Released over 2 years ago

	This is approximately the first chapter of a novel. I never figured out where to go with it from here - suggestions are welcome. What it has needed is a plot outline. The story includes an invented language, River-Sky, so I thought it might fit in the "Bring Your Own Words" collab. ----- River and Sky (c)2005 by Ntheon Preface Once upon a time, some 40,000 to 200,000 years ago, somewhere in Africa, a creature who looked exactly like us, but was not truly human in mind, gave birth to one who was, or soon would be, the first true human. The Camp had no artistic expression of any kind. The breathtaking cave paintings of Lascaux were still thousands of years in the future. But the human species had just been set on it's inevitable journey to Lascaux, and from there to Sophocles, Beethoven and Picasso, and also to Socrates, Newton and Einstein, and all the rest. The twin mothers of creativity and invention had just been born. The Camp did have fire, and stone tools, and woven baskets, but the invention and improvement of tools and technologies moved at a glacial pace, perhaps one new idea every thousand years or so, purely by happy accident. Culture, such as it was, barely changed at all. With no true language, just a handful of guestures, there were no stories, no theater, no poetry, no mythology or religion. They had no music, save for some monotonous rythmic drumming and dancing on special occasions. They had no painting or sculpture, not even pigments or carvings decorating their crude tools and craftworks. No one in Camp had the creative power to invent such things, or would see any point in them if someone did invent them. Someone like River and her twin sister Sky, the first humans to become fully sentient, creative, conscious beings. In this way, the Camp was little different from a pack of wolves bedding down for the night, though just as vicious. But River and Sky were about to change the human species, and the world, forever. From this point on, it would be but a few short generations to bring the full flower of invention and creativity, storytelling, painting, poetry, literature, drama, music and all the fine arts to humanity. That is, if the clever twins somehow survived. For the first time, art and creativity were about to burst forth upon the Earth. River and Sky were about to become the first true humans, the first to achieve full language, self-awareness, consciousness, creativity, and all the things we, their descendents, take for granted. Humanity, and the world, would never be the same. Chapter 1. Awakening I am me. This was the first thought. The first ever. Who am I? Who said that? These were the second thought and then the third, following almost immediately afterward. Startled, she opened her eyes and swiveled her head, but she was still alone. Eh, just a dream, she thought, and she closed her eyes again, enjoying the sense of peacefulness. She again noticed the soothing sound of the brook she sat next to, and she took comfort from it, as she always had from this place. She opened her eyes slowly and watched the fish swim and jump, the frogs dart tongue at flies, and a sense of normalcy returned. I am fine, nothing strange is happening now, she thought. Wait! Who said that? She gasped out loud. And who said that about it being just a dream? And who just asked who said that? It is happening again! She snapped open her eyes and looked around, quickly, to catch the prankster, who could only be her sister. She stood up, and looked back, looked all about, but no one was around. "Sky!" she shouted, pointing upward in the hand sign that went with the word Sky. From long habit, she kept her voice just loud enough not to be heard from camp, where the grown ups keeping loose watch over her would be alarmed, and angry at her for using the talk. "Sky, you are well! At last! This is not funny! Stop hiding! Sky! Don't make me find you. Not this time. I don't want to play. I just want to be with you again." She spoke and made all the hand signs that went with the words. Then she stopped, sat down again and wept for a bit. "Sky I need to talk to you! I miss you. I love you. Stop cough-cough. Stop hot-face." She signed frantically, in silence, like they did long ago, too choked up to make the word-sounds. She could only talk to Sky. In all the Camp, the talk was a game shared only between the womb-sisters, the girls who looked just like one girl reflected in the water, the Sky and the River that reflected the Sky. Looking so alike that only Mama could tell them apart for certain, this seemed to vaguely bother and confuse the grownups, and it set them apart from the other children. But making the hand signs and word sounds really made grown ups angry. She did not understand why, but that is the way of it. "Sky isn't here," she said, aloud again, while casually tossing a flat stone into the stream. "She still cough. I want her. No one to talk to now," she continued, picking up another flat stone. She promptly dropped the stone. "I didn't make the hand signs!" she exclaimed, and again she forgot to make the hand signs that go with the words. Her hand covered her mouth, and she willed herself not to speak again. "I just did it again" she said, this time carefully making the signs. "I can't speak without the hand signs. But I just did" she said, still using the signs as well as the word sounds. "I won't do it anymore, " she said firmly, pounding the ground. "That was the wrong sign!" she yelled at herself, pounding the soft dirt again. Pounding dirt meant anger, while patting it meant sit here. She quickly covered her mouth again, willing herself to silence. She closed her eyes and took a