: had we died before her, she would have died along with us, or shortly after us I do firmly believe.
In her, when she did pass on, die, leave this earth, in her, there was no cowardice, none whatsoever: she charged at life as it came, I daresay, too willingly. And was very protective of us kids, --she was killed by the Stone-Builders for sport. My father then ran off, to where cowards run I suppose, I know not where that is, nor hold any resentment, on this truth, be that as it may, for he must live with himself. And he ran and ran and no one knows where, never to return, which in itself was no big loss; for this reason, it/there was only my brother left—he and I at the end, at the very end of things, I and him, him, whom came to the Horde now to live in the Valley of the Caves.

[The Dreamer: but again I find my story getting ahead of me.]


Unification


What was to be made of all this, to the world at large—unification of some sort was developing and that was it I suppose, or so I thought, and Little-eyes said: the moment was coming. In the past, people adjusted to one’s territory. Now, it seemed, the territory had to adjust to its people, or it would be made to adjust, in particular the Stone-Builders had the edge on this [one time dilemma].
Somehow I knew, or so I told myself, and so it seemed to turnout, I, Short-legs knew, knew what resided on the horizon with the Stone-Builders, --that is, a concept was now developing, and it was called: ‘common language.’ Yet I feared what they had forgotten, misplaced, or simply didn’t think have was: one does not become a Stone-Builder because he or she can speak the/a language alone, should one be forced. For example, I gave myself this question: ‘Do you think because we speak your language, we think your thoughts?’ the People of the Fire--or even the Branch-People, we can take for example--if they were forced to speak their language, or even take my Horde for example, if we were forced to speak their language [the language of the Stone-Builders as this actually is happening with the People of the Fire], does not mean our thoughts are the same; that is to say, the language does not express the real meaning of a people. Something they’d have to learn I fear, and learn the hard way.
Therefore, as I watched the expansion of the new breed, the new order on earth take roots, our lives were affected by their economy and our interest as a people were drained. You see, we really, really tried to avoid war, the Horde that is—yes, we had the cowardly pacifist view, but then we always had that view, and that is why we ended up having little food, or at times no food. In a comparable manner, we as a society, or group, [the Horde that is] had no plan, no policy, no goal, call it a blood sacrifice, we lived in the vein of the world, and when the world started falling apart for our group, suicide also took some of us, and our unborn children. Also, there were no animals in our vicinity anymore, meaning, our ribs were showing all the time now, too many loses to keep a society going.
It was true, very true, mighty true, what our neighbors: the People of the Fire said about us: they implied, we the Horde, ’…have no weapons to speak of, and now no hope, along with being unwilling to fight, we are cowards.’ What I noticed was our great fault was we had no leadership, like everyone else seemed to have. Even the Branch-People had Big-chest. I mean we had zero leadership. Consequently, we had no ‘Spirit-de force,’ in us; --hence, nothing was transmitted to our masses, what little masses we had. How could we fight a war when we were fighting ourselves: fighting for our independence to be left alone, as we had always been? Had we tried to unite all would have protested, a fabricated protest most likely, but none the less, it would have kept us as we were divided, plus we had no ally, no real friend, oh—Big-chest helped us once or twice, here or there, but had it come down to fighting a war, no way would he be on anyone’s side, other than his own side. The entire world had no ally for the most part, although the People of the Fire, and the Stone-Builders were seemingly or at least outwardly befriending one another, --again, so it seemed; but sooner or later, with passing generations, integration might solve that problem.



A Mother’s Death
[Strong-lungs]



[The Dreamer] The death of Short-legs’ mother: Strong-lungs, was strictly more different than what he had anticipated, thought it would be like, that is, death was a common factor in the Horde, which had been seen on a regular bases, yet when he came to visit his Mother’s cave, seeing his brother there, and trying to understand the situation, he became transfixed, spellbound looking at her dead form. As he caressed her arm, unconsciously almost: from her biceps down and around her elbow, to the other side, her blood was warm—somehow this helped his consciousness and then he let go of it, -- his hand from her arm, no doubt she was dead, her face was waxed-white, pale, eyes shut, she seemed at peace, his face showed disbelief. He looked at her intently; the flesh on her was still soft to touch. And he touched her several times. Her arms, her braw, and kissed her check, her brow. He gazed with meaning over her figure, no words just association, sounds, and gestures for a long moment. What crossed his mind was the immediate past, as her arms lay by her mid section softly still; gently he caressed her face, kissed it again. A black silence was dragged over his grieving mind, as if the dread of a lifetime was upon him.
With the gloom of the sky: anger took over his composure, stillness filled his belly and lungs, unutterable loneliness prevailed—nothing, absolutely not anything, would ever be the same again in his mind he felt, his mind told him—his soul, or so called character was becoming unraveled—not, not in his world he thought, it will never be the same again. Yet time would prove a little different, life for him would go on, as life was planned to do; he would understand life was only given for a small period of time anyways, that is, time to each and every living thing, everything was measurable on earth according to time. A little more alone in this new world approaching he’d be, he knew that, but he would learn life did not stop, not completely anyhow, although it did knock him out for a moment, as if falling off a tree and trying to catch your breath back. He never expected this to happen, the shock, disbelief, almost anger, to take his guts and mangle them around, when a life is taken, gone, but it did; now he knew.


The Poem of Sorrow

My flame moves slowly now,
Inside my chest
‘Tis lost from my naked world
Of the death: the fate of my mother.
No voice, eyelids weak,
Let us dream some more—
Of days past, days to be:
I remain bereaved.
By Short-legs



Part Ten


Restlessly, to and fro he paced around her silent dead body, --almost analogous to a hungry or hurt lion; --hands clasped behind his back. It was an ill day for him, and his spirit and his strength—strength that needed to be restored—both seeped out of his body.

[Short-Legs] The imperfections of my brain did not allow me to make discoveries quickly, but when I awoke the following morning, things were more logical, the morning after my mother’s death that is; somehow I had ripened to the grieving process—still feeling somewhat desolate, but adjusting. Actually, I, Short-legs didn’t know–for the most part—there was such a thing as a grieving process, and possibly I may have been the first one to bring this to its truest nature within the Horde that is to declare it, as those around me watched me, it was a discovery for all of us. Yes we grieved, unconsciously though before, but not tears were coming, among other expressions of love, hurt and sadness. Like a lion to her cub, or a wolf to its mate, I sensed we were becoming more human.


