This short story was inspired by my frequent and prolonged contact with my Kindle Fire. I’ll let you figure out how and post your guesses! Pondering this particular ‘relationship’ summoned the image of a prehistoric boy slipping into a cave and the rest flowed from there. Hope you enjoy!
The boy squatted on the branch far above the trail. Pain pinched his legs, but he wanted to spring down on the horned-one after throwing his rocks. He couldn’t miss it this time. The days were turning cold. He needed that skin!
He fingered three rocks in his right hand, sliding them under and over each other. They were hot with the fire of the gods – just like his hand. Ever since finding the sacred stones and running his finger through their strange grooves, his hand had burned. Everything he held burned, too. Which brought him to this tree. He knew cold stones could startle the animal in another direction and sharp stones could slow it down. But what could hot stones do?
Suddenly, brush cracked behind him and hooves thump-thumped under his limb. The dark brown flash was almost gone when the boy’s arm snapped forward and three rocks smoked through the air and into the horned-one. The boy flung himself onto the trail with a whoop. Closing the gap on all fours, he leaped onto the horned-one’s back and plunged his knife into its neck. He ripped down with both hands, gashing skin, until he slipped to the side and warm blood steamed over his knife. The animal leaned hard to the right, bruised a tree, then smashed a moss-covered log into thick red splinters and lay still.
The boy couldn’t believe it. He had never brought down a horned-one with only his knife before. Red-handed, he howled at the sky as the horned-one heaved a last breath. Smoke wisped up from three holes in the hide. Plunging his fingers in, he pushed through wet flesh to find the rocks then yanked them out in a high fist as thunder roared and rain applauded. He had a skin!
Then the Beast roared behind him. He whipped around as it reared to full height — twelve feet — and bellowed a challenge. The boy dropped the rocks and ran.
A thousand footfalls later, he slid into the cave, back first, inching along the rock wall. His heart beat hard and water peeled off him into pools, making the floor slick. The rain was a beaded curtain over the cave entrance, glittering in its fall. Beyond, the Beast screamed in frustration at losing him. But it could not find him. This time, he had escaped.
Cool air scraped his legs and skittered under his rags. He should be covered in skins but the Beast kept taking them all. Retreating into an alcove, he squeezed against the wall which was slightly warmer than the air. Fumbling in the dark, he piled dried grass and small sticks and then struck rocks. Sparks mewled like newborns before being gathered by Mama Fire to her breast. Then they suckled and grew until shadows danced in fear and the cold whimpered away.
When he woke up, his hand still burned. He looked at the three lines that arced across his palm like rivers of fire through a desert. When he plunged his hand into a small puddle, it only hissed and steamed in protest; it did not cool him. Stupid stones. After an old ape on the mountain told him about the giant bird eggs that could not be broken, he had hunted them for months. But they weren’t eggs. They were stones with strange lines grooved into them. He followed the lines again and again with his finger until he could make them in the air. But now his hand was fire and the four short lines that cut through his palm looked like the fire spears that fell from the sky during storms. Were the gods angry with him?
Thunder rolled through the cave like horned-ones and the glittering curtain flashed daylight before snapping back to black. He couldn’t stay. He had to find cool — air, wet, rain, moss, leaves. These old friends would heal him from this mark of death. They would remove it. They would allow him back into their sacred midst, no longer a stranger.
So the boy made his voice like the wind and thrashed the trees. He stomped through green, bellowing, until giant leaves wrapped him in comfort-cool and whistled him to sleep. He would track the Beast tomorrow.
This piece is poetic and strange, in a good way that stays with me. It’s similar to your other short fiction I’ve read in that it lures me back to explore the layers of meaning in the language.
Sometimes i wonder what people mean when they say my fiction is poetic. And i wonder if its a good thing or if i should really be writing poetry, which i dont like much. Thx for responding watt.
I can relate. A friend once suggested I write poetry after she read some of my creative nonfiction. The comment troubled me at the time.
Now I think it’s just part of who I am, to sort of test the boundaries. You do a respectable job of testing that edge with your fiction, in my opinion.
Early this morning I read some poems by Raymond Carver in his book titled “Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories.” It’s interesting to compare the different writing forms of a celebrated short story author. I have another copy at the bookstore and will hold it for you, in case you want to look it over.
Aldous Huxley, upon reading Ray Bradbury’s prose, said to him, “You, sir, are a poet! ”
So I think I’ll take it as compliment from now on. 🙂
Loved the story. As one who is also in a relationship with her Kindle Fire, like Watt, I too will have to go back and re-read the story to ferret out the meanings of how it links to your relationship to yours….I’ll get back to that later but in reference to the poetic writing I too have heard that used in reference to great descriptive writing. I once belonged to a writing group that spent about six months trying to learn how to write “prose poems” – prose with the metaphoric vivid descriptions and cadence of poetry. It is no easy skill to master, so I can assure you that it is a compliment when I say to both of you, “You sir(s) are a poet!”
Wow. Thank you, Stevie. That’s a very sincere and encouraging comment. (The relationship with KF might be more obvious and simple than what you think…but I look foward to it 🙂
My favorite writers are all both poets and writers of fiction; I love best reading work like yours where an original story comes wrapped in luminous language.
As for figuring out what the cave boy’s fire may be, I confess that I’m not technologically equipped enough to guess! I have a Kindle, but it’s the basic model, so I doubt I’d be a victorious hunter if it was my only “weapon.”
“Luminous language,” — wish I’d written that! 🙂