Fortnightly Writing Competition "PALEOLITHIC" Results

[Baron]

From the dark depths of my paleolithic-wired brain, I bring you something "nasty, brutish, and short" (as Thomas Hobbes referred to the lives of cavemen)...

The Paleolithic Pastiche

Write me something about the dawn of humanity (roughly 2.5 million years ago until twelve thousand years ago).  No agriculture or neolithic tech allowed, unless you have a creative cave person who is an inventor within the technical means of the period (stone wheels, etc.).  I'll make exceptions for unhistorical caveman steampunk (flintpunk?) à la Flintstones, and imaginative interactions with more advanced societies (Atlantis, Space Aliens, Time Travellers, etc.).  But nothing historically accurate past 10 000 BCE!

Deadline is Tuesday June 7, 2022, 23:59 Hawaii Time.

Voting:  It'll be a secret ballot by PM with a set number of votes to alot based on merrit as voters see fit.

Good luck to all participants!

[Mandle]

started on mine

[Mandle]

Their Long War
-----------------

Spoiler

We were once mighty.

We learned mathematics, language, and social science.

We grew large and powerful and our influence over those around us grew.

We spoke great words and committed great deeds.

We surveyed rich lands, ripe for conquest, on all sides and, more often than not, they fell to us.

We grew ever stronger, the lords of our kingdom, and with each new victory we became energized to go on.

We were unstoppable.

We faltered in our tracks.

We saw an equally unstoppable enemy approach and surround us.

We fought against it, but we grew tired.

We grew lazy and that which was once so easy for us became laborious.

We once could have smashed our foe with a wave of the hand we ruled, but it defeated us slowly, and inevitably.

We saw all we had built, wonders of knowledge and science, grow seedy and fall into disrepair.

We watched our towering monuments to intelligence fall one by one like dominoes.

We lost the long war and our enemy claimed our territory to the screams of our dying comrades.

We went back to live in hovels at first, and then back even further to live in caves.

We huddled around the fires we made there while the enemy raged outside in the darkness, until we forgot how to make fire.

We huddled around the fires we made there whil the enemy raged outside in te darkness, unl we fgot ho.

We huddled around the fires we mde there whle the eny.

We hudded around the frs.

We hudded arond teh.

We huded arnd.

We hded.

W hdd.

W.

.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

James Emory awoke with a feeling of resignation to the 3AM call. He already knew what it was about. They had told him the day before yesterday that it was almost over. He picked up the phone without the expected dread he had imagined he would feel and said "Yes? Is it my mother?"
The hospice staff on the other end of the call replied "Yes, she passed peacefully in her sleep about 30 minutes ago. If you like we can send a car so you can come see her before we relocate her to the funeral home."
James said "No, I don't need that. I will go to the funeral home tomorrow morning and make arrangements. Please move her there and thank you for taking care of her."

He hung up the phone.

The braincells that had made his mother everything she was had finally lost the final battle in their long war.

[close]

[Sinitrena]

I completely forgot!
No idea if I'll be able to think of anything in the next three days and write it.
So... A bit more time?

[Stupot]

I’m working on something but I need a redraft and an ending. I think I’m okay for the deadline, but an extension wouldn’t hurt if you happened to grant one for Sini.

Having said that above, I found myself with a bit of time to finish my story today. Enjoy...

The Stranger’s Song

The sun had risen and set five times since the boy had gone missing. The men of the tribe had all but given up searching when the boy’s father spotted movement in the tall grass and signalled for the others to follow him.

There the boy lay, barely alive and clutching a stone head, carved from a large rock. The top of the head was partially hollow and a pool of water had collected inside it from the rains of the previous days.

The men carried the boy back to their camp and fed him fruits and nuts and allowed him rest. No one questioned where the stone head had come from, but it had kept the boy alive by giving him water. It was passed around and kissed by all the men and women of the tribe. The Elder of the tribe ceremoniously wrapped the head in reeds and took it to his shelter to keep it safe.