Integration


The People of the Fire was also becoming extinct, like us; we were all being integrated into one global-class, intended or not but so it seemed, and so it was. In time, I knew there would be only one culture left, one assemblage of people, the Stone-People [Builders] that was my guess. Yet it was further down the road to be. As the years went by, I sat in my cave and watched this all happening, Little-eyes, had married a female [Lucia] from the Branch-People’s sect, and escaped down to the Great River. He had found huge cut out rocks, blocks of stone, brownstone [of sand and mud] fossilized, in which he was going to make a cave out of, kind of a cave that is, for there were no cliffs along the banks of the river to speak of; rather he’d try to make a similar one to the structures of the People of the Fire had. But after witnessing the creatures within the structure of the stones, he feared one day they’d wake up and eat him. For one had sharp teeth of the same kind to sharks, yet it was puzzling for him, because it was a four-legged beast [he had no idea animals died, were washed down the river only to be embedded into a stone grave, or better put a grave of stone]. Hence, he darted back to the trees along the river banks, never forgetting to let me know when I visited him, that he had seen a meat-eater in stone, momentarily dead he reminded me, as if it was going to wake up some day and dominate the river front. Evidently, the Stone-Builders, and unusable for/to cut them these stones: they left them along the riverbank, in a pile as high as a small hill, or mound.
He: Little-eyes, was not the wiser for doing this, that is, for making the decision to live by the giant tree that extended over the river, this whole area was known as: grassy waters [swampland]; --it was a sea of grass, an island hammocks, and trees, [cypress]; for he was not used to the water-and swampy areas, and was often unguarded; as a result, he was killed by a gigantic snake that crept up high into the huge leafy tops of the Bald Cypress, some 170-feet up. The tree extended into the river itself, and similar to an earthquake, it fell from its lofty branch, crushing down upon his bones: the impact killed him instantly, at which time it: the snake, devoured him whole, yes, swallowing him completely, sum total: as his wife stood by as a witness—stunned, staggered, frozen like an ice-sheet. I had seen reptiles like that before though, they were ancient, and similar to all the reptiles they never stopped eating or growing—with no exaggeration I say this—they measured over eighty-foot long: monstrous snakes, larger around than our kind’s waist, in circumference. In any case, one must be alert in such swampy areas, the foliage being so thick one cannot expect to see but a foot in front of one; I know Little-eyes had gone there to provide a more stable life for him and his family, but it was to no avail, and I suppose even the great creatures needed to eat, do they not [?] it is as it is, the cycle of life you know, like the cycle of water. It is expected, we give ourselves to the land, to the creatures to live on; for the sky nourishes the river, and the river nourishes the fish, and the fish nourishes us, and this goes into the seas, thus feeding all its creatures along its coast. Yet I was sad, but not as sad as I was the day my mother died: and sad for his wife.
Sometimes these creatures, with smooth bellies, --snakes as they now are called: I seem to have a hard time remembering that name—often called worms in the old days, actually I was more familiar with the term worm than snake as you already know, as I have mentioned before, ‘snake,’ was a word from the ‘Stone-People,’ of course. My father called them simply, ‘no-legs:’ in any event, these reptiles without legs looked like the great-roots of the huge trees that they crept up and around in these marshes: down and under the banks of the rivers and lakes they also lived, [hard to tell the snake from the roots at times often times], who would be wise enough to spot them in their camouflage designs if one was not wise to their environment.
I, for one, would not challenge myself to live in such a place, for I have lived in caves all my life, and I hold the philosophy: if you know nothing about it, why compete, meaning, why struggle, battle, or for that matter, try to win something that is un-winnable, and at the moment, at this time it would have be so, --again I say, ‘why live here in the river swamp,’ but I do not belittle those that do, they have their reasons. To be honest, not even the Branch-People liked this area that much and they were more familiar with these kinds of environments than the Horde: the quicksand, the trying thick: foliage, shrubbery, undergrowth: and the snakes, the water creatures, the hard roots all over the place, all over the ground—growing inches above the ground, --when you walked you had to walk on roots, roots, roots, big and snake like roots, your feet would hurt, and you’d bust a toe now and then, or a toe nail, get it infected and there goes the good natured humor Horde-lit—. I know the Horde liked me because I lived kind of a free-and-easy lie style, which was a constant delight and joy for them for some odd reason, and they all knew my general laugh which was for the most part good-natured, but had I moved down there, I fear that that representation I just gave of me would of dissolved quite, hurriedly.
Sad to say but it’s true, his wife and child were then taken in by the People of the Fire for breeding purposes, I can’t blame them for that neither, it was a way to keep your people’s future in-tack.



Lucia
[Wife to Little-eyes]


It came to pass that I’d learn [I being: Short-legs], things were not always as they looked, and things did not always point to happiness because one had a fancy for a female. In particular for a purely feminine creature as Lucia was, one might think happiness would never end, and up to the death of Little-eyes, I guess they were content, but it did end; --or for that matter, pick anyone from the Horde—for happiness, or call it happy days, in all cases, they had happy days to speak of, and in one way or another, all come to meet their ends and were separated from their mates, all by the way of a loss: mates being stolen or being killed, or taken and raped, or dying by childbirth, or a husband going hunting, looking for food and never returning—I had learned in-addition, death was also a constant.
For the most part, happiness was found in the bush, or so that was how I’ve initially seen it, or felt about it, yes, the obvious—as I, Short-legs observed—specifically, female sex taken by the males at will often times, and at other times the females using their feminine-web to capture her mate. It was a game that went in circles, a game I could not play. I think the single women lived longer, and the married men lived longer, but to be truthful, no one lived that long. The young females believed things would always turn out eventually, turn out well that is. But as I, I, Short-legs noticed, they just could not shut their eyes to certain disturbing facts—and so I avoided any haughty long-term engagements with them—should they want to make it permanent, and marry me [although marry or marriage is not the correct word, rightfully, a mutual-bondage would be more suitable]. Marriage was simply ownership of the female, like one would own a cave; it was yours if you could keep it. Yes, things were changing, and we were thinking differently—I suppose somewhere down the time-line, women would own men, and children would dominate families, and civilizations would demand the rights for children, or put the family members in a grave of stone. Now if a child disobeyed a parent, he was stoned to death, a rightful penalty for ingratitude. Yet still, some thought [even during the stoning process, and them dying right at one’s feet] their parents owed them something more than life, when in essence, they gave them life and that is all they owed them, and what they owed was obedience, but gave nothing. But I have seen children scorn men: yes O yes, this is really true: the children of the Stone-Builders, spoiled as a donkey. I would have fed them to the snakes, as would any of the Horde-member.

[But as you know, I never took a permanent mate in my dream, me being Short-legs, which was, nor did I have children that I knew of: thank goodness.]



Lucia’s Loss

[Short-legs deliberates] I might be a bit harsh on Lucia, in that she did take it hard, a little hard when Little-eyes found his fate: she, Lucia seemed to have a ridiculous weakness, almost instinctive, as if she was no longer fond of life—after his death, as if taking her life would be a great escape. I had looked deep into her eyes with a strange curiosity, leaving it ajar—her, her eyes that is, being half open—as if to say: I no longer want to carry a burden, she wanted to throw her life away, thus, perceiving her existence as a weight on her mind, or so I gathered. That made me sad. It is hard to feed the serpent that wants to eat you, but I think that is how Lucia felt. But I Short-legs, explained to her saying:
“You have a large amount of information in your head, along with observations to share with the living: with your eyes; therefore, you must shift your life, and tell your stories to help others; --for we have all at one time or another cursed existence.” And so, she went back to the ‘People of the Fire,’ and lived her life out.



[The Dreamer] So all told, he [he: being Short-legs] considered all facts, and mated with himself in the sense of remaining uncommitted [or single], and kept his relationships short lived at best with whom he’d get fond of. To his friends he was particular who he slept with, and seldom did he--, but he did, and to his friends he was considered the free and happy one [as mentioned before]; for what he knew of happiness, it was being free, as free as free could be that is, and his freedom, so he said, was like the sparrows. In all respects, the result of his pondering ways on the subject of mating and sex, allowed him to have unmixed pleasure just watching the Horde’s residents bickering with their companions. No, not any apprehensiveness ever clouded his mind on this subject thereafter, in respect of doubting if that was the way to live. It was the way his mother lived, yes, and his way: he had a father, one that sat in the tree [s], in fear that she would throw him back into the tree should he stay too long in the cave with his eerie ways. For Short-legs, as it was for the Horde, and as it seemed to be for the Branch-People, and somewhat for the People of the Fire, simply living from day to day, feeding oneself was par for the course—disparity, at its cross-roads, if not just plane out drudger—and that was enough responsibility. It did bring happiness though, life that is, and laughs, but also dread, and shorten lives for many, should one not be guarded, or weaken by taking the wrong paths at the wrong time, especially at night when all ears listened, and all eyes waited for the unprotected, he was, or could be the next victim.



