The Rest of the Stones
FICTION
Let us go back hundreds of thousands of years. Imagine you are a child in a tribe of our earliest ancestors who dwell in a dense green forest, where the birds sing as long as the sun is high.
You are focused on the greenish glassy skin of Creeky, the tiny frog in your palm.
A wild boar is charging straight towards you from a distance.
You are unaware and still scratching Creeky’s head with your finger as he closes his eyes slowly.
Five hundred steps away. A moving thunder. The boar has locked you in its sights. Aligned in a straight line behind you.
Creeky lies upside down in your palm with eyes still closed. He curls back to his position as he feels a tremor in the air. His eyes grow wide and shaky. He knows the family tale of the grandfather who relaxed in the hot spring a little too long. But he decides to stay in your warm hand for a few heartbeats more.
As you are giggling, you hear heavy thuds through a low, rhythmic huffing and turn back.
You see only a ball of dried leaves with a lowered head and your mind is still trying to catch up with your eyes.
A hundred steps away now. At the boar’s speed and size, the tiny you and Creeky will be airborne in a heartbeat.
One of the aunts sees the beast approaching the child. She snatches a stone and throws it casually. The boar dies.
Waves of loud voices carry the surprise. The boar was supposed to run away. Instead, it died. The entire tribe gathers around to see.
The stone the aunt snatched from the earth has a peculiar shape. It is long and thin with an edge like the tip of a leaf. It pierced deep into the boar’s dense skin.
People make way for the head of the tribe to get to the scene. The echoes of the shock still haven’t settled. She stares for a few moments. Then she removes the sharp stone from the boar’s body, wet in thick-red. She places the stone close to her heart lets out a piercing cry of wonder and begins to ululate.
Everyone lifts their head towards the sky and the birds from nearby trees join in the chorus. A life-changing event has occurred.
The God Stone is found.
It is not a tool to be used lightly. It is placed at the heart of the dwelling and taken out only when the hunger is deep. Then, they find another God Stone. And another.
The tribe starts a new ritual every season to hunt for every God Stone that the gods had placed for them. Through grueling searches in distant lands and across the riverbeds they gather a small treasury. It is an arsenal that reshapes their entire existence. God Stones provide food, save lives and lift the spirit of the whole tribe.
Our tribe—yes, I was playing on your right side—has continued this ritual for many many seasons, taking us in to the phase of abundance.
The Tale of Buggy
The God Stone treasury has grown huge.
It is the sunny season. The teenagers are being trained for hunting in the open land near the twin mountains. A group of them is lined up on one end facing a row of big reddish fruits placed a hundred steps away. Each one holds a God Stone. Their eyes are locked on the target.
The instructor walks slowly with their hands folded behind their back, inspecting the position of each trainee’s legs and the grip on their God Stone. Feet are trembling. Bodies are sweating. Still, their eyes are frozen, like stones.
The instructor moves to the side, clearing the line of sight and raises their chest. A deep breath. A moment of silence. Then a heavy shout. The instructor gives the command to throw.
A few seconds later, the instructor starts crying. They collapse screaming, with blood dripping from a toe. Total chaos ensues. Line breaks. All teens rush toward the instructor. But one is running the other way into the trees.
And that is Buggy. The lazy bugger.
No. He is not malicious. He genuinely aimed for the target fruit a hundred steps away. Somehow the stone hits the instructor’s foot five steps away, on the side.
The training period has no final test or mark of completion. It is a phase all teens must endure. Then they are pushed into the wild alone to hunt for two sunrises. Whoever returns on the third sunrise is ready to join the hunting team, ready for more life.
Nature is the arbiter. It clears out the unskilled.
The legend among the children is that God takes the missing ones to give them special training.
The words “survival of the fittest” triggers the specific visual of fittest offspring in our minds. The three out of ten. Buggy belongs to the other seven. He is tall and looks more majestic than the other kids. That is always frowned upon. It makes Buggy the target of bullies. The prevailing wisdom is that to be an agile hunter you should be short, swift, and compact. Buggy’s clumsy stumbles on the training ground seem to prove the tribe right.
