by Jeff Calhoun
A pack of hunters crouched low behind a rock outcropping. They leveled crude spears, nothing more than branches, rocks, some woven bark. They have no language, but when they looked at one another, they seemed to say:
We will pierce the mastodon’s heart!
We will eat for many moons!
We will not starve!
The beast lumbered by and the battle was violent, short. The beast’s blood mixed with the blood from a trampled boy. They cut off the meat as best they could and ate and went to gather the women and children. Hidden in the trees was a chimpanzee with his palms pressed deep in his cousin’s throat. None of the men glanced at the fallen boy. They couldn’t have closed his eyelids if they had wanted. The mastodon’s kick left only a mass of blood, bone, skin.
In a cave they used as a dwelling, the women prepared to gather roots. Outside, rain fell lightly and the children shivered. But they smiled and played games. The men returned with red teeth, scars, eyes wide with the last moments of battle fury. It was a good week, three large pigs and now a mastodon. A haul. And only the spindly, sick kid as collateral. A trade they’d make a hundred times if given the chance.
The men went to exchange excited grunts and hand motions and sex with the women. The children were too busy playing to notice their fathers sick with adrenaline, their mothers heavy with the weight of the next generation. The kids ran and ran and tried to catch each other in the dirt and rain and mud. They laughed and laughed. Earlier one of the girls had slipped and dashed her skull against a rock. They prodded her, but she didn’t move. The rainwater held a ruddy tinge and they moved their games a hundred yards away. They all had dreams of fire, a world of shadows, a dog with three terrible mouths. They did not want to think of these things now, would let them wait until night.
One of the women picked up a burning limb and held it high above her head. Then, everyone gathered to watch her dance. She dipped the branch close to the ground and smoke slithered around her ankles. The smoke swirled along her skin and curled skyward. It drifted and drifted and they all stared at her, the smoke, the stars.
A million years later, a girl put out her cigarette and ran her hand along the dead husk of a merry-go-round. It was broken and wouldn’t spin.
Jeff Calhoun was not aware misspellings and cheezburger loving kittens could make someone rich.