Brotherhood


Stern-toes [my brother] now came to live with me in my cave; we had not spent much time together ever since childhood, but now it was to be. We had played together much, when we were very young, ran here and there together, jumping from tree to tree, then he got involved with an older group in the Horde, and then he married. He had lost his wife somewhere along the line, no proof of anything, she just never returned one day—I think the Stone-People got her, but then I always think that I suppose. None the less, I do think they killed her for sport, you see they liked to kill, even though they have no need or motive for it, only some kind of compulsion; --for the sake of the need, thus they invent, create their motive and reason after the fact, so that they can stand proud and boast later on. Yes, yes, I surely they want to stand proud in front of their children and say something to the effect: I had to use my keen strength and skill to kill this female primate or whatever: I had no choice. And then his family will be proud of him, proud of such a man, and his feat, saying their father in the dangers of the jungle fought the foe to its death—that is what I call turtle-crap. But that again, are just my thoughts, my talking-s, leastways I have no way to prove it.
Often times our folk would leave the Horde never to return: as I have implied previously, so this again could be put into another category of simply being lost. We never questioned this, it was common, and not as common as it would seem now, now that the predominant culture was the Stone-Builders. Who knows how one dies, gets killed, it was normal, and expected, no one really grew old, --well, there has been a few exceptions, only a few to my recollection.

[The Dreamer] Stern-toes never did remarry, and left the females to themselves; as Short-legs had done all his life. Stern-toes had two females, or were it three: children of his [?] I can’t remember. And now, reminiscent of when they were young, they were back together again.
They had now three-females left in the Horde, and four males, to include Stern-toes and his brother: seven of them in sum total. After several more years, it would come to pass, that the People of the Fire would have taken the other three women of theirs, and the old timers would have died off, all yet to be in time—the near future.

[Short-legs] At this juncture of our history, there was now just my brother and I in the whole Horde: there was no Horde to speak of at this point I expects one could say. As for the People of the Fire, they could careless if we lived or died, we were in our late 40’s, quite old now: of no use to anyone anymore. The Stone-Builders had seen us at times on top of the cliffs, looking down upon the valley, aimlessly looking, likewise, paid us little attention, if any mind at all. As time went on, I didn’t see very much courage in the new breed either, courage as I would define it anyhow, that being like Big-chest had, for he did not do anything by luck, he did not believe in it, in luck that is, and that was courage to me, he threw luck to the stars, and faced what he needed to, wanted to—head on. The new breed, or Stone-Builders, coupled with the interbreeding masses, were killers with weapons, which took less courage, maybe that is why they killed more: sly they were not, nor witty, just: malevolence, ill will, evil: some fools would even—terrorize in a suicide manner the enemy—giving up their lives for the king so he could get fat and ugly off the proceeds. I call this: dinosaur-head-washed [or brainwashed]; they would put themselves on fire and then go into a community—people would come out to see the spectacle, and when they did, the soldiers hiding would come out and kill the watchers. Plus, some would even allow themselves to be buried alive with their king, a holy sacrifice, and others would—believe it or not—would willingly walk up to a sacrificial alter, lay down while another cut his hear out, or his child’s heart out. What was this all coming to I asked me—and I didn’t get an answer.


[Short-legs’ affirmations]


Says I, one day to Little-eyes and to several folks around the Banana Cave, to whomever was listening [for they were curious about my brother’s blinking of his eyes and drawing pictures after the blinks]: said I, in an explaining manner: my brother Stern-toes’ love of time and place—is what it is all about, that saying: who can make an angle with the sun or moon, trap it, where it be, where it shall never run away—this is art I fear [I told them, something new—something he did well] thus, he shall twice die [I confirmed to them], leaving his pictures, fingerprints behind on the walls of caves and all such places: it will tell of our lives lived here [the Horde’s folks looked strange at me, but smiled, to live on was a new invention also]. For myself, I gave details: I will write on the walls what I have felt and learned, put into a language I’ve yet to contrive: I will make clear the wretched screams from the wretched hearts that have caused so much pain in this day and age—explain: one need not remember their deaths, for all they do now, or will do, is be heard in echoes between empty caves in the valley, for they are of little relevance now to anyone, now that they are gone, merely an echo in a world that was glad to get rid of them [the kings, the Begetter—the demon all such inhabitants], so reason and love can prevail. They were of no value here—I will not explain this, just write it, nor will be wherever their residue hereafter. This is all I have to say on the walls of time.


Part 11

17


Inter-phase
On top of Cave-Valley


I had learned during my college years something about molecular genetics, or better put cell structure; nothing that would shed any light on humanity, or for that matter, leave behind something for the betterment of mankind. In my dream [or illusions] it appeared, as I was sitting on top of some rocks on top of the cliffs, looking down into the valley [as I being Short-legs], the Cave-Valley that is (it was a long, very long, so very long of a dream ((I went to bed at 4:30 AM and woke up at 12:30 PM the next day—the dream must had been the last four hours of my sleep, I expect, or so it seemed)), I saw that my brother was going to join me in a minute, and I couldn’t get Lucia out of my mind which was of course, Little-eye’s wife. She was a quiet sort of a creature, and although they squabbled a bit, she made him happy—made Little-eyes happy, if that is what happiness is, and it pleased me to see that, not enough to make me find a mate similar to her though, but enough to be pleased for a comrade, my sidekick. But I keep seeing cell structures in my brain, swirling, moving like you would expect them to move.
As the wind on top of this great rock slapped my face with the cool breeze of the descending sun, and the ascending moon, and the appearance of a few stars showed their faces, I knew all the people I seem to have connected with, throughout my days, all the way through my life—my dream life, would remain in my thoughts. Say what you will but at the end of the tunnel is not light, rather life. Or so this was the way I was feeling as I transposed myself from an emergence [materialization] into the character that was sitting on top of the mountain-rock; a stone-stillness was in my body, looking, silently looking, onto the valley below, --if anything, I, Short-legs was comfortable being alone, that is, by myself or with others, it really didn’t matter. It was how I was, or you could say how I really was. Yet these fragments kept appearing, the cells, their structure, and the transference into chromosomes; how they separated, that be. I got thinking—as the Dreamer—of the apelike outer form of Big-chest, vs. myself or the Horde’s whom were somewhere in-between, a different outline we had, that is: which might be thought of as some kind of cross-roads into humanity, compared to the Branch-People, whom were more on the chimpanzee level, or so it seemed; then after that spurt, my mind started to count chromosomes. The Stone-Builders had a nest of 46-chromosomes, this floated in and out of my thoughts, and for the chimpanzee, there were 48, and the flies I swatted had 8. But for me I couldn’t get a good count, or of the People of the Fire.
Did we have some kind of different number: possibly 45 vs. 46 or 48? It would seem something was different, and that was my search: what was different? During the inter-phase period, or time, or the mitotic division, and the beginning of another, nature halted in my dreams, stopped for a brief second. The 46th chromosome was very thin, almost thread like in comparison to the others, thus, my 46th never did make it to the anaphase of the cell process. Maybe we were different because we were supposed to be different; perhaps, if feasible somehow, in that garden, that legendary garden, now that seems so far back, hidden almost in my ‘mind’s eye,’ some people lost opportunities, and perhaps we, or others gain possibilities; who could be sure of anything; but in my dream-world, anything was likely I presume, which is the amusing or superior part of dreaming, or can be. But whatever it was, that part of my illusionary-constellation faded into the dust, the grime, as I noticed my brother Stern-toes, climbing the side of the cliff, to get to the top and be with me. I shifted my attention to him then, and now.

