Time had dawned on the World, but its rays had not yet pierced the skull of thinking creatures. It was still dark where thought would one-day shine bright to blind and to enlighten. Blissfully the creatures slept in ignorance.

This bliss was not to last.

Like innumerable other planets around innumerable stars this World had bred fertile minds. For thought to bloom however there would be need for light, and the egg of animal consciousness would have to crack to let it in.

A catalyst was required.

Divinely charged emissaries streaked into the atmospheric palace, emerging from the starry filament. They burned, consumed with the intensity of their message. Some eyes followed these celestial dignitaries, but their gazes were devoid of understanding. The message was not for them.

So it went that these patient visitors, with a brief parading flash through the skies, ended their eon long journeys in pocked craters on the surface of the Earth. Under the dome of heaven in the bosom of the virgin Gaia, in fields, in forests, in oceans, the meteors glowed red hot. None were there to receive the messages, not yet. But they would come, and they would know. It could not not be so; it had all been planned.

Will of the Universe be done.

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1.

The sun and the clock seared the prehistoric savannah plains with their insistent rays. A young Wind blew enjoying juvenile freedom. It brushed through the tall grass, around the mountains, into the valleys, and caressed every nook and granny of Gaia’s maternal face. It was free, for there had yet been no attempts to trap its essence into words.

Under crisp blue skies stood a creature whose descendants the Earth would eventually get to know extensively. She stood on two feet. Her brown fur shimmered with the tall grass as the nameless Wind rushed past the plain. She closed her uniquely green eyes, and inhaled. She was almost beautiful.

She was looking for a scent to pick up.

Her stomach grumbled.

This was the call that drove her species’ whole existence: the call of hunger. In a second the green-eyed ape dropped her bipedal stance and any illusion of nobility to crouch in the dank earth. She scoured shamelessly in the mud, sullying herself. She turned over dried dung patties and rocks, and put in her mouth any bugs she found there. Not too distant were other apes similarly occupied.

She chewed and from her lips came a little burp followed by other distracted sounds as she swallowed. The cries of her stomach were muffled by the passage of this food, and for a short moment she simply sat staring blankly ahead.

Living in the grasslands was not easy, food was much scarcer than it had been for her ancestors, but of course she did not know that.

She could not know that once upon a time tree branches, not stone floors, had served as resting places, nor that fat fruit had once been the dangling daily staple rather than meager bugs and roots. Never could she fathom moving from tree to tree, far from the dangerous ground.

Trees were few and far in between in this place now. It was not her ancestors that had climbed down and away from their leafy garden, but it was rather the trees that had left. The forests of old had melted away into plain under an increasingly harsh Sun. Such were the apes’ obliviousness to Time.

The constant anxiety of survival made itself felt strongly in the ape’s stomach now as it broke its grumpy silence. With a start the she-ape saw how isolated she was from the rest of the group. She was exposed. Many predators lurked down here, amongst the tall grass. Having friendly faces nearby was safer. Not because they would help in flight or combat, but because it increased the chance that one of those acquaintances was slower than oneself.

Neither this ape nor her relations could fight or outrun predators. All they could do was stand to fearfully peer above the grass while scavenging. Constantly on alert, adrenaline flaring at every breaking twig, ready to run and howl alert at the bat of an eye. Low in the food chain they were, and hard their life. Luckily they were blissfully unaware of this.

She was surprised to find herself alone.  This was a peculiarity of this particular being; unlike most others of her kind she sometimes had these distracted pauses. While she had drifted inwards her fellow apes had drifted about on the outside, further down the plain.

Their drifting was scavenging. This she-ape’s own drifting could almost be called musing. But to call it that would be to exaggerate. She only sometimes paused with puzzlement for moments at a time, and apparently nothing came of it.

However there was still a vague suspicion, a suspicion that something lay there where she could not see in the space behind her eyes, and at least it was that.

The Sun began to descend in the sky and she made her way back to the cave where her troupe sheltered itself. She trotted, sometimes upright, but mostly on all fours. Her gut, that constant companion, soon subjugated her mind again as it growled its lack of satisfaction at the slim bug meal. By dusk she reached the mouth of the cave that swallowed the returning apes in the growing darkness.