A few more suns came and went, and one late afternoon, the boy who was saved by the stone head emerged from his shelter. The camp was abuzz with activity. The men were sharpening stones and chewing lion skins for wearing, while mothers suckled their young. The boy had recovered well and joined some of the other children, who were frolicking in the grass. At one point, he stopped and looked around and caught the eyes of the older tribesfolk watching him. They smiled and pointed, happy to see him happy. He smiled back and continued playing.

After a while, he became aware that a silence had fallen over the camp. The younger children sensed the change in the others and returned to their mothers. The boy and his older friends joined the men. 

A figure was approaching their camp - a sole traveller, not known to the tribe. It was rare to be approached by an individual without his own tribe, so they were wary. They held their sharpened stones and encircled the man. He put up no fight.

He was a good deal taller than any of them, and the hairs on his body were spread much more thinly. His face was different too, yet he was clearly one of them. The Elder moved close to the tall man and looked him up and down sniffing the air around him. The Elder pointed at something the man was holding. He lifted up some berries and grinned a toothless grin. This seemed to satisfy the Elder, who smiled back at him as the others lay down their stones and welcomed the man, and his fruit, into their fold.

Evening soon fell and the tribesfolk, full of sweet berries, began to turn in for the night. The Elder stood and moved toward his shelter, and more followed suit. One of the women removed her loincloth and presented herself to the stranger. He accepted gladly and took advantage of her offer over a large rock. However, the boy noticed that the man’s eyes were not focused on the woman. His gaze was following the Elder, as he slipped underneath his shelter for the night. When he and the woman were finished, the man sat down again as the woman returned to her own shelter and slept.

The boy, returned to his shelter, too, but was unable to sleep.

The night silence was broken by the sound of tapping. Stone against stone. Tap-tap tap, tap-tap tap. One by one, the tribesfolk came outside to see what was going on. The stranger was tapping the stone, without any obvious purpose, yet the repetition of the sound roused their curiosity. He gave the stone to the young woman he had earlier mated with, and gestured for her to copy the pattern. Tap-tap tap. Then he picked up another, lighter stone, and hit it against another rock, only this time it was a different pattern. Tatatata-tap, tatatata-tap. He gestured for the young boy to take over, which he did, dutifully. Other members came forward, some picked up stones in anticipation and waited for instructions. Tap tatap, tap tatap. Tap tata tap tap. After a few minutes, most of the tribesfolk were tapping their designated beat. Those who weren’t tapping had closed their eyes, enjoying the beautiful stone symphony before them. They had never heard anything like it.

Then, the stranger, pulled something out from around his neck. It was a piece of bone, except, it had holes in it. He put it to his lips and blew. The sounds that came out of this bone were mesmeric and, together with the tapping of the stones, produced a magic that can only have come from some other world. The rhythm continued for what seemed like an eternity, but nobody wanted to stop playing their part, lest the spell be broken. The smiling tribesfolk gradually fell into a state of hypnotic euphoria. All of them, men women and children were so entranced by the music that they did not see the movement around their settlement.

It was the little boy who noticed first. A flash of something from the nearby trees. But as he called out, it was already raining rocks. Stones, some sharpened, some dull, all heavy, were being thrown into the camp. The music stopped and the boy noticed the stranger lunging toward the Elder. His magical sound-bone had a sharpened tip, and he used it to slash the Elder’s neck. Blood gushed down the Elder’s chest and shoulders and the tribespeople screamed as they were besieged by the hail of rocks coming at them from the darkness.

Some men and women, still holding their tapping stones, began to throw them wildly in all directions, but the moon had already set and it was too dark to see their assailants. A mother’s head was struck and she fell to the floor, the children ran to their shelters, shielded by their mothers and fathers, who took the hits. Rocks kept hurling in from all angles. The men could do nothing to fight back and the shelters, meant only to keep the rain off, collapsed under the force of the projectiles.

The boy was suddenly struck by a feeling of horror. He knew what was happening, and it was his fault. Dodging rocks from all angles he darted directly towards the Elder’s shelter, and found the reed-package. He went back outside and tried to locate the tall man, but it was too dark to see. And then he saw a flash of white and fell to the floor.

