“Gaia called to me from where the women from one family group were gathered around their cooking fire. ‘Look here,’ Gaia instructed. ‘See how this woman removes the small hot stones from a stack of them in the edge of the coals of the fire with two wooden spoons, and carefully places them inside one end of that long cooking bowl? She does that because they make the water inside of it hot. Then she removes the stones from the other end, that have already given up their heat to the water, and replaces them with freshly heated ones. If she repeats that process quickly, she can cause the water to boil. If she does it more slowly, like this, she just makes the water simmer. She has learned to control how hot the water inside the cooking bowl gets. Understand?’
‘Yes, I do.’
“The long cooking bowl resembled what your mind would recognize as a small dug-out canoe, made from a log about as long as my leg. It fascinated me.
‘Keeping the water simmering will kill that which makes the food in it spoil. It will also soften any food cooked in it. The water will draw more fat and minerals out of any bones that are broken and placed in it. Your people have never benefited from the bones of an animal. They have always just thrown them away. Cooking roots, leaves, stems and meat together combines the tastes, and captures all of the fats that would otherwise drip into the fire. Your people could add meat and bones from the salt pile, and roots that you can pile up up in the cool damp cave, where the water is. These women keep this long pot cooking continuously. They add more water, meat and roots every time they take some out for their family to eat.’
“The idea was so simple, I had no idea why my people had never thought of it before. ‘Can they cook fish and eggs this way too?’ I asked.
‘Yes, of course. Care must be taken with fish though, as the bones will fall all apart in the water, and be hard to find. Look around the camp. Perhaps someone is cooking fish now. If they are, watch how they do it. Just remember not to touch, or be touched by anyone here.’
“I wandered around these people’s camp, watching everything they did, and noticing how differently they dressed than we did. They seemed to know more things than we did. Instead of feeling bad about that, I felt grateful to Gaia for bringing me here to see it, so I could teach my people.
“I watched carefully how they ate out of bowls made from wood, with spoons made from wood also. I could easily understand how to make these spoons with just a blade and a piece of tree branch. Making the bowls, seemed like more of a task. Then, I noticed some elder men of one family group gathered around a small fire, well away from the cooking fire. They had pieces of wood from a tree, about the thickness of one of my legs, that had been allowed to dry. The pieces were about as long as they were wide. Each man was making a bowl. He would take a red hot coal from the fire with a spoon and quickly place it where the hollow was to be made to form the rounded inside of the bowl. They talked to one another as they waited for the hot coal to burn the wood for a bit, then they dumped it back into the fire. After the bowl cooled for a minute, they used a blade shaped differently than I had seen before to scrape away the charred wood. Gaia called it an adze. That made easy work of making and enlarging a hole. This was a good job, easy enough for men too old to hunt any more, and they would enjoy doing it! It was common for the elder men of our tribe to feel bad about having nothing of value to do. Making bowls and tools might make them feel better.
“I studied their placement of the hot coal on the wood. I watched closely how they tipped the future bowl to keep the coal right where they wanted the burning to take place. It made sense to me. What amazed me most though, was the adze. It was nothing more than a flint blade placed into a Y shaped fork of a thick tree branch that had been carved and then split, to nest the handle part tightly. The pointed end stuck out, much like the bend in a person’s elbow. It was tied securely in place with wide straps of wet rawhide, that further tightened when they dried. I had just discovered my first tool that combined stone and wood! This tool made a very difficult task easy. That concept stuck in my head for future reference.
‘Very good observation Na. You are a step in the right direction!’ Gaia’s voice said in my head, playfully.
“When a man was satisfied with the shape, size, and thickness of his bowl, he sprinkled some sand inside it and rubbed it around for a long time with a small piece of rawhide. That smoothed the surface of the bowl, and got rid of all of the burned wood. It was the stone age version of your sand paper.
“Big, deep spoons that you now call ladles, were formed the same way. Shallow, mouth-sized spoons were simply carved with the same very sharp, rounded adze blade. Tools customized for specific purposes interested me more than the cooking of the food itself did. I would later invent many, many more such tools for my people.
“I watched as one family group ate the stew from their bowls, sitting comfortably about, and talking as they did. Once finished, they took their bowls and spoons away from the eating area and scraped them out. Then they sprinkled sand in or on them and rubbed them with a piece of rawhide, like the bowl makers did. I understood that it was their way of cleaning the eating tools.
“Late in the day, the hunters all arrived back to the camp, and the level of activity increased significantly. I followed people around camp, even to inside their tents, just watching what they did. It was not much different than what my people do. I followed one young couple right inside their tent, to see what it looked like. Right away, they embraced, and very soon were naked upon their sleeping skins. I felt embarrassed for being there, but I couldn’t make myself leave. Instead, I crept very near to them, to watch. I was close enough to reach out my hand and touch either of them, but remembering what Gaia had said, I was careful not to. I could smell their bodies, making me more aware of what Gaia had said to me about cleanliness. I could feel their heat, and hear their grunts, whimpers, and the other sounds of their sex. It excited me tremendously to be there.