few slow, deep breaths. If not careful with the talk, she could attract the attention of the grown ups, and that fear made her quiet. "We're not supposed to make the talk at all. What does it matter if I use the hand signs or not, if Sky still understands me. Will she still understand, if I don't use the hand signs? I want to see if she does. I want Sky back." She said this with both word-sounds and hand signs. "It's all right," she told herself, slowly, careful to make the proper signs. "The talk changed before. Long ago we talked in hand signs, since always. Then Sky made a new game." River closed her eyes and called the vision, seeing the long past like a dream. Out picking berries, just across the stream from where she was now, she and Sky could make the talk without the grown ups noticing anything wrong. Sky saw a crow, pointed and made the caw sound. Then River pointed at a bee and made the buzz sound. Every child in camp played this game. Then Sky, not seeing anything else around, put her index fingers pointed to her ears in the hand sign for hyena, and made the hyena snort. River had gasped, and not only in instinctive fear of the hyena. Suddenly the game had changed. This was a game with the talk, something new that only she and Sky could play. Like the hand signals themselves, this was something to be shared only between the two of them. Then Sky gasped too, at what she had done. River made the wolf sign and Sky bayed as if at the moon. Then Sky made the horse sign and River made the whinnney sound. They went on through every animal they knew. Then River, unable to think of another animal, got a wicked grin, and she spanked herself, their sign for Mate-of-Mama. She looked at Sky smugly. So Sky made a belch, and they both collapsed in giggles. Before the sun had even set, the game had grown again. Now they had sounds as well as hand signs, for people as well as animals. Things that made no sound were harder. The sign for stone was a fist, but the sound was clunk clunk, the sound it made skipping in the river. Moving-words were harder. Their sign for throw was a pantomime of throwing a stone, the sound became a whoosh. It went on and on, a whole season-cycle and they still had sounds to make up. Sometimes they changed a word to a new sound, if one of them had a better idea. River very vaguely remembered that it had been the same before, when they first made up the hand sign game, the signs changing and getting better each time, but they had been very young. It seemed as if the hand signs had always existed. Even now, they still made up new hand signs and new sound words all the time, whenever they needed them, combining or changing old words or just pulling something at random out of thin air. With time, and the need for so many many words, the signs and sounds got further and further from what they stood for, but the girls learned it made no difference, as long as the other understood. The close bond shared only between them made that rarely a problem. Their spontaneous sign language, the worlds first complete language, with all of two speakers, was essentially complete and fully functional. Now their complete, functional spoken language, based on their sign language, initially a supporting player to the sign, could stand on it's own. "So now we don't need the signs anymore. Unless we want to," she said aloud, deliberately not using the hand signs. "Wait until Sky sees. She will still understand, without the hand signs. I know she will. If she ever stop cough-cough. Oh Sky, you cannot leave me Sky. Don't go into the ground. If you go I will go with you. I cannot stay here alone. I have no one to talk to." "Then who am I talking to?" She frowned, puzzled, and stopped to toss another stone. "Sky is not here. No one is here, only me. I am talking to me. Who am I?" she wondered aloud. I am me. There it was again! That voice. "Oh no, no, this is all too much for one day," she said aloud again, and from habit reverting to using the hand signs as well. This thought, I am me, now repeated a second time, was her first ever conscious thought, and her first concious awareness of self. It was also the first conscious thought ever thought by humanity. Self awareness and concious thought had made their appearance on Earth. The clever ape that made fire and chipped flint could now think about itself, and the species would never be the same. The anatomical and brain structures for language and everything else were all in place, waiting for the Spark, provided by two very bright little girls with an unusually stong bond. Complete language had to precede conscious thought, the inner monologue, and full sentience and creativity, but by the merest hair's breadth of time. Once language was full, inner language, and all it entails, was too obvious and natural a development to wait even a generation. "It is my voice. I am saying words inside. No sound. No hand sign either. Just silent words, inside me." She spoke this aloud. Then, deliberately, she repeated the exact words inside, no sound, no lip movement, no hand signs. "What are these ... need new word.... these inside-words I am having?" She wondered aloud, this time without the hand signs. This is my inside-voice, she answered herself, coining a word and using only her inside-voice. She nodded her head, satisfied. "Yes, this is good," she said, aloud again. She felt comfortable with this now, even a bit giddy. So, she thought again with that new inner voice, I can talk with only the hand signs like always, or with hand signs and sounds. Now I can talk with only the sounds. I can even talk inside, without sounds or hand signs. But what good is that? How will Sky know what