When he came around, the rocks had stopped falling. The first thing he heard was his own groaning, then he became aware of the groans coming from around the camp. This was good. It meant that most of them were still alive.

Then he became aware of a terrible pain in his head. He reached up and touched it. It was not good. Beneath the hair, it was clear his skull was dented, much like the stone head he had found the other day. Suddenly he became conscious that he no longer had the package. He should never have taken that stone. He knew that now.

The boy stood up. His head would be okay, but he feared the same could not be said for some of the others. Day was beginning to break. The tall man and the attackers were gone. The tribespeople were in a state of shock. There were writhing bodies everywhere. And a few not writhing.

A lucky few, mostly kids, had not been badly harmed. but they had been deeply traumatised.

The boy’s father was the first to notice the dent in his head. He kissed it. And soon the other tribesfolk were lining up to kiss his head. For it was he who had saved their lives by realising the attackers only wanted the cursed stone back. They did not know that the boy had caused the attack by stealing the head in the first place.

He would never be able to tell them that. But he would be the one to lead their revenge. The tall man and his men had left a trail. The tribe would carve their own idol, they would make sharper weapons, stronger shelters and more powerful music, and they would follow that trail until they had avenged their Elder and the lost ones.

[Baron]

Sweet, two stories already!   

I completely forgot!

So... A bit more time?

For sure, Sini!  Truth be told I'm just getting over my covid isolation, so I expect catching up with everything I missed at work to be hellish over the next couple of days.  Let's bridge to the weekend!

New Deadline:  Saturday June 11, 2022

[Mandle]

I'm just getting over my covid isolation

Aw, damn, man... hope you are getting better. I shall pray to my God for you. He's a little fellow that lives in a knothole in my garden fence and looks like a cross between Ernest Borgnine and Cthulhu but is actually quite the conversationist. He might not be quite as powerful as the Christian God but at least he smells a lot worse.

[Baron]

He might not be quite as powerful as the Christian God but at least he smells a lot worse.

I am officially appropriating your god as my god as well.  In 1000 years this date will be known in missionary circles as the day Borgninity really started to take off. 

[Mandle]

He might not be quite as powerful as the Christian God but at least he smells a lot worse.

I am officially appropriating your god as my god as well.  In 1000 years this date will be known in missionary circles as the day Borgninity really started to take off. 

HAHAHAHAHA!!!

[Mandle]

I actually got about halfway through a story about the real era, just to head off the obvious criticism of my story, but it just got too brutal and depressing and I couldn't finish it.

[Sinitrena]

Thanks for the extension. I hope my story was worth the wait:

The Legend of Hchn

The legend is seen on a cave wall now.
Drawn with berries and blood and edged with stone.

Hchn cowered behind a large rock like all the hunters in his party. They had already decided on their pray. A young mammoth had strayed from the herd, grazing further and further away from the others. While still young, it had nearly reached its full height and its long and rounded tusks stood high into the air when the animal looked up from the ground.

Hchn bounced one of the stones he would throw at the animal from one hand to the other and back again. It was heavy and nearly round. It flew well. Hchn had tested it again and again and he was ready now.

Last time, he wasn’t, he admitted so freely, but now, now he certainly was.

He pulled back his shoulders and pressed his breast forward to practice for the victory roar he would certainly use today. But in that moment, the stone slipped from his hands and clattered onto the rock under his feet.

The mammoth looked up. It turned its head towards the sound, it sniffed the air and then it stepped towards Hchn’s hiding place.

Hchn looked towards the animal. Not yet fully grown, it was still nearly twice as big as Hchn and its tusks looked sharp and…

...and Hchn really did not want to find out how sharp they actually were. Unlike other hunters, he did not have a tusk of his own yet, had not won one yet and did not deserve one yet.

The long furry trunk of the mammoth brushed over the rock Hchn hid behind.

Before he could even really think about it, Hchn scrambled to his feet and ran.

Of how the hunters hunted the mammoth:
Small, the hunters stand before the mammoth.
Angered, the mammoth turns around.
Skilled, the hunters fight.