The Secret

Said I, to Stern-toes, as he joined me on top of the cliff, “Dear brother, I have a secret,” he was always short with words [not much to say], and calm as a pillar in a caves, and so I assumed he was not going to ask what the secret was, possible not caring, or I’d get to the point sooner and later and tell him when I wanted to, thus, why waist one’s energy asking: so I volunteered by illumination: ”I never told you this [one must remember this is now years in the past], but about six months after mother had died, I had walked back into her cave, stood by where she slept, and got Dinosaur-pumps [same as: goose-bumps] all over my body, then I smelled the fragrance of flowers [perfume], the ones she liked [but I couldn’t remember the name of the flowers].” I went on to clarify, this happened twice within a short period of time.
Said he, my brother to me, Short-legs, “So what do you make of it.” Short and to the point I told myself, that’s Stern-toes in a nutshell.
“Simply that mother was there, was there with me at that moment but in the invisible, thus, life exists beyond the Horde.” This was a remarkable discover I thought. He looked at me, strangely, said:
“I miss her too,” and started clicking them eyelids all about, taking in all he could.


Short-legs
[The Observer—counselor]




18


The Wolf-boar Pack
[Stern-toes]




The day I had first seen the odd looking couple, the male and that Eve person, woman if you will, it was a costly day to say the least. Now that I see my brother, it brings to mind the wolf pack. Oh, I remember it now, I remember it quite well to be honest, as if it was yesterday, now that I have time to think, and the capacity of my mind holds thoughts longer, being of old age that is: maybe I have grown into a more reliable intelligence, I hope so. I never did know her mate’s name real name, so I called him Adam, only that I called her Eve for some odd reason, it just came to mind, simply because she brought with her the new dawn of civilization, for the latest race or species—the eve of a new dawn, I liked that, a good and honest saying. And again now that my mind can produce more brainpower, it makes me think: that possibly—I suppose at the time—the Garden was plainly filled with rocks, craters, and mud-ponds: such things like our area; --but it was just kind of all of a sudden there—the Garden. I mean, I never noticed there was a so called: ‘Garden,’ to speak of, not until I saw Eve leave it, escorted none the less by a flame, a fire like the People of the Fire carried around at night. How can you hide such a huge Garden? It has always baffled me, and still does stump me. Now that I’m older I wonder if it was invisible, like their God.
Also, I have heard the Stone-People say, or have said in the past: ‘…how beautiful it used to be there [in the Garden], when they were living there’; or was it their ancestors they were talking about? I guess I don’t really know. In any case that is another question that begs to be explored—by my mind that is—. But that was a long time ago: I know they have a beautiful waterfall there, I guess it drains into our resources; and of course the river is not all that far from here.
But what I was leading up to was my brother’s encounter with the Wolf-boar pack; these animals were a different kind of breed, not a wolf, not a boar, but rather a pinch of both. Now that I think of it, also, this Eve person ate a lot of fruit, never meat that is; during the several times I had seen her anyhow. She and her mate walked aimlessly for several weeks in this surrounding area outside of the garden—that is, after they left the Garden. This was I suppose more our Hordes territory, to speak of: more so than hers, only by familiarity though. Yes, oh yes, there was a lot of fruit she carried back to her campsite.
Stern-toes [my brother] once expressed to me he witnessed several Wolf-boars emerge from the Garden, or was it wolfs, and they turned into Wolf-boars after a few seasons, I can’t remember exactly how that goes either, but none-the-less, they were tame as sparrows when they left the Garden, yes, oh yes, wolfs tame as a little bird—unbelievable, but true. As mind-boggling as that is, I do believe it. For he made [my brother that is] very good gestures to stress that --and was very strained in doing so. Now thirty-years in the past, or is it forty-years [?], in the past, he has never expressed to me that the story was any different. It was a time when the Stone-Builders employed these Wolf-boars to do their dirty work. They used them as smellers so they could find us and kill us—: again without reason, providing they could get the right sniffs.
The wolves children—that is, the newly born offspring of the first generation of wolves after the Garden people left the garden, the so called now: baby-wolfs, for some odd reason, became quite aggressive, and attacked even their masters [poetic-justice I’d say], after a few seasons of interbreeding with the boars; actually they were more reminiscent of their masters now, careless and dangerous. And I do believe, I lived to see the time of the last gentle wolf, the gentle wolf that was, was no more, they had died, unfortunately. I think it was partially to do with the fact that, the Stone-Builders eventually killed them in winter for their pelts; and it was rare that they would allow them to return to their own pack. And so they became adversaries, and run off into the woods becoming loners for the most part, and I stress again, mating with the boar-beasts. Having said all that, I know now, I’ve lived to see the end of all this, but I was there at least for the beginning.



Stern-toes—and the Wolf-boars



One day, Stern-toes jumped out of the back entrance of our cave [something like a window], mother was sleeping, and father was in the tree, as usual. He did this often—my brother, and it was nothing new, but it was only me, only I knew of this, and he’d go join his comrades from the Horde, by the Banana Cave and they’d run around like kids do I suppose finding trouble to get into. I was quite young, and he was two years older than I. Well, this was a different kind of night for him, his friends were all asleep, he evidently had left too late or the others could not get out. Whatever the case, he wondered about the side cliffs of our domain, and climbed down the cliffs into the guts of the valley itself, a little unsafe for anyone in the middle of the night; in short, he got lost in the dark.
As he was calling for help, or for anyone to wakeup and assist him, no one really heard him to guide him back to the edges of the cliff, and that was partially because the winds at night in the valley whistle, and made twisting noises as they swirled through the arches, and stone passages, leading every which way, and sometimes leading nowhere; as a result, this kind of weather, drowns out any exact voices, makes them blend into the winds themselves, like smearing them flat and then sowing them into the fabric of the wind, as to not be distinguishable by the human ear, or for that matter, even the ear of the beast; --if it was heard, heard at all, it was mixed not only mixed into the wind by the dragging-dark night and other sounds that haunt the cliffs and valley. In consequence, a pack of Wolf-boars, they are the ugliest creatures on this side of the Horde world, even uglier than Big-chest, but I’d not dare say that in front of him, --in any event, what I was about to say, is that, they must have picked up his scent, his smell, for they started to chase him: running aimlessly at the smell, and he ran in the direction of the Garden, which of course was outside the valley. He jumped from tree to tree, making his escape; --he was taller than I and had a longer reach with his arms: so surely, it was, or at least I assume it was not as trying a task in the beginning for him than it would be for me; yet the pack of wolf-boars did not stop, let up, or rest—no, oh no, they kept on, they followed him mile after mile. Endlessly it seemed they followed him, until his arms were starting to loose its strength, and cramping up his muscles. He was not like dad, who lived in the trees night and day, year after year, and could swing from branch to branch all day long, like most of the Branch-People could—as it would have helped him at this point though; --in any case, he was [or at least this is how I figured it to be] more civilized, and had lost that capability of swinging all day and night from branch to branch, and tree to tree with no effort.
With all considering, he found himself by the edge of the Garden, the entrance to it; I would find later on in our life time, this had a profound affect on my brother, for he entered the Garden of Eve at that moment, and with the spring of a Jaguar in his feet, and with his hands stretched out, and his heart throbbing a hundred dinosaurs an hour [MPH] he leaped up, up into a tree, and sat in that tree overlooking the beasts as they ran up and into an invisible wall, matter of fact, when they hit the wall thinking to enter the garden Stern-toes watched their heads go back with a jerk, a staggering blow, and blood appeared dripping on their foreheads. Thus, Stern-toes became their audience—sort of speaking. Still as death, Stern-toes watched the beasts as they circled in a heated manner, saber teeth showing, tongues hanging out from the exhaustion of running those thirty-some miles; he heard great moans from the dogs. At his surprise, the pack did not try to enter the Garden despite his appearance still within their eye-sight, a wise decision I told Stern-toes; the fact being—or so it would seem anyway—as if there was an invisible line, barrier blocking them from doing so: an invisible guardian, a sentry stopping them—something [a wall?] I can just imagine Stern-toes looking down at the beasts, looking down from the tree, high up in the tree—laughing, --yet he never laughed as hard as I and Little-eyes did, but laugh he did, saying:
‘Come and get me, I’m right here: see? Right here!’ and laughing more at every growl they gave back to him in protest. With him when he had the advantage he used it, sometimes even played with it. In all respects, he said he got down to the ground and walked up to the wolf-boars, and started to tease them by laughing at them, right, or almost right in their faces: face to face. Yet, they would not come to the Garden, or couldn’t or dared not to for some reason; he even stuck his tongue out at them. The beasts and Stern-toes never did understand the ‘why’ of it all, he implied to me [me: being Short-legs] they pouted resembling pups as they sat there, and to be quite honest, neither did I understand all these goings-on. We usually just would tell ourselves, it was the way it was, and that was that. But this was very strange, and when my brother told me this, we both shrugged our shoulders in a strange disbelief for lack of anything else to do or say, as if to signal, ‘what more can I say.’
Stern-toes, stayed in the Garden for about fifteen sunrises, or a bit longer, or a bit shorter [I didn’t count time, per se, I didn’t know how too exactly, but I could give a good estimate] or for that matter, as the new breed of humanity calls it: counting days to be exact. You see, I have a hard time with figures, as we all do in the Horde: but it was thereabouts before he left. Not that he had to leave or stay, but if I know him, he’d stayed so he could blink those eyes longer, taking those everlasting pictures, but I think he got bored and felt he might forget his way home, somehow we did not have a good short-term memory.