I am saying. I could not understand Sky if she made no sounds, no hand signs, no lip movements, nothing. Could I? That is the really strange and scary part. Not how I am talking, but who am I talking to? I had two ways to talk to Sky, now I have three, and that is good. But I have never talked to anyone other than Sky. No one else can talk. No one else will ever talk.... will they? And now I am talking to no one, with no sound or hand signs at all! This cannot be, she continued, still in that new inner voice. I am sick too, like when the basket weaver woman ate that spoiled fruit and stumbled around and made yucky in the campfire. Or last summer when Sky and me picked the wrong mushrooms and everything looked very strange all afternoon. That was scary, but I almost want to see those colors and things again. But it is good the grownups never found out or they would use the stick on us again. Or maybe I am dreaming. Wait, I talk in my dreams! I talk to Sky, and she answers back, but the next morning she says it didn't happen. Long ago, when it first happened, we had a fight about it. That was awful. I must never, ever fight with Sky again. Anyone else, but never Sky. Then the same thing happened to her, two nights later, and I tell her we never had that talk, it was in her dream. So if I wasn't talking to Sky in my deams, who was I talking to? I was talking to me. And who am I? I am me. There it is again! "No! Stop, stop, stop!" she said aloud this time, and with all the hand signs, for maximum emphasis. "Go away!" she fairly shouted, and pointed off in the distance. Then she became worried and looked back at camp. Mama-of-Mama had heard that, and began moving toward her, ready to raise an alarm cry. Instinct took over and she fell back on an old ruse. She stood up, grabbed a heavy stone and tossed it at a non-existent snake, then pretended to watch it slither away. Then after a moment she turned back to camp and waved her arms in the all clear sign, one of the few handful of hand signals that everyone used. She and Sky just had many more of them, because they alone had the ability to make up their own signals, by the bushel full, in such wonderful variety. They alone had a signal for anything and everything. The talk was just a game between them, but somehow they understood that it was something special too. They used it for many things. Especially for numerous capers they pulled, on other children and grownups alike. They got things, and got away with things. Like the snake trick she just did, but those tricks worked even better when she and Sky talked about them. They figured them out together, they schemed. The talk game was power, like the special power of the toolmaker to make what everyone needed and no one else could make. But this was a power no one had ever heard of, and two little girls had it, of all the crazy things. The girls themselves had only glimpses of what they might be able to do with it. The whole Camp sensed it as well. It was something two little girls could do that no one else in camp could, had never seen in any other Camp either, and it frightened them, although without conscious thought they could not even explain why it was frightening or wrong. It was different, unnatural, and that was enough. The womb sisters sensed this growing fear as well, and they knew all too well how the grownups were using the stick on them more often for less cause. Some in camp growled at Mama whenever she brought Sky honey and tea for her cough-cough. Usually only in time of starvation would anyone begrudge caring for a sick child, and the Hunters had done well this season. Who am I to inspire such fear in you? her new inner voice demanded. Now who am I talking to? They are not here and they do not talk. Who am I talking to? Who am I? I am me, she thought again. "All right!" she said, now more careful to keep her voice down. "I heard you the first time! I am me! What does that mean?" Then she added "And why does it frighten me? She squeezed her eyes tight shut, and breathed in, out, in, out. Her breath became fast and shallow. Some time later she calmed and breathed more naturally, then very slowly and deliberately. She deliberately repeated the fear words, to gain power over them and control them. I am me, she said inside herself, for the first time deliberately. Then everything broke loose, seemingly all at once. I am me, and I am talking to me. I am talking to me about talking to me. I am talking ... no stop this could go on and not end. I am thinking about me and also watching inside me as I think about me. Now I am watching me watch me.... Stop. I see me yelling stop at me. Suddenly the whole world seemed to expand without boundary. She drew in a sharp breath and her chest seemed to tighten. Awareness of self led to self reflection and recursion and inevitably to the infinite. She drew back in from the infinite, put infinity itself it into a safe place, a new thing she labelled with a new word: above-the-above. But her mind still raced at full speed, assimilating more, building new concepts. Her mind re-built itself. She Awakened. In those moments that afternoon by a brook, the human species first became Sentient. She had named everything she had ever known, but now she had created something new, something that no one could see or touch, but that was unquestionably real inside her, and she had given it a word-name, above-the-above. But there are other things like above-the-above. Above-the-above is thing-about-thing, no better still, it is talk-about-talk. She had discovered and named the concepts of self-reference and meta. She started from "I am me", and this she decided to call me-ness. She had added