Not far from the grazing place of the mammoths, a river flowed through a canyon. It wasn’t too deep and the sides weren’t too steep, at least further up from the river, but Hchn looked back over his shoulder if the mammoth followed him.

The next thing he knew, a rock slipped under his feet and he tumbled down through the undergrowth. Sharp stones and thorns ripped his skin.

He slithered into the abyss and then closer and closer towards the edge of the ravine, where it suddenly turned into an overhang a few meters over the river. Hchn grabbed for a root or a rock or a trunk or anything as he slithered further and further down. He caught something, grabbed something in his sweaty hands and slowed his fall.

For a moment, the world stood still. Then the root started to slide towards him. He grabbed for the next thing and the next and more and more stones came loose and Hchn couldn’t find his footing.

And then there was nothing to grab onto anymore. Above him was nothing and under him neither and then the darkness of the river engulfed him.

Of how the hunter hunted the hunters:
Silent, the tiger prowls in the night.
Alert, one hunter turns to the beast.
Fast, he runs and it follows.

For a moment, there was silence. Not even the stream rushed past his ears.

It was enough to allow him to fight against the pressure of the water and come back up towards its surface, kicking his legs and spluttering.

Just as Hchn found his bearing again, stone after stone pattered all around him and mud and earth slid over the edge.

Hchn jumped to the side, just as a heavy lump splashed into the water which began to back up and swell.

The lump shrieked with a fierce growl.

Hchn scrambled backwards and fell on his ass. Protected at least slightly by the rest of the overhang from the falling debris, he grabbed for a stick to fight off the big cat that was suddenly right in front of him.

It struggle against the floods and the avalanche of rocks and mud coming from above.

Of how one hunter hunted the tiger:
Stealthily, the hunter waits for the tiger.
Angry, the beast growls in the night.
Courageous, the hunter slashes the tiger.

The saber-toothed tiger tried to jump out of the way of the landslide but its leg was caught somewhere underneath the surface of the water. Its flecked fur bristled and it hissed at the hunter and the falling stones and the world in general but it couldn’t get loose.

More and more rocks came flying down, some hitting the cat in its shoulder, and then, just as suddenly as the landslide had started, it stopped again. Only one or two smaller stones still dropped into the river and then there was silence once more.

For a moment, even the cat stayed still. Not moving and not hissing or growling, it looked rather confused and even harmless.

Hchn scrambled back onto his feet, slipping in the wet and churned river bed a couple of times. He moved slowly backwards from the enraged saber-toothed tiger, surly expecting it to jump and drill its long sharp teeth into his defenseless skin. The cat had certainly noticed him and with no other source of its misfortune, it growled at him.

A moment later, it bowed its hind legs and jumped, but again its legs were caught. The cat lost its footing and stumbled into the brewing water. Its snout splashed into the river, the long teeth connecting with a sharp rock. The tiger howled in pain then it shook its head. Dizzy now, it only lost more of its footing.

Slowly, Hchn edged closer to the beast.

This would be the perfect pray. What hunter could say that he slayed one of these tigers with its long sharp teeth and vicious mind?

Hchn bent down and picked up a sharp rock from the stream. The cat snapped at him, bit the air in front of its jaw but it did not get free and Hchn hit the cat over its head again and again and again.

Of how the hunter returned to the tribe:
Proud, the hunter presents the pray.
Happy, they embrace his success.
Honored, one hunter stands alone.

He had the saber-toothed tiger on his back as he walked back towards the cave and his tribe.

No mammoth meat roasted over the fire and no hunters greeted Hchn with any enthusiasm.

“You ran!” they accused him instead, “you ran from a mammoth, you ran from the hunt!”

Hchn let the dead tiger slid to the ground in front of the other hunters. “This tiger,” he said, pointing at the big cat, “prowled around the herd and stalked you all. You didn’t notice it, but I did. I lured it away. I, alone, faced it in battle. And I, alone, slew it.”

The legend ends there on the cave wall in the mountains.
No other pictures were drawn there with stone and berries and blood.