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2.

The distracted ape entered the narrow passage to the cave with the dying rays of the day. The cave had a few small alcoves, but was mostly just one main chamber. It was not perfect, the ceiling opened in the middle to the elements and one could see the sky from inside. It was more like two rock faces leaning towards each other than a proper cave. At least it wasn’t too dark, and it kept the apes safe.

Here the members of the troupe were settling down after a long day. Babies clung to their mothers or tussled each other. Others groomed for bugs or ate what they had gathered only shortly before.

The newcomer browsed around as others took her in, and saw an old member quietly napping in the corner. His fur was laced with grey, and his face and arms were wide. She went over to him and playfully shook him awake.

There was no anger at the disturbance, but instead he made soft grunts at the familiar being. He rose, but did so slowly. He was getting old. The she-ape began to groom the Grey One, partly to find lice to soothe her hunger, but mostly as a sign of friendship for this ape that she respected. He was like a father figure to her, as far as that went in such a society, and was always kind and protective of her.

The Grey One had authority in this group. He had lived long, and had the battle scars that proved it. He had once been an alpha male too.

He had abdicated to the youth in time, knowing that he was getting too old. He did not call the shots here anymore, but still he was not to be trifled with. Members treated him well, and in turn he sheltered some of them from the volatile violence of power struggles. Although the young she-ape was dull in her cognitive capacities she understood to some extent that her life’s thread hung from those grey hairs.

From a young age she had been somewhat ostracized from the rest of the clan. She looked slightly different than the rest of the troupe, and to make things worse she often found herself at odds with the current alpha male.

Her shorter arms meant she spent less time on all fours and more time on her feet than the average member making her a less efficient gatherer plus she was physically weak. Though she did not know this to set her apart, nor ever would, her face and mouth were shaped differently than that of the others’. The canines that her kind used to warn and threaten were markedly smaller. Instead, she had teeth all of approximately equal size, making her growl the first smile on the face of the Earth. Neither her jaw nor forehead protruded significantly.

While she was happily grooming her grey friend, the current Alpha male of the group returned to the cave. As was his habit he made loud noises when arriving so that the others would notice him. His desire for attention was vain but not in vain, for in his front right hand he held the mangled body of a small critter. He strutted to the center of the cave, lavishly plopped down, and began to tear the raw meat apart.

Under loud cracks of bones the others looked on in envy. His fur was brown like everyone else’s, but under it were powerful muscles. His hands were big and powerful. His skull had a heavy brow, and a prognathic jaw featured imposing canines that made little work of his kill’s brittle bones. Not many members had the physical prowess required to kill prey, and only those that did got the benefit of the meat protein.

Green Eyes, that ostracized she-ape, observed this creature. They were of the same clan its true. They were even from the same branch of the Tree of Life, but they were both twigs growing in opposite directions. The difference could be read in their eyes, in their faces, in their smiles.

He ate loudly, staining his paws with gore. The stomach of the gentle she-ape growled with a hint of envy at this feast, but her gut felt repulsion. Green Eyes always felt she wanted meat until she saw critters get torn to shreds in a bloody mess. Her stomach begged, but something else, something unknown, resisted. This contradiction of wills was beyond the understanding of her dim mind. Now she felt like she would rather stick to her bugs, roots, lice, and mushrooms. Happy with this, she turned to continue grooming the tranquil grey chimp, oblivious to the fact that she would probably wish for meat later too.

With a gulp the Alpha swallowed the rest of its kill. All eyes of the troupe were still on him. Now the Alpha gave one of those troublesome stares. He had seen Green Eyes look his way.

Emboldened by the pride and energy of his meal, the leader of the troupe stared and then came towards her. The she-ape nervously kept her gaze on the grey back she was grooming, trying to avoid confrontation. She hated Alpha.

Not so long ago the she-ape had given birth to her first and only child. She had gone off to the side one day, and had mated with one of the weaker, gentler apes of the clan. However it was the right of this brute, as dominant male, to mate with any and all females when he wanted. Naturally, the Alpha wanted to assert his dominance and assure his lineage.