‘I see that you enjoy this watching without being seen,’ Gaia whispered in my ear with a husky voice, as she put her arm around my chest from just behind me. She lowered her hand to find my loincloth poking out in the front. She giggled in my ear, ‘Time to go now,’ and took my hand in hers.
“In the next instant, we were standing in front of the winter cave again. I felt embarrassed at having been caught watching. ‘Don’t be,’ she said out loud, standing naked beside my sleeping skins. That night she bit me repeatedly. Every time was the same as the first. I had no control over my body. She did, and I loved it!”
CHAPTER 5: NICHOLAS
“In the morning, as we lay naked beneath the skins, waking up and talking, I asked her about that. ‘Why is it that when you bite me and suck out my blood, that my seed flies from my body like no other time, ever? And why do you do that?’
‘Do you not like that?’ she asked, teasingly.
‘Oh yes! But I have not heard of that before. What is the reason for it?’
‘Remember when I told you that the grass has more purposes than just being there for the animals to eat, Na?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that I have more purposes for human animals too, than just being here? When a god does certain things, like transporting you that great distance instantly, it hungers a part of our body that cannot be fed with food. That part hungers for the blood of an animal. My favorite kind of blood, and the one that quenches my body’s hunger the best, is human blood. That was my main reason for breeding humans into existence, and my only reason for constantly improving them. One step in the right direction at a time.’
‘A god? Does that mean that there are more like you?’
‘Well, in a way. I have children, but they are less powerful than I. They call themselves the lesser gods because of it.’
‘Will I get to meet them too?’
‘Perhaps one day you will, Na.’
‘I have another question. When our hunters spear an animal and it spills its blood, it dies. Why do I not die when you suck out my
blood?’
‘Because I am careful not to take too much at one time. Your body makes more blood constantly, as you eat and drink, but it takes blood to make blood. When I have what I desire from you, I seal the wound shut by licking it over and over. My saliva does the actual healing. The water in my mouth.
‘It takes great determination not to suck out every drop of your blood, each time that I do it. The greedy part of me wants to take it all. I get tremendous pleasure of my own as the life force of an animal leaves its body and enters my mouth. But then the animal is no more. I wish to keep you alive!’
‘And my seed flying from my body with such great pleasure?’
“She giggled again. ‘Your entire body is controlled by tiny electrical impulses. I simply replace the sensation of the pain of the bite, sent to your brain through your nervous system, with the one that creates the ultimate pleasure for you. That makes you look forward to being bitten again, instead of fearing it. I will teach you about that one day as well. When our bodies are united as one, by me biting you, by you being inside of me with your member, or even me being inside your mind, I can control your body. Observe.’
“The blueness of her eyes changed slightly as she stared into mine. I could feel her presence in my mind again, like I used to. My left hand reached up and covered my mouth, and I screamed like a girl as loud as I could, but I didn’t do any of it!
‘Gaia! Please…’
“She laughed again. ‘What else would you have me do, to prove it to you?’
‘Nothing! I believe you! But how can you know all of this? What do these words even mean? Impulses? Brain? Nervous system? What are they?’
‘In enough time, one can learn everything there is to know Na. It just takes time.’
‘You have lived for a long time already. How long will you live?’
‘Forever. I cannot die. I am immortal. That is the word for it.’
‘I wish I was immortal,’ I blurted out.
‘I could make that happen, Na. Be faithful to me in all ways, and I may just grant you immortality! Just as learning these things does, that too takes time. I will explain it to you one day.’
“Well, my mind was instantly made up. Whatever I had to do to be like Gaia, I would gladly do it. Anything. My hunger for learning and seeing more became all consuming. ‘And what if you did not drink blood after doing these wonders, when your body hungered for it, would you die?’
‘No. I told you, I cannot die, but I would eventually lose the ability to do these wonders, as you call them. Why would I risk that? I would not. Ever.’
“Those words have stuck in my mind for 50 millennia now. I would never risk that either now. Ever. Immortality as a weakling again is simply unthinkable. Even on my worst days, and trust me when I say that I have them, would I ever consider that. Not even if it caused the extinction of a species.
‘Can you show me how you fly today?’ I asked.
‘Yes. I have to leave for a while. When I come back, we can do that. You should scrape the dry salt layer off of the bear hide while I am gone,’ she said, and then she was gone.
“I’d almost forgotten the bear hide in my excitement of everything else going on since salting it. I was grateful that she reminded me about it. That hide would prove to be a very valuable possession to me. Left too long, a hide would rot, and become unusable.
“It occurred to me to make a tool to make the job easier, similar to the adze I’d seen used the day before, by the old men making bowls. The mountain was absolutely covered in flint, so finding a piece close to the right size and shape for what I had in mind was easy. Finding and cutting a tree branch to match was harder to do. I only had my flint blade to do the job with.