[Baron]

What the-?!?  Right justified text?!?  Sinitrena, you take things too far!   

All joking aside, we have - after aeons of human evolution - at long last reached the deadline for this contest.  Some of you may have since evolved extra mini thumbs to improve typing on a phone screen, or secondary sideways-blinking blue-light-filtering eye-lids to improve your prospects on dating apps.  But spare a moment to think of the poor palaeolithic grunts who also saw their world changing around them ...ever ...so ...slowly.  It must have been fear-inducing for them, too, the novelties of modern existence.  Fires burning everywhere!  Former predators trying to hump your leg!  The wife nagging you ever since the invention of oral language - these stressors simply did not exist a few years ago!  So the next time a drone delivers you a package or your refrigerator starts laughing at you, stop for a moment and think about how profound that moment is, when human lifestyles change forever.

But don't do that right now, because we've got some serious work ahead of us.  Anyone reading these words right now should feel a moral obligation (invented 3000 years ago) to read (invented 4000 years ago) the stories (invented 1.5 million years ago) that have been lovingly written for this contest (invented two weeks ago last Tuesday).  You must then vote (invented 2600 years ago) without bashing anyone over the head (invented 3.1 million years ago) and try to give constructive feedback (invented in 1972) to our dedicated authors (conceived at various points throughout the late 20th century).  Our entrants, for those of you who have inherited the too-lazy-to-scroll-up gene (mutation dating to the early medieval period), are:

Mandle with Their Long War
Stupot with The Stranger's Song
Sinitrena with The Legend of Hchn

Voting is by PM to moi (I can't find the code to hyperlink anymore so you'll have to figure that out).  You have 6 votes to distribute amongst all three competitors based on whatever criteria you see fit: 3 votes for the best story, 2 for the second best, and 1 for the... er, third best.  If you think there is a tie well tough beans!  This is a Darwinian battle for survival, and someone has to have a written adaptation that makes them marginally more fit for success in this contest environment.  Honestly you can just do rock-paper-scissors, at least after paper and scissors are invented - just make a decision already!   If your decisions cancel each other out and result in a tie then the esteemed and highly-evolved contest administrator will have final arbitration powers to decide on winners.   

Oh yeah, voting deadline is Wednesday June 15 at midnight Hawaii time, with results to be announced the next day.  Those stories are so short that a modern human could probably read through them all in about 20 minutes, so I'm giving you lot three and a half days to make sure you have enough time.   

Good luck to all participants!  And happy reading!   

[Sinitrena]

What the-?!?  Right justified text?!?  Sinitrena, you take things too far!   

I'm a rebel at heart... 


Comments:

Mandle:

Spoiler

Obvious criticism asside (this story does not fit the topic) this story did not go where I expected it to go. Due to the use of "we" instead of "I", I did not expect this story to be about a mind slowly loosing its capacity. Thinking of the topic, I read it as a lost civilization, so the ending was surprising. I don't think the things the "we" thinks about really fit with what is actually going on - they are too general, too large-scale; to have a stronger impact, something more personal would work better, I think. Re-reading, I think the "we" refers to the brain-cells, not so much the person these cells belong to, but if this was the intention, it could be clearer. Either way, a sad story with a sad ending.

[close]

Stupot:

Spoiler

Good story that left me with a few questions: Why was the boy missing and for how long? Apparently, his tribe doesn't know about the other tribe but they are close enough together for the boy to steal from them? Did he just walk into their camp to steal or was this random? In short, I don't think the actions of the boy are explained enough. I did like how the stranger used music to hide the other members of his tribe sneak up to the boy's tribe. This was a well-written, powerful scene. I would have liked a more positive ending, but I guess that wouldn't have fit the story. Still, good story.

[close]

Sending my votes now.

Actually, on second thought, I'm not sending in my votes, because I'm honestly not sure if I understand Baron's voting system correctly (maybe I'm just tired...)

Am I supposed to distribute 6 votes to the 2 stories I can vote for?
Or am I supposed to choose a 1st and 2nd place, therefore, because I only have to choose between two stories, only allocating 5 votes?