So it was that one tranquil day he tore the suckling babe from Green Eyes’ breast. The youngling was smaller than the hand of the Alpha. Before any could react the giant male smashed the infant upon the stone of the cave, and shattered its body. The young mother had wailed in savage pain, and had thrown herself upon the much bigger ape. Her feeble hits did nothing until unconsciously she grabbed one of the stones that the clan sometimes used to crack open nuts. She had smashed the tool in the Alpha’s face and left a gash below his right eye. He had been angered.

He savagely trashed her. Before the whole group she was beaten and left listless next her child’s lifeless body. The father of the infant did nothing. These were the laws of the animal kingdom.

Her child no longer an obstacle, the Alpha now sought to plant his own seed. However she, for some reason, refused him this right every time she could.  Sometimes she got away, but other times she did not. Recently he had had his way.

Memory was, luckily, a fleeting capacity for these creatures, but somewhere deep inside the she-ape remembered repulsive distaste. Violence and the smell of sweat had filled her nose when he’d forced himself upon her. It was a short and vile act that had left her hurt. It had also left her pregnant. She didn’t know that.

Luckily, memory was fleeting.

Today his fur and hands were streaked with dirt and blood, and his mouth was vile. He looked like a beast. His scarred eye, monument to their feud, was set upon her. Even in this primordial age, before fire, hate could be kindled.

He strut forth menacingly, and she flashed a look towards him which made him hesitate a moment. They stared at each other intensely, and he was reminded of the reason he did not like her. Of all the members of the group, she had the peculiar eyes. Instead of plain brown her eyes had a splash of soothing yet defying green in them; they perplexed Alpha. Those eyes made him uneasy, though he did not know why. He did not like it when she looked at him.

Unfortunately for her, that power of intimidation was rarely enough to completely stop the Alpha’s intended actions. Now he was engaged, and her look was certainly not going to cow him now that the whole band was watching. He shuffled into striking range.

The smell of death and sweat rose from this beast. Savagely the Alpha sniffed in the direction of the she-ape. The entire silence of this wild world seemed concentrated within that cave, ready to explode.

Alpha lifted to a crouch on his hind legs; she jumped to her feet.

He scowled.

He puffed his chest, and then screamed a terrifying primordial roar that reverberated across the stone. Green Eyes staggered back in fear, and in an instant the Grey One rose on all fours to intervene. The Alpha made gestures towards her, but the Grey One got between them. There were excited screams from the others.

The two males starred each other down. There was electric tension in their eyes as they sized each other up.

There was a pause. The old ape did not want to fight the strong Alpha and lose face. He knew in his creaky bones that he was getting old. After a stern look he instead pushed some of the roots he had gathered over to the Alpha. The Alpha took them, pleased by this sign of worship and submission by the venerable member. The Grey One then started grooming the Alpha male as he ate his roots.

Green Eyes was in the furthest possible corner by now. The Alpha had made his demonstration and did not feel he needed to pursue the matter further. He had gotten a nice validation of his power from the Grey One. His stomach ruled him, and the roots luckily kept him rooted where he was.

However he still sent seething glances towards those green eyes. All in the group, including the Alpha himself, had noticed the pause he took when Green Eyes looked at him. No matter how many times he saw those eyes he always had to face them as if for the first time, and this puzzling lack of control over her made him despise her.

She saw in his eyes that this was not over.

She sat in her dark corner, alone. None wanted to get involved in this dispute, so they all stayed far from her. She sat there miserably, and in one of her characteristic musing-like states she saw the red sun dramatically dip below the horizon.

She sat there still for a few moments after too. It was an incriminating sight indeed in the eyes of the clan who already shunned her. They viewed her as odd.

Green Eyes tried to fall asleep despite the double attack of hunger pangs from her belly and angry glances from her rival. Even the Grey One could not go over to groom her. That would be too much of an affront and might provoke another confrontation, or even his own death. Still he gave her a calm and soothing look while the others turned their backs to her. He had lost face to protect her. Only this balm helped her find sleep.

3.

At dawn she woke to two noises. One was her stomach, still growling from clawing hunger, and the other was a strange mute hum. She looked around, but could not find its source. In fact it was so faint she wasn’t sure she could hear it at all.