the concept of self, of identity, to humanity's repertoire, and self-awareness was born. These things she was creating, or was it finding, inside of her that she could not see nor touch, these were all a new type of thing and needed a name. She called them inside-things. Thus did she discover the concept of concept. There was a time when she had not word-named such things, and that time was before-now. There was a time she knew nothing of, could know nothing of for certain. That time was after-now. When next the sun rose, or even her next breath, after-now would become now, and now would become before-now. Now would always become after-now, never before-now. She had discovered linear, irreversible time, and so would be forever bound by it. She had acquired had a past she could never change, and a future she could never know. But she was also, for now, the only human who could evaluate the past and use it to consciously plan for the future. And each of these inside-things is special in its own meaning, but each is still a kind of inside-thing as well. Like One-Eye was a hyena they killed when he attacked a child last spring. He was One-Eye but he was also a hyena, and other hyena's were not One-Eye. This inside-thing she called big-thing-hold-little, and the littler things were little-thing-in-big-thing. She had discovered the concepts of type and classification. Then she abruptly changed the word, to word-bag, and word-pebbles went in the word-bag. Hyena was a word-bag word, and One-Eye was a word-pebble inside it. With this change, she had discovered analogy and metaphor, and all the basics of highly abstract thought. But animal was a big word-bag, and hyena was a little word-bag inside it, and One Eye was a word-pebble in the little hyena word-bag. Yes, that is right, bags can go in other bags, I have a bag with bags in it right now. She had discovered hierarchy. And promptly realized she already knew all about hierarchy. Everyone in Camp, in all Camps, understood it instinctively, with Lead Hunter at the top. And girl children at the bottom. Dominance and politics far pre-dated humans, basic to chimpanzees and many other social species. But no one else ever thought of it in terms of a general concept of hierarchy, or saw it as a way of grouping things, or as anything other than the way of interacting with others, the only way. No one else existed who was capable of seeing hierarchy as an abstract concept. Deer go in the animal word-bag too, and horses. Frogs also... I think. Not trees though, or berries, those things are certainly not animals. What about crows? For the first time in awhile, she was not sure. A question she could not answer. This bothered her. What about fish, or tadpoles? Again she was not sure. What about me? Am I an animal too? She wondered. I am a hu-man because I walk on two legs and have no fur or feathers, but I am not a he-man because I have no man-pole, but I am not a wo-man because I have no milk-givers and I do not bleed with the moon like Mama. She and Sky had loud-fast-talked over all this many times in the word-make games. But otherwise we look a lot like Mama. Was she like us in a before-now? In the after-now, will we become wo-men, will we moon-bleed and give milk and push out screaming littlest-ones? That maybe-after-now time was both scary and exciting. What about Mama, and all the other hu-mans in Camp? Are they animals? They look different from hyenas and frogs, but not so different as hyenas and frogs do from each other. They walk on two legs, but so do flamingoes, and chimpanzees. But hu-mans use tools and weapons and fire. Hu-mans make all those things also. Does that make them not animals? She didn't want to think so. There are too many bags already to remember them all. I will throw in the crows and fish too as animals, at least for now. These inner-bags don't seem to have any too-much-stuff-size. I can make us hu-mans fit in this animal word-bag, maybe just a lump sticking out here and there. These inner-bags don't work like that though, she chided her me-ness, they are not exactly like real bags. It goes or it doesn't, and how much stuff does not matter either. She had bumped into the limits of reasoning by analogy. And she accepted that limitation without it bothering her overly much. But Sky and I also have the talk. The Talk, she inside-voiced it again, with emphasis. It is so special, so unlike anything else anywhere. And now I have this inside-voice and all these inner-things, it's so, so .... above-the-above. This is so different from other hu-mans, or any other animal she had already bagged. Then she laughed at her own joke: hunters stuffed their kills in big bags. The pun was born, a new humor unique to this new abstract thought process. The Talk already had many crazy word-games she and Sky had made up, oddly pleasing combinations of sounds, though they made no sense at all. These games started within days of the sound-words themselves. The bag-funny, or pun, was destined to be only the beginning of a bunch of new games. With sentience would soon come much more sophisticated word-play, incorporating the meaning of words and metrical patterns. Yes, I have the Talk, and these new inside-things, she said in her inside voice. But still I am a hu-man, and the others in Camp are all hu-mans. Sky and I loud-fast-talked all that out long ago, it is settled. And if hu-mans are animals, then they all go in the hu-man word-bag and the hu-man word-bag goes in the animal word-bag, with Sky and me along with it. Suddenly her word-bags weren't working right, as if one had a leak. But she knew instinctively this was wrong, her inside-voice told her so. Now she was having a