A Little Fiction and Fun
This is a very short story but is designed to make the reader think. For the tale encompasses how our annual celebration COULD have come about. Not to mention the origin of the greatest invention of all time.
Read it and allow your intellectural curiousity to be piqued.
Yar’s Celebration
Zo poked, prodded and rolled the sweet mixture with determination. She had already cooked the combination of taro root, honey and the blossom of the Yling flower over her hearth’s fire for two days. Now she was pressing the sticky mixture into a long, round, log-like formation. After the candy substance dried for another day she would begin cutting the log into short oblong pieces with her flint.
Yar stopped by Zo’s hearth and sniffed the air with a smile.
“The children always love this,” he said pointing to the confection. Zo blushed with pride. Zo had lived over 32 seasons of short days. Yar was approaching his 18th season of short days and was of prime age to assume complete control of the tribe. Yar reminded Zo that the following evening everyone was expected to assemble in the celebration cave immediately after sunset. “Your son’s son Bak is excited?” Yar asked and Zo was brought back to reality. Bak was, as he is every year during the celebration of the season of short days, very excited.
Yar nodded and moved on to the next hearth.
Zo sighed and continued rolling her candy log. She had to admit that Yar’s idea of the celebration was an astounding success with the tribe. Zo could hardly remember when the seasonal assembly of the tribe members in the celebration cave was a mind-numbing chore. Of course it was still a hard job but Yar’s vision of incorporating the tribe’s retreat into the cave for the season of short days with an annual celebration had been just the notion required to turn a difficult transition into a joyous one.
In the distance Zo could hear the happy laughter of her son’s son. Before she could cover the candy log Bak came bouncing into her hearth and begin to finger the sweet treat. Zo slapped his hand in a gentle rebuke. “This is for the celebration tomorrow night,” she scolded her grandson. Bak’s eyes grew big and round with the reminder of the following day’s big night.
“Sea gave me my foot covering to hang,” Bak told his grandmother. Sea was Bak’s mother, mated to her son Feh. “What time will Father Cas be coming?” Bak asked his grandmother and she had to scold him again.
“Long after you and the other children have gone to sleep in the celebration cave,” she told her grandson than shooed him off so she could finish her preparations.
Bak giggled and took off in a run. Zo glanced out into the hearth compound and could see the tribe’s children all running about, all excited almost out of control about the coming celebration.
“You are packed?” Neb, the young lady in the next hearth, called out. Zo placed her hand on the small of her aging back and arched it gently. Indeed her packing was done and her son had already moved it to their family hearth in the celebration cave.
Before returning to her remaining tasks Zo glanced around the compound. The women were busy preparing food on their hearths. The older children were engaged with carrying clothing and night covering to their assigned hearths in the celebration cave. A few of the older sons of the tribe had already gone into the woods to find a tree for the celebration cave’s center compound.
Zo was one of the few people of the tribe who still remembered when the celebration cave was called the cave of the short days. She also remembered how much she dreaded the tribe’s gradual retreat into the huge and cozy cave by the dark forest. Then the tribe families would move into their assigned hearth in the celebration cave with no prior plan and on no set schedule. Some families would move in so soon that the leaves were not fully off the trees in the forest. Some waited until the howling snows forced them to their enclosed hearth in the big cave. One year a reckless family waited too long before moving to their hearth in the cave of the short days. The rock had already been rolled over the cave’s opening. An early blizzard struck and Yar ordered that the boulder not be moved for danger to the families inside the cave. The family’s frozen remains were discovered outside the cave of the short days the following season of the long days when the rock was finally removed.
Yar had only lived 12 seasons of the short days at that time and already he was acknowledged as the tribe’s leader. The following year Yar announced a more orderly and safe retreat to the cave of the short days. He outlined an annual celebration that would accompany the tribe’s movements into the large cave where they would be safe from the bitter winds of the season of short days.
Since then the yearly celebration has grown to include more traditions, more fun and more games.
Zo admired Yar’s idea as it did solve a lot of the tribe’s problems. The preparation of the foodstuffs for the celebration had produced wonderful results of dried meats and sweet treats that lasted several months. The play things produced by the elders of the tribe were worn out by the time the season of long days came around so greatly were they used. The toys had kept the children entertained for many hours inside the often dark and dank cave. Last year Yar had all the children hang a foot covering by their family’s hearth. Father Cas, a tribe elder, would wait until all of the children were asleep in their hearth then walk up and down the ledges and ridges, depositing sweet taro root into the foot coverings and laying toys at the family hearth’s entrance. This year the tribe was adding a fresh tree to be placed in the cave’s common area as a reminder that the season of long days will come again.