But she had nor the time nor the interest to wonder about these things. The hunger trumpets were sounding; the troupe was stirring. She was eager to leave the cave and put distance between her and the Alpha.

She set out into the golden basked savannah. She spent the early morning scavenging not too far from some of the other members, but not too close either. There was a cold distance that contradicted the warmth of the morning Sun.

Even outside the cave the dull hum persisted. She noticed it a little bit any time she put something in her mouth and quelled her hunger’s overwhelming cries for a while. Unfortunately she found very little to eat.

As the daystar rose she approached a stream to quench her thirst. Green Eyes had wandered far again.

She bent over to drink. She paused. In the rippling water was an ape looking at her. She had learned before that this was no actual ape, but actually an image of herself. She starred now melancholically, but there is no time for reflection in the days before Time.

Other things were at hand.

She saw quick movement in the reflection of the water. Green Eyes spun around and saw that Alpha was raised behind her. There was no dramatic pause this time. They were alone, and she did not want find out what those cruel animal eyes saw in her.

With a shriek she spun on her heels and sprinted on all fours. He roared and got in furious pursuit. She went up the flow of the stream kicking up mud behind her. She could hear her heart thump, thump, thump, but she could not be sure that it was not the sound of the Alpha’s paws right behind her.

She turned sharply away from the stream into bushes and tall grass that grew amongst jagged rock formations. The chase, this primeval dance of the World, was on. Though he probably would not kill her, her screeching survival instinct dominated her. She picked up speed.

The humming sound she heard got louder and louder as she ran until it was drowning her mind. It was the white noise of panic. Instinct and Fate now held her.

This was the sound of her destiny.

She swerved in between stones to lose her pursuer. She was doing well. Her paws drummed the Earth as she ran, and her breath tumbled through her throat in the most primal of rhythms.

Suddenly between the rows of stones where she ran Green Eyes saw something that made her heart stop. A massive snake lay in her path. As the snake saw this ape charge towards it, it defensively reared its head and hissed. The she-ape screeched to a halt and fell backwards. She sat fearfully. Their gazes were level and locked. She was panting, and the snake’s hissing came in mind-numbing waves.

The serpent’s eyes were yellow with pupils so dark they seemed cracks yawning into the very depths of hell. Though her senses were so tense they could snap she was frozen in place. The mystical gaze seemed to have turned her into one of the stones that dotted this landscape.

The serpent mesmerized her in a trance of terror. The Sun baked the still air. A few jagged breaths elapsed like this. It slithered forward demoniacally, now completely in control here. Instinct broke her free from stillness, and she backed away.

Green Eyes turned onto her feet, and bolted back the way she came, and veered sharply right through a small passage between stones. Frenzied she dodged a boulder, went around another, sprinting. She found herself suddenly on a ledge! Her momentum was too great to stop, and she fell over, tumbling down a slope crashing into the ground.

The wicked tongue hissed one more time. Satisfied, the serpent returned into a crevice of the ancient stones from whence it came to lurk in the darkness of the World. From therein its yellow eyes would patiently observe, coiled about its bounty of deceit and lies. Its forked tongue would corrupt and reap generations of the prey that it had just caused to fall into history.

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4.

Green Eyes fell on her back.

Huuuuummmmmmmmmmmm…..

The hum reverberated powerfully in her. Her ears were ringing like they would burst. She was dazed. Her green-eyed vision blurred for a moment from a combination of the fall, her hunger, and her exhaustion. She felt confusion. However, screeching still was her animal heart; she looked around feverishly.

Eyes darting back and forth, she could not see her pursuer. She had fallen into a bowl shaped hole, some kind of crater she had never seen before. But her animal eyes sought only a way out. With panic she got up. She tried to scramble up the steep walls, but slid back down twice. She was exhausted.

Though the animal heart screams loudly, it is also very fickle. Moments passed, and no new danger arose. The strange domineering hum was very soothing. The thump thump thump of the screeching heart faded away, and with it vanished the thumping memory of legs hitting ground in chase.

The already vague memory of fear ceded to the growling stomach. As her priorities shifted, so did what she saw. She looked up and around. No birds sang. The air was spellbindingly still. There was only the hum. Green Eyes had not been hurt in the fall. The crater was filled with the green of unusually dense plant life, and the land was soft. This was a place of calmness.