loud-fast-talk with her own inside me-ness. This was too weird. But her new inside-voice was right, no question. She had done something incorrectly, and she had to back up. Either hu-mans are animals, and therefore I am an animal as well. Or hu-mans are not animals and therefore I am not either. That is how the word-bags work. Or, she realized, maybe I am not hu-man after all, at least not anymore. Or maybe I am hu-man, and the others in Camp are not hu-man after all. There were no other possibilities, she was certain of that. Now she just had determine which one of the hand-no-thumb-count paths was correct. She had completed the worlds first exercise of deductive reasoning. It was elementary. Now I have got it! she told herself. I have it in the bag. And again she grinned ear to ear, completely please with herself. Another bag-funny (pun) and her first amazing "Ah Ha" experience of figuring out a problem successfully. But she was avoiding the very last step in the problem solving. Those last two options bothered her, all the way and above-the-above. Yet she sensed herself ready to choose one of them, increasingly certain that this was the way to go. She gathered herself and took the plunge. I do not go in the same bag with the rest of the Camp, she decided firmly. Either I am not hu-man, or they are not. They go in the animal bag. I....might... still go in the animal bag, but I might not. She could not decide that now, and it no longer seemed so important. It thus became the first abstract problem ever consigned to the dreaded back-burner. Either way, she thought, Sky is not going to like this. They had settled this hu-man question over many moon-cycles. And what about Sky, is she an animal? Is she a hu-man? Whatever I am, she is, or she will be very soon. We go in the same bag, or else. Or else I am chucking all these stupid bags in the river. All these inside-things. Sky can do it too. If she can't, then I won't either. I will get rid of it all. Somehow. Are Sky and me even different things at all? We look the same in every way. We are both the only ones with the talk. The others usually cannot tell us apart. They dress us the same, and they treat us like one and the same. They hurt both for what one does wrong, and they expect one to obey signals given to the other. But I have dreams that Sky does not. We do not same-talk on everything. The others do not give us each our own me-ness. But we are not the same me. We ... we should be treated as separate, like all the other children are separate. We are ... treated differently. This must be wrong. They are doing wrong to us. Even Mama. We can do wrong, and they hurt us for it. But they can do wrong to us too! That is something very new, and very frightening. What else can they do wrong? Do all these new talk-things have to be so scary! How about something nice for a change?! Now her brand new concept of individual identity was already having an identity-crisis. Introspecting and reasoning, she resolved the problem she had created, though it would not be the last. In the process, she managed to lose a big chunk of her childhood nievete as well. But also in the loss of naivete, she gained the seeds of self-esteem, and of ethics. I created all these new things, she inner-voiced herself. I did good, I am sure of that. I created. I am me. But is it really me? Or is someone else, someone I don't know, using the talk inside my head. My name is River. Sky named me for the river I am sitting by now, the river I love. Just as I named her Sky for the sky she always has her head in. But what has happened to me? Am I still one River, or am I now split, many little Rivers, maybe all feeding into one big River like the river-fork not far from here, is that what me-ness is? What is this me-ness I have discovered? That was the question I started with, and I have all these new words and inside-things, but what is me-ness? After all that, I still do not know what "I am me" means. I only know I am certainly not the same me I was when I first sat here and the sun was high above and hot. I am different. Very different. And people will surely notice soon, in the after-now. There is an after-now. I cannot know what it holds. Will I always even exist in the after-now? I think I did not always exist in the before-time. Will the Camp and river and sky always exist? Or could they cease-to-be after I do? Or before I do! That possibility alarmed her. Could the setting sun possibly not rise again? That would be so, so cold. It has always risen, it should rise again. I don't think that maybe-after-now of cold darkness is a likely-after-now. So many possibilities, she realized. The after-now is like a lot of little streams flowing from the river before-now. The now is the fork in the river, where streams split off, like the one north of camp. I cannot know which one my frog's lilly pad will float down. Maybe I'm more like the fish though, I can swim across-stream and pick any stream. Or at least swim more toward one on the left than the right. There are many more forks in the river, ahead and behind. Choices, all of them. So many possibilities to avoid in the after-time, if I can. Time-streams to swim away from. Others I can't do anything but wish-really-really-hard they don't happen. But maybe they will happen anyway. How much can I really control and influence, how much will happen anyway? What if I make a wrong choice, and I get hurt, or someone else does. Have I made any wrong choices already? Did I even make any choices? I didn't even know what choices were until today, just now! But could I have done something awful? Like that awful fight with Sky over my dream, did I cause that? Could I