Foot Prints in Stone



During his stay, one thing puzzled his brain, for which Stern-toes could not reason through. He was walking the banks of the river one sunny afternoon, when he came upon a set of foot prints, slabs, cracked of limestone, with footprints in them, buffed in color, crystallized for the most part. He looked at them strangely, following them as if he was about to discover something. Dumbfounded, yet amazed at the prints, human footprints he deliberated, deep into granite, a mystery at best. He continued down the river, there was no slacking in his pace until he reached the last one, which seemed to go to the left, and lead into the deeper part of the river. Some of those prints, if not all of them, were side by side, as if the creature was a giant being, like the Stone-People, for the toes and shape of the print demanded such consideration, and a giant animal, with three toes, possibly eight to ten feet tall, fifty to one-hundred pounds, with birdlike legs was running with this giant creature [that is, with him or after him]: the stride was quite long, quite a distance, threefold compared to Stern-toes—he had seen such a creatures but once, it did not lay eggs, but rather gave birth to its young alive [Coelophysis]. He then stepped into the man-print, and found he could put over two of his feet into it. This, no one would believe, no more than if someone had told him this story, he’d probably not believe it, thus far, he figured, his brother might [me]; that is, myself being by the Garden and all that stuff, but surely only his I would believe he figured, and how the Wolf-boars did not enter, was another wondrous thing to be kept partially a secret from the Horde, but not me, Short-legs, for again I repeat, I had seen strange things also. But if it was to be believed, was not have any value to him, what was helpful in his way of understanding was that life had a variety of odd-similarities. He possibly had found another species. I mean, the Stone-People were a new one, why not one before them, in the Garden. Many variables to such mysteries did he conjured up in his brain lobes.
It was almost as if life itself was not meant to be figured out, but rather lived. Yes, possibly yes, Ohhooo…yes, life was not to be used as a time to rest it away, but to take it and drag it with you wherever you go. A gift: a treasure. And if you abused it: you may loose it. Or if you found it to be a one-way path, your way or no way I mean, then you might have even loose the meaning of it, that is, to have been actually created for this thing called ‘life’. Having felt that thought, and knowing others now had gone before him, he just wanted to absorb it, be captivated by it.

Part 12

Long-neck
[Plesiosaurus]


Stern-toes, about his arrival back home, had told me a strange, a very peculiar, if not unbelievable story about a Long-neck [which is, for clarity sake] one of those spine-creatures that live in most of the lakes and rivers of our habitat and eat fish for the most part, but they have been known to eat humans, and similar forms of life, and many other creatures that get in their way, or line of travel. They have four-flippers, and in this case it was the one he saw in the Garden, that is, it was one which was close to 30-feet long, --which is a good size one. The ones I’ve seen were about 20 to 25 feet. I never go in the water because of them, they got sharp teeth, and a big head, looks approximating to a snake’s head with its long body, for a neck; --a spine to go with it, like a human: --what a mixture for a creature, --a snake, fish and human features. They swim in the lakes and can capsize anything floating it seems. In any case, you should know Stern-toes by now, if he can capture a picture in his brain, he wants to see, see and see again. He actually told me the creature came right up to him, I mean really right next to him, out of the lake, slowly and stomping like a monster [and looking like one also], I can just visualize it; he was of course in the ‘Garden of Eve,’ he had seen the foot steps we have talked about, and now was looking intently in the lake, and yes, here comes a Long-neck, big-eyed, fang-hanging, big lipped water-creature: and yes, he stood kind of dumbfound in front of him as if he wanted to get caressed, or stroked on the head. I asked Stern-toes, what he did, what was he thinking about, and he said,
“I embraced him on the head; because I wanted to get a good view of him.” And we both laughed until our stomachs hurt.
On one hand, I asked:”Are you crazy?” and “Why,” I commented, and then added:
“I would had run or hit him with a rock on the head.” And we both laughed again, and he said,
“No need to hit him on the head, only a pat.” Unbelievable; and we both rolled on the dirt valley floor laughing as if we couldn’t stop, and when we did stop, we cried instead of laughing, because we were too tired to laugh anymore.
I’ve once seen the carcass of a dead one, on the shores of a lake, no it was a river now that I think of it, and it had holes in it, the Longneck had holes in its body. Moss once said that was from eating such fish as piranha and alike. They claw, or bite their way through the stomach, and get out, and normally the muscular action of the Long-neck, will heal the hole up, but I suppose when you got too many inside of you, the pig just couldn’t stop eating I suppose, and consequently, ate too much, or possibly too many, and a few got free, killing the creature, free in the sense of digging, biting or clawing their way out of the side walls of its body. I wouldn’t go swimming in any lake bigger than my cave; the Banana Cave that is, I told Stern-toes this, and we laughed again.

The wolf-beasts left after a week, getting tired and hungry waiting on a lost cause, that being a hopeful banquet. When Stern-toes did arrive back home we were all so happy, elated to see his familiar face, --he drew some pictures in the sand, one of a huge being, and made long marks all over him, as if it was light, or rays. I couldn’t express, like him, exactly what I wanted to say, but I did know one thing, it was the creature, the being that escorted Eve out of the Garden, I told myself that many times throughout the years to follow. And when I smiled at Stern-toes after he told his story, he knew I knew. As for the many other stories he had to tell, they came out one by one: as time went on. And many times we could not picture what he was driving at, none of us could guess what he was trying to relate, except of course of the Long-neck, but he just told me that one story, and the family, and Little-eyes. But whatever the other ones were, he many times—when we were joking with him—not believing him, he’d stomp his feet like a bull, and dashed recklessly with his feet dragging through the sand as if to say, ‘forget it,’ and went back to his habitat. Actually, I believed everything he said, I just wanted to laugh some more so I said I didn’t.



