Journal
Sunday,Aug 10 2008, 04:26:32 AMfThe Origin of Everything Human
The Origin of Everything Human
By Clifford Latta 07-22-08
They hadn't yet become gregarious. He stalked the night in pursuit of subsistence and, if able to take a female by surprise, propagate the species not from some grand intent but as a byproduct of pervasive lust.
Two days before he had smashed the head of a small, furry animal with a lucky rock shot. It had been his first 'blood' food in many days. He had ripped it open, first drinking down the hot blood as it spilled from open places in the fur, then came the soft entrails filled with a variety of textures, smells and tastes. None of those things mattered. All that mattered was getting as much of the furry creature inside of his stomach as possible. Toward the end of his meal he started to feel something akin to satisfaction...a sort of awareness that a need had been resolved for the moment; not unlike his occasional rutting with mostly unwilling females of his species. He was naked. He had no tools or weapons other than sharpened sticks and stones. Fire was a long way in the future. He was the beginning of a species that would one day conquer the world, enslave the planet on which he was evolving and walk on the moon and, too, he would destroy millions of people without hardly trying.
His meal finished, he sucked the last blood from the tattered, inedible skin on which the fur was so tightly fixed, twisted the small ball of skin and fur for the last few, precious drops of juices and, with a grunt, tossed what was left of the small, furry creature into the bushes.
A week passed and he was able to only find a rotting bit of flesh left from some other animals kill; not enough to fill his hunger but enough to make him remember his last blood meal...the tattered bit of skin and fur tossed into the bushes. He didn't yet have a mind that would allow for speculation but deep inside the evolving creature was the beginning of a concept: Hope. Perhaps, caught in that bit of skin and fur was a missed shred of blood food; perhaps, with an even tighter 'twist' a few drops of juice could be extracted; perhaps, in that discarded remnants of a past meal there would be some substance.
The substance that would eventually be wrung from that bit of fur and skin would shape the world.
He was drooling when he finally found the discarded bit of fur and skin. His initial vague hope had become an expectation. He would find some more juice, a bit of flesh, a reward for his memory and search.
The fur had rotted and been eaten, by small creatures evolved to take advantage of such meals, from the skin. All that was left was the skin and it had dried wrapped around several branches of a small bush. He twisted his precious find until it broke loose tightly holding the branches in place. In places it was transparent and he could see the branches and his hand through the skin. It was also very strong and as he tried to chew it the branches imbedded in the twisted, dry rawhide gouged at his nose and eyes. He broke the branches where they protruded from the rawhide but the parts of the branches that were caught 'inside' the twists of dried skin, held fast and couldn't be dislodged. Almost immediately his hope for juice disappeared. There was no blood food value in his handful of skin and branches. He threw the twisted lump to the ground and started to stumble away. One of the larger sticks in the skin stuck him in his ankle as he kicked at it.
Bending over he grunted and groaned as he pawed at the trickle of blood that ran from the small puncture wound. It wasn't his habit to draw his own blood for a meal but should he injure himself and his fluids leak out he would consume all that was made available by the wound. On several occasions, with deep gashes caused by the events of his life, there had been enough juice to give him some relief from his persistent hunger. There was hardly enough here to taste but there was that small trickle. He picked up the skin with the offending stick in it and used it to mop up the trickle of blood. He licked it, running his tongue around the stick and into the folds of the dry skin. The stick stuck him in the roof of his mouth and caused another small wound. He grunted and threw the skin and sticks to the ground. He looked at it for a moment, stooped and picked it up. The skin was holding the sticks together so tightly that he couldn't pry them apart. In his years of struggling to stay alive, naked, cold, afraid, he had never considered being able to 'hold things together'. He sat on the ground and turned the skin and sticks over in his hands. He threw it on the ground and picked it up again. He tried to pull out the sticks. He chewed on it. He tried again to pull out the sticks. He sat there until the night faded into early morning. He looked more closely at the ball of skin and sticks. During the examination and the chewing and the throwing to the ground a small pebble had become caught in a fold of the rawhide where he had chewed it and it had become slightly flexible. During the continued process of holding and looking and chewing the area with the small stone had dried. Now the stone was held firmly in place next to a stick. Dried skin, a stick and a stone had become a single thing. He could throw it into the air or hard on the ground and they all stayed together as a single thing.
Many days later, the small skin and stick and rock object grasped firmly in his fist, now an object of great consideration, of great contemplation in a mind not yet able to contemplate, he began to become aware of 'holding things together'. He sat down and pulled up a length of berry bush vine. It wasn't the time of year when berries might be attached but he knew the vine and had, on many occasions eaten the berries while cautiously avoiding the thorns. He remembered that when the vines didn't have berries the thorns were soft and could be eaten. But that wasn't why he had pulled up the vine. He looked at the foot long piece of berry vine for a long time. After half a day of looking at the vine and at his surroundings he reached over and tore two large leaves from a squat bush. He looked at the leaves for a long time. He laid the leaves on the ground and put the vine on top of the leaves. He looked at it for a long time. He then put his first and only treasure, the twisted piece of skin, branches and rock on the leaves. Again, much time passed. Finally, after many aborted movements and beginnings, he picked up the skin and stick and rock and pressed the end of one of the sticks through the side of a leaf leaving a small hole. Again time passed . Finally he picked up the leaf with the hole in it and the vine. Purposefully he pushed the vine through the hole. Processes were beginning to occur inside his brain that could only be called 'creative'. Finally he picked up the second leaf, quickly punched a hole through it and then, within minutes, wove the vine through the second leaf. He held up his 'creation': Two leaves held on a section of berry vine. "Holding things together" began it's evolutionary progress to clothing (things held together); tools (things held together); constructed shelter (things held together) and, of course, weapons, other than individual sticks and stones (things held together).
With that first twisted hunk of skin, sticks and a stone began all things human.