have done better? Did I make her cough-cough now? I know I had a little cough-cough last winter before, did I somehow give it to her? I'm sorry Me-ness, I can't inside-talk about all this any more. It's too much, all at once. Let's talk about something else. With linear time, the girl River, and thus all of humanity, of whom she had just become the first true member, the first actual person, became saddled with guilt over the past and worry over the future, and first began to grapple with pre-destination or free-will, and with ethics. Fear was building in her, unspecified dread of unknown possibilities. She breathed in, out, in, out again for a few breath-cycles, calming herself. Fear was a feeling, she realized abruptly. Feelings were not new, she had always had those. She loved Sky, more than anyone, more than her me-ness. She loved Mama, and Mama-of-Mama, and she loved Mate-of-Mama, but not nearly as much, and she loved the others in Camp. In that order. She duly noted the new inner-things (concepts): feeling was another inner-thing and it was a word-bag, with word-pebbles inside. Much-ness (quantity) and higher-ness (rank or order) were also new inner-things. Fear was a feeling, a pebble in the feeling word-bag. Love was a feeling also, another pebble in the same bag. And those feelings were always in-fight with each other, and they went one after the other. She loved Mama, but then feared her anger, then loved her again. Like day then night then day again. When one was there, the other was always there too, behind it or hidden away. She called them day-night things, and so grasped the base concept of opposites, of duality. Did I always exist in the before-now? I cannot remember when I didn't exist. I have memories for a handful of season cycles. But, but... I only just realized I exist today! How could that be? It is like I just woke up. I existed before, but in a way I did not, not the way I do now, just this afternoon. Everyone else always existed, as far as I can remember. Well not all, the littlest-ones, littler than Sky and me, I remember some of them come out of their Mama's legs when the wo-men lie down and scream. And then the littlest-ones scream, and they never seem to stop screaming. The littlest-ones, they did not exist before that. Did they? I know now that inner-things do exist that I cannot see or touch, but they are real. Were the littlest ones like that, before they come from their mama's legs? Was I ever like that? I have no one to even ask. I doubt Sky would know, and there is no one else who can talk. If I do not continue to exist, will the after-now still be? Will everyone else still be? I have stopped seeing people I used to see, did they stop existing? I remember they sometimes put people underground. After they get sickness, they sleep and not wake up for morning-meal, then they go underground and I don't think they ever come back. No, I don't remember anyone ever coming back. Sky is sick and she might go underground. No, please Mama, don't let Sky go underground. But I can't even say that to Mama, she cannot understand and would hit me if I even tried to tell her. But I can't let Sky go underground. What if I went underground with her? Would we still be together? Would we still exist? Would I still have the me-ness? Even if Sky stops her cough-cough, will we still go underground later in the after-time? Does everyone go, or only some? What will happen to me? To Sky? The questions began to fill her with an unspecified dread. Talk about something else already! she screamed at her me-ness. With time sense, humanity, in the person of one little girl, had begun to suspect it's own mortality, and a new type of fear appeared, one likely to last for above-the-above, for beyond-the-beyond. OK, talk about something else. Why are all these strange things happening to me? she wondered. Is this a Good Thing or a Bad Thing? Is there a reason for it? Why am I here by this riverbank at all, wasting an afternoon talking-about-talk with my me-ness. Why is the Camp here, or my little river, or Sky's sky, any of it? How did it all get here? Did someone I cannot see or touch, maybe someone very very big, cause or create me, and everything outside me, as I just created all these things inside me? Enough, her new inside-voice screamed silently. I don't know if I even can answer all these questions. I could go on all day. I could go on for above-the-above. She smiled at that. Her first use of the new words in regular talk. Inside-talk, but still just talk, not like what just happened. But enough for one day already. She opened her eyes. A heady rush of power and possibility clashed with a free floating, unspecified fear. What is this doing to me? Will I be all right? How much trouble is this going to get me in? Sky, oh Sky, will she understand it all, can she go inside where I have gone? Otherwise I shall remain truly, completely alone. As I am at this moment. I would rather stop existing. There is no one else like me in Camp, in any Camp, or anywhere. Is there? Yes, this was quite enough for one day. Again she closed her eyes and her breathing became shallow and fast, and she let it go until it gave way again to a more regular pace. With the talk-game, naming everything they could see or do with a hand sign, it was a big big task, it took season-cycles. Then again with putting sound words to every hand signal, a task just as big, more season-cycles and not even finished still. Now she would have to inside-talk whenever she could and find or create all these new inner-things inside her, and name them also. Would that mean she has less talk left for Sky, using more of it to inside-talk with her own me-ness? Would