19




On Top of the Mountain-Caves
[Old age creeping up]



Stern-toes now climbing the cliff to get to the top, has just made it to the last step and is on the edge of the rocks, he is now wiping off all the dirt from his body, from the long climb upward [I have some water in the container, to wash with later—I mumble to myself], he never did like heights that much. I wish I could fly akin to the birds, but Stern-toes would never like that. I’m really happy to see Stern-toes; we hadn’t seen much of each other in our lifetime, when we were of adult age that is. Life has a lot of demands on a person, and we forget we don’t live forever, and put off seeing one another as if we got forever to do it, -- you know, we got to hunt, find shelter, raise children and, well, you know, everyone’s so busy avoiding our neighbors like the People of the Fire, and the Stone-Builders, and Big-chest, no time to visit, and then add pictures upon that list for Stern-toes.
I was always happy to see my brother come back through the cave entrance [back when we were young], and go back to sleep, back in those far off days, those days long ago when we lived with mother that is. He is old now, as I am also old, but he looks in better shape, he lifts rocks and such things to keep his strength up. The wolves and the Wolf-boars–nowadays—are, are even more dangerous than they were back when Stern-toes out run them and hid in the Garden, and they were bad back then, very bad back then, so you can imagine how bad, bad is now.
Now if they [the hunters] the ones that hunted the beasts, namely the Stone-Builders, and the People of the Fire, are being hunted, there is no hesitation by the beasts at all to kill them, and the Garden no longer protects anyone. These wild animals that now hunt the Stone-Builders, have even went into their fortress in the winter when they are starving to hunt for them, to eat them; especially when they are sleeping; yes, the animals will come up and eat you as if you were dead, tarring, ripping your flesh off while you scream and try to fight back. They even go into their homes and steal their babies, and eat them quicker than a snake can swallow a man.
I do remember [as I look back now] the following morning after he arrived home from the Garden, Stern-toes told me this story again about this happening, and it was all we could do but laugh and laugh until we got sick to our stomachs. And dad thought I was just boasting along with Stern-toes, he didn’t believe anyone, or anything. He shook his head and went back up into the tree, like always, scratching his head as if he had something to say but forgot it.
And so, in our lifetime, we can say, he got to go into the Garden, and I got to see Eve come out of it, and we both got to see that huge lit up creature. But I don’t regret it, --that is, not going into the Garden. He’s sitting now beside me, he grunted, nodded his head. He sees my water, I put it in a cut out log, like the People of the Fire used to do, and they now got something called buckets, I suppose I’ll end up using those next. Maybe down the road of life, not my road that is, but down the road, --I was going to say the Horde will prosper from that bucket, but you know, there is no Horde anymore. You see what old age does to: it makes you forget.




Short-legs Remembers
His Friend



[Short-legs]: when I first had seen my friend, Little-eyes [now: many years ago]–when I first saw him with Lucia, when they were not yet, quite yet, one another’s official mate, but it was in the makings, I’m sure, at that time officially speaking –: he was bedazzled [her subservient charm—being in part, a gift for the occasion]. What followed of course is, was sweet and hard—with a glazed topping—a tale [of which I’ve already narrated]. Yet, heretofore, what I remember him for the most was what he lost--, his silent flamboyant-icy; plus the laughing, our laughing together.
I call these new thoughts: conventional wisdom that reflect badly, that is to say, they echo roughly, on the alluring female species and how friendships can flourish if not bitten by this: bedazzled-bug. When he [he being: Little-eyes] introduced me to her, to Lucia, the first time, we both knew things would be different in the morning, and they were.

[Short-legs on—The King of the Stone-builders]: As I, Short-legs look upon the valley, thinking about the first known dictator of the world—for I have seen him—the, the one that the Stone-Builders bow to--: I know this is a critical turning point in my world, that now, or up to now, we have all been in or at a ‘Dead End:’ to speak of. Yet I have no way of knowing what will happen to the new world order—but if the events of the past represent the future, then to me it contemplates a somewhat less appealing future; --a calamitous one at best. Yet I’m sure the world will remain busy in itself, until one replaces another, and another and another. Somewhere along the line, we may all end up back at the Garden.



The Cold North Lands
[Land of the Ice Sheets]



20





Passing of an Epoch
[On the Cliff]



[Short-legs] It was just a matter of time now for the passing of our era. The Horde was down to an extinction level they were almost vanished. Sad to say, but I must, what helped was this [in the past]: partly due to destructive results in the form of disease by the Stone-builders [who gave it to the People of the Fire, as well as the Horde]. It seemed only they, the Stone-Builders were immune, for we, or the rest of the world had not had the gradual build up of immunities needed to preserve our people. Even the People of the Fire, hitherto untouched neighbors by any disease, were ghastly swaths of death to their diseases; in which often times it came to us by way of them.
And the Stone-Builders had their communities grown into what they called cities; I had not been in one of them, but I had heard of them. I had gained a capacity to understand the sounds of the Stone-Builders, and the gestures of the People of the Fire, not as well as I’d had liked to, but pretty well, or should I say, good enough to deduce what I’ve seen. Funny, why couldn’t I have received this ability in my youthful years, a mystery, like the breathing of air, and letting out of some other kind of inhalation? Maybe this was how it was supposed to be, I didn’t know. I had heard Big-chest was still alive and well, and was headed up towards the ice sheets, to the far north. I figured he’d out live us all for some odd reason. He had big feet, and was determined to crush everything in his path, or anything in his sight, should it annoy him—and if he could. If anyone could, or was qualified to survive in that climate, it would be him I expect. He had a lot more hair than the people of our Horde had, and so it would keep him warm. Good luck to him I told myself, good luck, good fortune, he would need it; as my brother and I sat on the cliff, looking at the beautiful horizon; --I didn’t even know it was beautiful, I just felt it was; him blinking his eye-lids as if he was taking permanent pictures with them.
And here, at this moment, a poem came through my mind, likely the first poem ever conceived:


However it May Be

Illusions or delusions—
However it may be,
The sunny world that once was
That once seemed safe
Within the Valley of the Caves, --
Was no more to be…?

How long did they live there
Within this dream
[Where history was not born or seen]
I asked myself this: --
Now vanquished by the new breed;
But it was the end of my dream.


Short-legs’ Prayer


[Short-leg’s first realization there is a God within the realm of life and death]


Sedate he [he being: Short-legs] sits on his cliff above the valley looking up into the heavens, the Northern Lights turn from an aura, sensational red-green and white, to a deep inky, and deeper blue. He sits calm as if music is playing a joyous tune with yellow hues reflecting off the tarnished brown cliff strata. Franked-faced, fresh-colored, he gazes into the night cool air, into the sky. He has never learned how to pray, or to whom, but he looks nonetheless up, up, up into the sky, as if there is an open window to some supernatural being. He is older now, and his history has told him with fire and due, something—not sure what—but something or somebody more powerful than all the creatures on earth is looking down, out of that window, down unto this very spot—the very spot he is sitting on. He even feels he can be an antagonist if He so chooses, but a powerful, and loving one—if not downright confusing.
At that hour—when the still of the night—subdues a person, the Watcher of the night-sky, He looks down onto his makings—out of his window; He tells the night wind where to go, answering its every call. This is what Short-legs is thinking, as he peers up into the deep ink like sky, on this wind-swept surface of the cliffs he is sitting on, sitting on cross-legged: with soft lights from the heavens, so the Watcher from the window can see him.
“Know me by this name, Short-legs,” he chants, to insure the Watcher can recognize him. He now talks to the Man in the window—The Watcher:
“No more song or laughter, only the hum of the wild ones, the Stone-Builders, and the People of the Fire, like bees they hum and the time of dreaming of better days are over.” He waits for an answer, but none comes, yet the moon is getting brighter, it has somehow escaped its orbit, so it would seem, and shines a little dim light over the head of Short-legs.
Says he gravely, “I come soon, to your window for life cannot woo me anymore, not like it used to; O hurry over these dark cliffs I pray you come, come by way of the garden and see—soon, O soon, for death’s sake; for surely you are the one who has the stars beneath your feet and the heavens above your window, who can harm you, no one. See what the Garden has brought to us, extinction, yes, O yes, cool pleasant was the valley at one time, and here love will stay, there is no word I can make. But let me finish what I was about to say, they—the renegades from the Garden, dragged out of the Garden much pain.”