“What I came up with, in a very small amount of time, was something that resembled a modern hand-held hoe with a slightly rounded blade. It didn’t have to be knapped to sharpen it, because it simply needed a squared off edge to scrape with. The wooden handle was just long enough for my hand to grasp comfortably. While I was making that one, I had the thought to make another, after I discovered how this one worked, in the size to fit an elder man’s hand as well.
“I couldn’t have been more excited at how easily the dried salt layer scraped off of the bear hide, leaving virtually no rips or tears. Though the largest hide I had ever attempted on my own, this was by far the easiest that I had ever done. I could hardly wait to show my people how well it worked!
“As I was bathing myself in the cold water of the stream, the idea came to me to one day make a water heating bowl just for washing myself, so I didn’t have to use cold mountain stream water.
“Gaia had appeared behind me, and was reading my thoughts. ‘You constantly impress me with how fast you learn, Na. You will make a huge difference in the future of your people. With you teaching them better ways and new things, yours will become the healthiest and the largest tribe on Earth. Let us go flying today, as you wish, because tomorrow it will be time to take your new found learning back down the mountain to your people.’
“Gaia smiled at my more simple self of the time. ‘Are you ready?’ she asked.
‘Oh yes! Where should I stand so I can best see you fly?’
‘Right there, but first I have to tell you about another power that the gods possess. It too creates that hunger for blood that I told you about. We are able to change our form from looking like you, to that of any living animal that we have seen, and understand. For me, that means any of them. For my children, the lesser gods, that means only the ones that they personally have seen, and understand.’
‘But how can that be? How can you change from a human to a--’
‘Eagle?’ she asked, in my mind.
“I was very glad that she had warned me, because before my very eyes, Gaia changed into a giant eagle. Back then, the term shape-shifter didn’t exist, but that was another power that she had. I was terribly afraid, because the giant eagles were known by all people as a threat. They could swoop down and carry away a person with no problem. It was common belief that they were then eaten, because no person had ever survived to tell otherwise.
‘Tie a rawhide strap around my neck,’ she said in my head. ‘I cannot talk as a human, when I’m not in the form of one. Do not be afraid. I am still myself in here. If I wished you harm, you would have been harmed long ago.’
“That, I understood as truth. Releasing my numbing fear, I did as I was told, still not comprehending what she had in store for me!
‘Now, climb onto my back, above my wings, and grasp the strap tightly. Whatever you do, do not let go of it.’
“As if in a dream, I did as told. Gaia wasted no time. With a little hop, she spread her great wings, each longer than I was tall, lifted them and pushed them down again, and we were airborne! I was aware of the rippling of the powerful muscles beneath the feathers now covering her entirely. Each downstroke of those wings lifted us higher and higher. The ride was perfectly smooth, and I was in no danger of falling off, however I lay down and clung to her as tightly as I could.
“I would have had trouble, for lack of words, describing what flying felt like for a cave-man. I can tell you now, that everything I thought I understood about my mountain and my valley, changed in an instant. What had until that moment been my entire universe, became small to the point of insignificance. The enormity and the blueness of the sky caught my breath. I had never even had the thought that a person could see that far. I couldn’t see individual trees. Just different shades of green, and then a deep blue that covered the ground in the distance also.
‘That is the sea,’ I heard in my thoughts. ‘Water, like your lake, only salty. It is very large. Much larger than the land. You will learn all about that one day too, so just enjoy seeing it for now.’
“We soared without her needing to flap her wings much at all. She went much lower to the ground than we had been, and slowed down so that I could see individual trees and details again. I began to become less frightened. We followed a ri
ver, that ran down the other side of my mountain, and saw countless bears fishing in its shallows. We passed a huge flat area of grass, where an endless herd of bison grazed. We could see a small pack of wolves, content and resting at the moment under the shade of a tree, watching their food. As the grass ended, and the forest began again, we flew over a tribe of people like me, who numbered about the same as my tribe. They didn’t have a camp that looked like ours. It was apparent that they, like the wolves, followed that herd of bison wherever it went. They were a nomadic people. ‘We will discuss the nomads, and what their importance to the human herd is eventually, Na.’
‘Probably that they spread people across the land much as a bird shits seeds everywhere it goes,’ I responded without thinking.
‘Exactly like that!’
‘And who are these?’ I asked aloud. There were a handful of taller, more hairy people, who obviously followed the tribe. ‘Cast outs?’
‘Evil ones,’ I heard. ‘They live off of this tribe’s waste. If there isn’t enough one day, they will eat one of the tribe.’
“With a great fluttering of her wings, we landed in a clearing near the evil ones. ‘They cannot see or hear us, as before,’ my mind heard. I slid off her back, and Gaia changed to human form again while I watched. It amazed me. The feathers smoothed, her wings seemed to fold themselves up, her entire body changed shape, and suddenly there she was before me again.
GENESIS (Tales of the Lesser Gods Book 1) Page 4