Sky resent that? Maybe it was a good thing if we don't need hand signs for all those inner-things too, maybe just some big ones. This would be another big task, more-big than any other. I hope Sky can help with all this. Oh I need her to talk to, and to hug with for sleep tonight. Especially tonight. Sleep. She felt completely drained, which was odd because she had done almost nothing, barely moved from this spot all afternoon. With Sky's illness, Mama would forgive her laziness in not doing her berry-picking. To the grownups watching her, she thought they would take her for being fast asleep already. They did not spend lots and lots of time in the Inside-Place, alone, eyes closed and hardly moving. The went Inside only in preparation for a Hunt, or some major difficult task, or briefly in a crisis, if other instincts should fail them, where they would focus and visualize a next step. This last usually left them with a pain-head for a day or so. She and Sky went Inside much more, on little or no reason. Just one more reason the others looked at them strangely. She opened her eyes, and suddenly realized she had not eaten or drank all afternoon either. She grabbed several cold, clear handfuls of delicious water from her favorite brook, then munched on some berries in her bag, which was itself in a bag, left from yesterday's gathering. The berries tasted sweeter-than-sweet, as did the water. The bit of normalcy was as much a pick-me-up as nourishment and re-hydration. With so much time spent eyes-shut, deep in the Inside-Place, it should be long past dark by now, but it isn't dark yet. Not quite. Quiet time out here by the brook, deep Inside me, is often like that, seemingly far too long for what happens outside. Time only goes one way, but at different speeds, she realized. Or it seems to. The sun hung low on the horizon, bloated and red, but she should have a bushel-pick time or two before they called her for evening-meal. Perhaps she should go pick that bushel in the field beyond. But as she stood up, she heard the "yi yi yi yi" cry from Camp. Mama's voice. Not an alarm signal, but a general "come here right now" signal. It meant something unusual had happened. Something important but too rare to rate a signal of it's own. They only had a few signals their brains could keep track of, all of them passed down from distant ancestors, never changing, their repertoire having long ago hit it's limit of a couple dozen signals. She turned and ran toward camp, and into the family shelter. Sky was awake and looking chipper. River ran to her bed and they embraced for long moments. River was careful not to use the talk in front of the grownups, though she wanted so much to. The look that passed between just the two of them said all that needed to be said, for now. Sky was not in condition to understand much more. And for now, Sky was.... behind her. She would have to skill-pass what she had learned today to Sky. Somehow. She never seriously doubted that Sky could skill-catch, would skill-catch. She instinctively put her hand to Sky's forehead, and found it cool. I am so happy...so relieved and so .... grateful, she thought in her new inner voice. Grateful to who? she wondered. This inside-talk talk had one big-big advantage, she realized. She could use it all she wants in front of anyone, and they would never know. Would they? So much to tell Sky tonight, in hand sign and whisper while they should be asleep. So much to tell Sky. But Sky would sleep tonight, she realized, exhausted from her illness. And she too would sleep, exhausted from her Awakening. Tomorrow then, they talk. That is the.... the plan. True language itself was only as old as a pair of small children. In an afternoon, the world had for the first time developed cognitive, conscious thought, self awareness, conceptual, abstract thought, sentience, and a couple dozen related mental abilities. With that, the human species developed it's first sense of past and future, it's first suspicion of its own mortality, and it's first questioning for greater meaning, the great metaphysical Why. This new mind was a powerful, frightening new tool. If it survived. The Hunt Leader and Mate-of-Moma both burst into the shelter as well, in response to Mama's cry. They did not look nearly so pleased to see the much healthier girl. Her new inner voice told her they had been expecting, had been hoping for, completely different news. The men pointed both girls, and Mama as well, toward the now blazing main-fire where the other wo-men and girl-children were to prepare the evening meal. They moved as sullenly as they dared, supporting Sky, recovered but far from fully recuperated. It was, oddly, the Toolmaker who intervened as they exited the open side of the shelter, it's large flap pulled aside until sleep-time. He gave a couple of signals to Lead-Hunter and Mate-of-Mama - I need some help, may I borrow a girl? The men looked annoyed, but signaled go ahead. He came and gently took Sky to his special toolmaking fire and set her to some very simple tasks, and had his back turned while she nodded off to sleep. River looked great gratitude at him. He had always been kindly to everyone, and more kindly to the strange look-alike girls than most. Still, it would not be like him to irritate the Hunters in this way. Toolmaker wielded a kind of strange power, she had come to understand, separate and apart from the Hunters. She did not expect him to waste it on a strange girl child. But he is different from them too, she suddenly realized. Not like me, or Sky. But something else. A different pebble in the bag. There is something here we must curious-look. She had noticed the men glare at