[Short-legs did not really know right from wrong before, possible only love, and kindness, and other such things; sin he did not know before, though he knew of it now, yet he knew not its nature nor why it should be sin. And here, at this moment he could seemingly die as willingly as he could live, at this critical juncture, for he had learned sheer worship, and captured unconditional love for his maker, although he could not fully explain it.]


Said Short-legs with a worshiping tone: “I never knew of sorrow, nor when my friend failed, it wasn’t failure maybe because it was always love between us, we laughed instead, so much so, our breasts hurt inside. So I say to He, who has given us so much knowledge these past years, You must also give us peace and rest to deal with the new world order. We never were really sad in the Horde, because others preferred lying to laughter, we just hopped to find peace again, but of course, we never did, not here anyway. These others, the Stone-Builders, and the People of the Fire, in particular the Stone-Builders, are very sad most of the time. I am not sure why, they control most everything; is that not what they want? If so, sadness has a dear price.
O, unto the night’s dark sky, deep—blue sky, evening’s plight, my love is my companion more so now than ever, among the foes day-light. Night allures me, to you I say—The Watcher: my sleep no longer gives me rest, and I tell you this so you can help me. For soon I will knock on your window; I think soon we will meet, I shall not weep when I leave, for does winter weep when spring comes? Or summer weep, when spring must die? o O NO, THEY DO NOT, THEY dissolve, AS I must—You know that though, of course You do. So I shall not weep, but hand in hand I shall walk with You, I hope so.
My eyes are tired, I wish—I, I wish to sleep, the voice of the wind has stopped, you stopped it I think, so I could sleep—thank you. You are now covering up the moon again. You must have a cave where you keep all these things, like clouds to cover the moon, and big hands to stop the winds, and you know, all such things You must keep all these things in this cave, just storing them away for when you need them, and then You throw them out your window, as need be. You are much cleverer than all the Stone-People all put together. It’s funny I think, do they not know you have a window—and can see them? I hear the thunder of men charging in the distance beyond the valley, another war, or maybe just a battle of a war not won yet, that is what the echoes of the valley-walls, tell me. I have heard their battle cries many times now—the gloom they bring. This gloom came as I was about to say something before, but I forgot, from the Garden, it came out of the Garden, clanging sounds—this gloom, of what is now called armor. All have left me alone but you. Is that the secret of life—You? Gentle Stranger, in the sky, sad words I bring to your window, and the Garden where I’m sure love was once, is no more, it is dissolved—like I will be, it happened when the wild winds blew them out, and a shinning sword was planted within its earth scared all residents to the gardens entrance—Alas! Yes, o yes, a regrettable day.
Love came to us you know, that is to say, when we never knew we had loved before, which we had, now we knew what it was called, as I suppose happened in a like manner with the People of the Garden. We all know now—love’s past.”

[With those last two words, Short-legs fell to sleep.]



Part 13



21


The Dreamer


[Me, the Dreamer] It was at this point, the dream, or vision, or images that kept coming and going through my brain, stopped, that is, stopped with Short-legs and his brother on the cliff, overlooking the valley below. Realizing their time was ending, they sat there quite still, not saying a word, enjoying the moment together. It was like, when their mother had died, he [he being: Stern-toes] sat stone-still, silent, looking, gazing as if he was paralyzed in thought, an intense stare at her body, her aura [atmosphere, quality, and appearance]. I guess they both may have felt she was a small part of their world they once knew, maybe a very big part, bigger the longer they looked at her dead there; they were her legacy: I suppose. As the Stone-Builders will carry on their own legacy with the bit and pieces of the groups they knowing and unknowingly integrated by raping into their civilization. And they were now part with the unknowing world forever, to be lost on those lonely cliffs, and for what it is worth, what was left behind, we shall never know, other than a little puff of time in the Valley. But in any case, they were part of something I told myself, not perhaps knowing exactly what, but it was a great life adventure.


The Passing of time

The Passing of time: --receives
The quiet season of death
A little sooner than the rest;
For the weaker species
[I guess].
Yes, oh yes, all we have left,
Is to scratch our heads
And wonder why: --



22




Epitaph I

The Sun will rise




[In quite thought —Short-legs]: continues to stare down into the empty valley where once his Horde was so active; now there is only he and his brother left: soon to be only one: his brother.]


[Short-legs’ whispers]: so I have told my tale on the walls of the caves, the caves in the Valley of Caves that is; without resolve or name: of people, real people that once lived and breathed. They now are simply images on my walls, the walls: many walls; along with blood and other bodily juices, all lay dead now on the walls and floors of the caves, waiting in the dim shadows of redemption to be awaken—unaware of time: the dead’s inexplicable nature—yes, incomprehensible they wait, the Horde that is, they remain, where I shall be shortly. As I look about, at my brother, the Horde now being gone, I have thought, and thought on this: can there be victory after total misery—? After a nightmare come true that is. The world since the Stone-Builders appeared was in the vein of a dry-dense woods, on a hot summers day, should there be a disruption, the fury from the new breed—the Stone-Builders—would set it ablaze (that is how we all thought for years on end ((‘How the whole world thought,’ replied his brother)). Yes, how our whole world thought --the uncanny thing being: there were no optimists left: not even Owl-ears. Very slowly, and gradually they changed the face of the earth, our world, akin to water dripping onto a stone, and making a hole in it, after time—such things do happen.
War—now I know the word war. I have learned it the hard way. In essence, there was a war—a war-game going on in our world: a war that only the Stone-Builders were playing though. They called it ‘…a battle for existence,’ and I could see their enthusiasm, it sparkled from their–almost—transfixed, captivating eyes. It was all propaganda of course, half-truths given to their kind, by their kind; it went in circles until they believed it. Outraged we were, yet who could speak out against their aggression?
Now that I’m sitting here, here on top of this cliff, for the last time I expect: another thought enters my mind, one I’ve thought of before, but never connected the dots to: they [they: being, the Stone-Builders] never took captive the Horde’s people or for that matter, the Branch-People. There was a reason for it. Also, they never rapped our group, or mated with either group, why? --: Genetic quality, self-preservation, and avoidance of a decaying race that is what they were worried about. Well, that’s my way of thinking anyway.