Zo turned her attention to her sweet treat and began rolling again. Her son Feh was busy with his new boulder design that he swore will revolutionize movements of the large rock over and away from the celebration cave’s entrance. Until this season, the rock had to be moved through the sweat of every man in the tribe who gathered as one human-powered unit to push it closed at the beginning of the season of short days and re-open it in the same manner at the beginning of the season of long days. Feh eagerly told Yar that he had a new system to move the big boulder that would make it a simple task.
Yar smiled at Feh’s eagerness and agreed that this season they would try out Feh’s new design.
“I look forward to a beginning of the season of long days that doesn’t require the tribal men to break bones and bleed just to move that rock out of the way,” Yar told Feh.
Yar would not be spending the season of the short days in the celebration cave. The tribal leader always spent the season in a special cave designed for him and his family. Throughout the season of short days the tribal leader would check the surrounding area for dangerous animals in the surround and potential attackers from neighboring tribes. The rock covering the cave of the tribal leader was considerably easier to move than the huge boulder used to protect the rest of the tribe in the celebration cave.
Early the following evening Zo, her grandson and her son’s mate were settled comfortably in their hearth in the celebration cave. Feh was busy fine-tuning his boulder-moving tool. All day the families of the tribe had been busy arranging their belongings in their assigned hearths and preparing for the night’s festivities. The fresh spruce had already been hoisted in the celebration cave’s common area and the children were giddy with excitement over this new tradition.
At sundown the tribe families all settled down to eat the elaborate community meal. It was a grand feast and all tribe members were ready for a long nap in their own hearth. The children hung their foot coverings on the wall outside of their hearth and Father Cas was already preparing to distribute the toys to the hearths once everyone was properly asleep.
At midnight Yar hugged the tribe members still awake and walked to the outside of the celebration cave door. Turning to face the opening, Yar waved cheerily as the men struggled as one to move the boulder to cover the cave’s opening.
“This year we are not only closing the cave opening,” Feh told his mother as they both watched. “I’ve designed my round pivots in such a way that this movement of the boulder will also position it on top of both of them. Wait until next season of the long days. Yar will be able to move the boulder all by himself.”
Zo smiled at her son and was, of course, proud of his accomplishment. But she greatly doubted that Yar would be able to open that boulder door all by himself when the time came.
For almost two months after the annual celebration of the season of the short days the tribe was comfortable and happy. The food and toys kept the tribe members content and busy.
As it always happens, about a month before the season of long days would begin the children of the tribe got restless and ill-behaved. Their toys had long ago been broken and the food supplies were dwindling. Tribal elders monitored the shafts of sunlight around the boulder and announced almost hourly how long before the rock could be moved by Yar and the tribe could return to their home hearths.
A week before it was safe to remove the boulder Yar would come down to the celebration cave and communicate with the tribe elders through the cracks. Yar had assessed the remaining snow in the forest, the sounds of the animals and the activities of the neighboring tribes. He determined that a warm weather front would be coming in within two days. Then, Yar told the tribal elders, the boulder would be opened and the families could come out.
The news spread through the cave quickly and for two days various tribe members would sit by the big boulder and dream of the outside world. At sunrise on the day Yar was due to uncover the cave entrance, the entire tribe had congregated in front of the big rock.
.
Feh was nervous and paced back and forth in agitation.
“You will see,” he told his mother. “The entire tribe will see. My round pivots will make our lives a lot easier.”
As soon as the sun rose over the tall trees of the forest the tribe heard Yar calling from the other side of the boulder. All tribe members were eager to get out of the now fetid cave and breathe some fresh air. The bitter winds and snows of the season of short days were over and it was time to enjoy the freedom of the outside world.
The tribal men wanted to begin the struggle to remove the boulder but Feh told them to stay put. Yar would be able to move the rock on his own, from the outside, he told them.
Various statements of doubt came from the tribe members but Zo shot the doubters a sharp look. The entire cave was quiet as Yar began to move the big rock from the outside of the cave’s mouth.
For five minutes the rock wouldn’t budge but the tribe members sat quietly and waited for instructions from Yar. The tribe members could hear Yar’s grunts from the outside and several of the stronger men prepared to help move the big boulder. Feh again motioned everyone to remain seated.
Suddenly a large crack was heard and almost effortlessly Yar pushed the boulder to the side of the cave. The sun shone brightly into the cave and the tribal members covered their eyes at the shock. On the other side of the cave opening Yar extended his arms wide in happy greeting.
“It’s a miracle,” Zo told her son Feh.
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