Sky and her as they left the shelter, and then a glance passed between the men. Are they planning something terrible for us? No, but they are afraid. Afraid of us, because we are different, we are ... not of nature. Not the nature they know. This fear will only grow, her new sense of after-now told her, as it becomes more obvious how completely different she has become, and Sky will become. How different, and how powerful. If they do not strangle us in our current helplessness, that is. And they are sad that Sky did not go underground. Hairs on the back of her neck raised, and she had a new feeling, a different word-pebble for the feeling word-bag, something she had never felt. It was not fear, not love, but something not quite the day-night of either. Deep in her core, she discovered hatred, blind white hatred, toward anyone or anything who would want to harm Sky. She would do whatever it took to keep Sky from harm, like when Mama watches over her womb-children. She would protect Sky. Against anyone, or anything. That was what it meant to love Sky above all, she decided, even above her own me-ness. Would the men plot later to harm Sky, or me? she wondered. No, they cannot plan, she suddenly realized. They do not have my sense of after-now to plan in, or my sense of before-now to study how events tend to progress. Even if they could plan against us, they could not scheme together the way Sky and I do. But they do have their hunting signals, and they know each other well from years of hunting, and they have the weapons. They even frequently had to hunt-Other-hunters, if the hunters from a neighboring Camp of Others strayed into their hunting grounds or attacked the Camp, or if it became necessary to hunt grounds claimed by another Camp's hunters, or necessary to raid another Camp for something vital. War long pre-dated humans, even chimpanzee bands regularly war on neighbouring bands with some sophisticated tactics, over territory and females. The Camp Hunters were much more coordinated, more subtle, more deadly efficient still. But that was silly. Or was it? They are the grownups and we the children, and they are the men, and we are two and they are many. What more do they need? Who cares for the hunting weapons when grownups give plenty of pain with hands and sticks, and that is when holding far back so as to do no serious harm. And then we go without meal if they say so, or many meals. If they are done with us, we are done, and that is that, like with the littlest-ones that come out not-same and they go straight to the river, and then underground. But then again, they are used to ordinary children, and animals and other Hunters. Sky and me, we are none of those. We are ... different. We are .... better. Another new feeling she discovered: pride. She was proud of her abilities, almost eager to test them, to see who was really the superior. You are the old, she silently addressed them, I am the new. If you give us no choice, we shall see who is the stronger. We will act differently from the foes they know and expect, she determined. We will trick them, as we have tricked them many times before for fun, but now it will be real. Games are practice for life. It is so clear when watching the young hunters with their games, as they practice for the hunt. We have made more games than any Hunter. We will make up new games they cannot play. We will....need new word.... we will do what-was-that to them. She deflated a bit, pride tinged with more of that fear whose face was becoming as familiar as any in Camp. That may be enough, to survive, somehow, she thought. I will just wish-really-really-hard that it is enough. I will wish more really-really-hard that my new after-now sense is wrong, and the river will take a different fork, into a rich land of happiness for us all. But I do not think so. I must start planning for the other fork, the one with the dangerous rocks. I must start, not in the after-now but in the now. We are very, very different, she realized. We look just like them, Sky and me. No more different from them than they are from each other. We are of them. Yet we were always different, Sky and me, different Inside, but now I am much bigger-different. Sky soon will be too. I am hardly like them at all any more, not even Mama, and they are not like me. They are not ... need new word.... they are not new-man. I am new-man. Sky will be new-man soon, she must be. They are ... new word... before-man. No, she decided, suddenly and with finality:. They do not have inner-talk or inner-things, they are like horses and chimpanzees. They are beast-man. Only I am hu-man, she thought, completing the earlier deduction problem. I am new-man. I am not one of them anymore, if I ever was. I am one. I am the only one like me anywhere, she realized. I am Outsider to them, I am Other to them, and they to me. Even Sky is not yet with me, though she will be soon. She felt more profoundly alone than ever before. From her cook station chopping gathered carrots near the main-fire, she risked a quick glance behind her at the men, still lounging in the shelter. Their look back was day-night from the warmth of the fire. A cold fear settled over the girl called River. Inspirations and References Inspirations behind the story, for anyone interested The Great Leap Forward: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity Twin Language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_language Origin of Language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language Nicaraguan Sign Language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_sign_language Stoned Ape Hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoned_Ape