[The Dreamer—talks about Short-legs.] He can’t put his thoughts into words, that being: Short-legs, but he knows oblivion is linked to rest, the ultimate rest, and rest without waking up, likely, nothingness. Yes, like sleep, he tells himself, but never waking up is fresh for his thoughts; it never occurred to him forty-years ago, and now being his 58th winter. He refers to it as an endless walk through the woods, his end. But is bodily death the end? Again these are original thoughts, deliberations; new-fangled reasoning’s which have come about for him, by the passing of seasons, and his observations. He realizes other groups feel there is an extended version of life beyond the wood’s-end. He even notices inside himself a craving for this extension, it is old age talking, old age saying: there must be something more than this. He knows this innately: instinctively: for with old age comes new wisdom, --wisdom that has been tested under fire: by observation, trial and error, and evaluation. But again, to him it is his brain that says, ‘what is next.’
Unfortunately this does not dominate his life, for he shifts to thinking, where will be his food for tomorrow, where will it come from, and that, even that thought goes out of his mind as fast as it comes in. If anything, tomorrow will or will not be, it is as it has always been, the sun will rise, there is no reason to think otherwise. Everything beyond this reasoning is a struggle to keep in focus; it is his nature, and so he accepts it, plus it is much easier to be like the birds, he tells himself [the sparrows] and knows whoever brings up the sun, will provide food, and should there be a Garden beyond the length of the woods, he hopes his mother will be there to greet him. He now looks at his brother—realizing at one time there was a Horde to look at, and soon his brother will be alone, he conjures up: ‘there is a time to die for everyone, his grandmother, his mother, now him,’ he does not know how long he has to look forward to, possible this is the last of the winters he will experience, and so he smiles and they both look down the valley, both he and his brother, it is as it should be, as it always has been, perfectly still, the Arctic wind blowing overhead, whistling through the stone valley, its canyon walls frosted, everything alive. With his voice and eyes filled with sheer [amazement] incredulity, and a little glitter that they were given life in the first place. It might have been, never given at all.


23




Epitaph II



[Stern-toes, talks.] We never counted days; it was not illogical—did birds count days? ‘No,’ so again, neither did us, us, me; or my brother in the Horde, my brother Short-legs, that is. I suppose we could call them all lost days, for we had no pattern to them, and we looked upon them as gleeful rather than major. In a like manner, all things were amusement in one-way or another, especially for my brother. All the shapes within the valley remained the same; I caught pictures of them with my eyes, not much change at all—change comes slowly. Life stood still, or stands still, or so it seems: or at best if there was a cave that caved in, then things changed, or if the floor of the valley opened up, and it did once, then things changed, but our life span was too short for big observations over time, to see any significant changes.
The advent of Eve, was the big thing for us I suppose, for in the future, whomever is living in those far off last days and sees all such changes again—as we have seen—they, yes they will be as lucky as my brother and I were, we were the beginning, they will be the end. We have all seen the world turn upside down, change after change, summer after summer, and winter after winter: they now were being counted by my brother and I, --I say were, because he is gone now, it is just I on the cliff—he is smelling the flowers of my mother I expect at this very moment, as he once told me he had after her death; [looking down with emotion, he says], he passed on a few days ago. Replacing this water each day so I can quench my thirst is tiresome, a little task, but meaningful; --in the old days, Short-legs and I could smell the snow before it came, now for some odd reason, it sneaks up on me, and surprises me in the morning. I can tell now if it’s going to rain, the dirt-white clouds are gathering, it will soon rain, I know that, got to go…


24


Afterward
[By the Dreamer]


No one, and least of all, Short-legs and his companion, Little-eyes, would have figured the end of their generation was the end of an era, a period if you will, in a global sense.
And Stern-toes, an optimist at heart, sitting on that cliff had time to think of many things, although he didn’t say much, but then, he never did. Yet, if I were him, and I’m not, but if I could read his mind, or imprint into his brain, I would probably be saying, for instance: being in that Garden that one time, and remembering those footprints, --I would be thinking, likely there was some kind of biological existence in the Great Garden area prior to Eve and her mate. I would wonder if Eve ever wondered if there were others outside the garden, or maybe the whole world was her garden, did she ever see those footprints? —I wonder about that also. Possibly she walked with the giants of old. Another thought: who knows how long the Garden existed? But they are just my off-the-wall thoughts. Maybe Stern-toes didn’t care; he liked taking pictures with his eyes mostly; most other subjects of thoughts were of little value.
On another note, the revisionist, otherwise known as the Stone-Builders, their view, with their determination—was to dominate the entire world, henceforth: this was entered into written history. There was no mystery about the end of the Horde, to the Horde; --they had as a group or species, collapsed of its own un-intellectual weight. True, the People of the Fire, and Branch-People helped it along, --but this was hardly new—and endured, for the most part. If anything, the new breed, with all its faults, brought in reasoning to a higher level. Not sure if this was a benefit to mankind in the future or not, but it was as it was, the brain was developed twofold; thus the capacity to reason developed, as did the reasonableness of life beyond death, God, and many other things that were alien to the brain before, came to light. And if this all was some great experiment with the King of Kings, or as some have called Him, our Heavenly Host, I possible would have gotten pretty mad a lot quicker than He, and wondered if all this creating of mortal beings, was worth the time and effort. But I am writing this and I’m glad He is patient. And to be quite honest, if there was no life after death [which I do not believe], so be it, I had a great time on earth is all I can say. Yes struggles, but more than not, it was a learning process if anything; and that in itself, was or is good enough.
Moreover, the new type of humanoids, the Stone-Builders—simply dismissed their existence, that being of course, the Horde and the Branch-People as some kind of bizarre period in human pre-history who got lost between the pages of time, a missing link possible [yet they survive within their veins, now in our veins]; --even today, there exists only a small audience, curious to the mystery of their soul and worthiness to be among God’s creatures; --consequently, it was, a time that transcended, without notice, instead of being contained like we do the whale today [or have done in the past], by the New World Order on earth, hence, an extinction did follow.


The Canopy



And so as one looks back upon this journey of sorts, the dream of dreams, if I may refer to it as such, --at length, there came a time when the Garden of Eve’s protective canopy, like the earth’s protective atmospheres was lifted to a hostile world beyond its boarders, that had at one time surrounded it, as will be one day the earth’s canopy to a hostile universe be lifted. If my dream was anything, it possible was a parallel, if not possible a parable, if you will. And in a similar manner: Eden was no more than an analogous to the fate of Earth. In the plainest of words, one may say it has been written, prophesied, and so it shall be. Yet indigent the earth remains to this scored view; yet they do not look at the state of affairs that circles the globe [and if they do, they have left God out, peace without war, religion to dictate peace]. My dream will rest in peace, as I will, for my days are numbered more so than most, probably. And my death will be no more than the passing of a light, or a cool, yet warm breeze, unnoticeable by most, or humankind in general: which is neither here or there. But the world that relies or plans on luck to maintain their survival, you are doomed my friend: doomed like the Horde, and have very little courage to face reality; consequently, being crippled; and so I bid ye farewell, and sleep well my friends [and forget luck].




Valley of the Caves
[The Dreamers Horde]

Beyond the ‘Valley of the Caves,’
Lays a world—dead with graves:
But then beyond the Great Sea—
A new world is yet to be—.

It was a day long ago—
A flame and sword did show,
And ever since life had changed
Since Eve went out the Garden’s gate.

The birds sang—‘Ah!’ Back then.
And the entire world blossomed:
Without rainbow [s] not yet made,
Yet, happy faces filled the sky.

But long ago—is now gone!
Far from the ‘Valley of Caves; --’
Where once across the sea--: it’s said,
A peaceful Horde lived in caves.

Yet I drift within my tearful mind,
To want to relive this awesome dream—
Where bondless characters, lived and died;
That tore my heart, with love and tears:

For within ‘The Valley of the Caves,’
Where once they stood upon the cliffs—
The people of the Horde still they claim,
Still live, within each song, the birds still sing.

ẨẼ