After the training phase, before sending teens into the wild alone, there is a celebratory ritual for seven days. During this time the teens are treated to all their favorite foods and games. Buggy gets a little rounder within a few days and has a lot of fun. The entire tribe is full of smiles and joy.
Buggy’s mother wears a blank face throughout. Every night and morning she kisses Buggy and holds him tight for a long time.
She still sees shadows of her loving brother.
He entered the wild for his trial when she was young herself. The whole tribe served him his favorite food at the festival. He was the only one who got that privilege. Then he left. Her brother did not return on the third sunrise.
She did not cry. Not at all. She was carried away by the momentum of life.
Many seasons later, she tripped over the shiny blue stone her brother had brought for her back from his long walk. She sat on the wet clay, held the stone tight and cried until her eyes went dry.
The festival comes to an end.
It is time for the teens to start their life test. Every parent helps their young one prepare the small bundle they are allowed to carry along with their God Stone.
The sky grows darker. Each teen is blindfolded with thick leaves. The moment the sun goes down they must leave.
Buggy can’t see anything. His hands are trembling. Buggy’s father sees his mother hugging him. He wraps his arms around them both.
The sun goes down.
Slowly the teens prepare to move with the natural delay. Each one is paired with their guide who will drop them in their spot and return. But then there is more delay.
The head of the tribe is still closing her talk with the council. Finally she breaks away. She strides toward Buggy’s parents to whisper something.
Floods of tears break open from the mother’s eyes. She is smiling and shaking her head at the same time forgetting even to wipe her tears.
The blindfold of Buggy is loosened and he himself helps pull it away.
Buggy is exempted from the wild forest test. The tribe needs him for a different task.
The tribe council has been discussing this for almost three sunny seasons.
There is a horde of giant human-like apes stealing God Stones. They are three times taller, but are not clever. They come in massive packs with a roar of noise. They risk lives to break into the treasury. Once inside they take a single stone and leave. And come back another time.
The council decided. They need someone to tackle the giants.
Buggy is expected to wake up in the mornings and walk to the God Stone treasury. He must position himself forty steps away from the treasury gate. And sleep.
Yes.
The apes are scared of humans. While they shred scare-ape decoys made of leaves they do not dare come near a real human. Not even a sleeping one.
Buggy’s life changes overnight. People start wishing him a good sun as he walks his path to the treasury every morning.
His mother tells visiting aunts that her son works as the Commander of the Tribe’s Treasury Watch Guards. Buggy takes his job seriously. He sleeps throughout the day with dedication.
But after a few days the routine begins to weigh on him. He sits still. He hear the apes at times, but never sees. He stands staring at the sky and remains absorbed for a long movement of the sun. This is something he has loved since childhood.
A rhythm of marching footsteps approaches him.
It is the hunting team of his tribe marching toward the riverbeds to find more God Stones. They pass by Buggy who is standing like a frozen penguin. Some people laugh joking that the tall bugger has not changed. Some of Buggy’s friends wave. He does not respond.
He remains in the same position as his shadow moves a good distance. Then he suddenly starts running, toward the mountain top.
He runs to a familiar ridge and searches. He picks up a few stones and discards them. Then he finds one with the color of a dark cloud. There is nothing special about its shape.
He starts grinding it against a rough patch of the mountain. Again and again he rotates it in different directions. Slowly the stone starts getting sharper.
The hunting team returns empty-handed for the fourth day in a row. Their spirits are low. The God Stone treasury has been stagnant for two seasons.
As they approach the treasury gate, their world tilts forever.
Buggy is sleeping like a baby, clutching three identical God Stones to his chest. Each one is more symmetrical, more sharp, and more powerful than any God Stone the tribe had ever seen.
— sAb
(RECORD 004)
Thanks to my sister Manickathai Muthiah for her indispensable notes on my draft.