[Baron]

Whoa... now I'm confused too! 

Since this is a theme based on the palaeolithic era, I would say go with your gut instinct.   

[Sinitrena]

That's... not very helpful.

But fine. For fairness' sake, I'll tell you that I give out 6 points.

[Stupot]

I went with the 3,2,1 format and gave myself the 1.

[Sinitrena]

I didn't. I gave all 6 points to my opponents.

[Mandle]

I voted for Best, Second Best, and Worst and left it up to Baron to go with his gut and assign my points as he sees fit.

[Baron]

It is true, the voting system would have worked better for people who weren't also participants (although it is pure conjecture that such people actually exist....). 

Nevertheless the votes are in and we have a winner!  But first, some quick feedback:

@Mandle:  Well, you at least mentioned caveman things, so....     Apart from the deviance from the theme, the story was cryptic and required reading right to the last line to really get.  On rereading, I also assumed "we" meant brain cells, which makes sense in the context of learning mathematics, language, and social studies.  But it makes a bit less sense in the context of once being able to smash the foe with a wave of a hand (assuming the foe is a degenerative disease such as Alzheimers?), and it makes not a lick of sense in terms of going back to live in caves without fire.  The declining spelling and sense towards the end of the first-person part of the story suggest this might be the deteriorating brain cells misinterpreting what was actually going on, but it's a bit of a muddle that detracts from the power of the reveal at the end.

@ Stupot:  This was a much better caveman story, with good old-fashioned promiscuous mating and head-smashing.      The use of music and berries as a Trojan Horse was clever, although strategically unwise.  Clearly people of that time were suspicious of strangers and could just have easily murdered the musician as accepted him - why not just surround the place and attack in the night, without resort to the "inside man" ploy?  The hollow stone head was also confusing: if the taller tribe could carve stone, why couldn't they attack with better weapons?  Or if their attack was just to send a message rather than destroy the other tribe, why slash the elder's throat?  I like how you accurately represented inter-tribal warfare as a limited scale enterprise with little foresight of how it might provoke future revenge attacks, but it makes for frustrating reading with the benefit of hindsight.  However, I think you did well to capture the zeitgeist of the times.

@Sinitrena:  Hchn's comedy of errors that ended up working in his favour was an exciting read, and I liked how you juxtaposed what actually happened to the drawings on a cave wall.  Were their specific paintings that served as your inspiration?  It would have been lovely if a picture had accompanied your text.  As for the story itself the only logical flaw I can see is the lugging of the sabre-tooth's carcass up the canyon and back to camp - those things weighed in at 160 - 280kg (350-620 pounds)!  Getting close enough to bash the thing on the head with a sharpened rock would also have been problematic - the claws on its outstretched forelimbs would have made a formidable barrier - but I suppose a skilled and daring hunter might have managed it.

And now to the voting tallies.  I apologise for the confusion in the voting system, but in the end each person voted with their gut and that's what we're going with.

In third place, with 5 votes, we have Mandle - may the slope on your forehead never diminish. 

In second place, with 6 votes, we have Sinitrena - may you ever have good fortune on the hunt.   

In first place, with 7 votes, we have Stupot - may your flint never go dull!   

And so it falls to Stupot to set up the next competition.  Congratulations!   Not to detract from your victory, but it is true that had Sinitrena followed the voting protocol as stipulated the result would have been reversed.  However, she felt strongly that your story deserved the extra vote (which you can figure out by mathematically reverse engineering the public totals if you really cared to, so I don't feel as if I am violating secret ballot voter-administrator privilege  ).  I concur that your story probably deserved a slight edge, so I see no reason to meddle with how things played out.   

Hope to see you all out again next time!

[Stupot]

Thanks Baron. It was an interesting topic and gave me a lot to think about.

I would, however, feel a little cheeky accepting that win. Points aside, Mandle and I both voted Sinitrena’s as best, so I think she deserves the accolades and to choose the next theme.

Over to you, ‘Trena.