The Bloodstained Stone
A meditation on human development
The hunter paused. The animals’ head was up, it was looking around. They hadn’t been quiet enough. They could catch these, if they came close enough before charging, or managed to surround it. But once it started to run, it could quickly outpace them. But this one was alerted, it could start to run at any moment. They would lose it. Another day without meat. Almost all the roots and berries had been used up, the nuts were not ready. The tribe would need to move on soon, but they couldn’t go far on empty bellies.
He had picked up a stone earlier, with some notion of using it to end the preys’ struggle more quickly. He had seen the big black birds use stones to crack open the eggs of the great walking birds and thought that by dropping this one on the preys’ head he might kill it quicker than by twisting its neck, which took a long time even for the strongest hunter and made too much noise.
Whether it was rage or inspiration that made him act, he could not have said. His simple language couldn’t formulate such concepts easily. But he cocked his arm, then threw the stone with all the force he could muster. Again, whether it was luck or conscious aim, or both, he could not have said, but the stone flew fast and true and struck the animal on the head. Its legs gave way and it fell.