Before she could try to scale again her gaze fell to the center of the crater and was powerfully and immovably locked there. In the center of it all stood a large shard of stone, a natural obelisk.

She stared ahead. She hardly saw the symbolic stone. What her hunger filtered-vision saw was that before her was a large patch of mushrooms, which grew all around in the crater and concentrically around the stone. She had never seen so many in one place before, and they all looked fresh.

Her gut growled her body forward in encouragement at this promise of a meal, yet she hesitated. She was more and more aware of the hum that had been there all morning. It was getting so powerful as to shout down her stomach’s cries. She simply stood there, on her two feet, and watched. The sound was triggering one of her musing states.

The buzzing vibrations filled her skull, and echoed there. Woven in the hum was something like the sound of water babbling over rocks, but she was nowhere near the stream. She approached the food hypnotically, completely entranced by this place. The babbling sound grew louder as she got closer.

She could not identify it. It was water over rocks; wind through leaves, the call of birds, whispers of language, songs of the gods, and coos like those of her long-deceased and forgotten mother. The entire crater seemed to contain this sound as though ringing still from a momentous impact. Her ears never heard anything over a faint whisper, but as she crouched down in front of her discovery she felt her whole being tingle and vibrate in resonance. The ground was lush and green, and a feast of mushrooms lay before her. What a garden of peace she had found. No exterior sound, or even air seemed to enter this dome.

Hhhhhuuuuuummmmmmm………

The reverberations had glazed her eyes over. She had never mused so much. In the fog of her mind she could almost begin to see. She clumsily grasped for that door in her mind for… something. It required concentration however and soon the inescapable elements of her biology returned. Her weak will was overrun.

Persistent pangs from her hungry stomach broke the musing spell. With a start she looked about. She picked up one of the mushrooms, yet examined it reverently rather than simply gulping it down. Its white stem and brown cap somehow bristled with significance she could not comprehend. She felt the buzz of the hum from her fingers to her toes.

Green Eyes carefully tore a small piece and put it in her mouth. A wave of chills ran over her body. It was tasty, and much fresher the dry ones she was used to finding on the savannah. She quickly had another piece, and then two whole other caps. She was eating something of substance for the first time in a few days. Her belly gurgled in happy digestion. She felt the chills run up her body again and the soothing daze of the hum grow more powerful. For the first time in a good while, Green Eyes felt truly safe and content.

Before she could truly begin her feast she heard the cracking of branches. The disturbing noises shattered the humming bubble of the crater. With a start Green Eyes turned around, and saw the Alpha. He was on the edge of the crater, on his hind legs. He starred right down at her, apparently oblivious to the rest of the scene.

He slid down the side of the crater and made his way towards her.

Her green eyes narrowed. Her heart began its thumping again, but she did not flee. In fact, she felt rooted in place. As she glared at Alpha, vague impressions of dread filled her mind.

The soothing hum within her body became harsh. Oddly, as though they were the leading instrument in an orchestra, her thoughts echoed into the crater. As within so without. The humming vibrations became like the denouncing cry of a thousand cicadas.

The Alpha flinched. He could hear it too, to a certain extent. She set her green eyes onto his. When their gazes met the vibrations grew louder and more menacing.

She felt an unknown power in herself as she saw, she felt, fear inundate the dull brown eyes of Alpha. Impulse pounded, and the primal instinct in her recognized fearful prey. Out of her primeval depths suddenly came a notion.

She could kill him.

She felt it with certainty, and her muscles contracted in anticipation of conflict. The hum now became more like a screech. Blurry images flashed before her eyes of the kill Alpha had eaten the previous day. She saw it as though she had been in his place; it was her hands that tore that helpless flesh, her teeth that broke bones. She could taste the blood. Her being relished the sensation of violence, and the hum was vehemently distorting. She did not know, but this was how Alpha almost always felt. This glimpse was the only hint of that fact she’d ever get.

But from turmoil of this inner violence, other feelings emerged from a different place, someplace other than the animal heart. It was a memory of her own feeling as a battered weakling, of her distaste at seeing last night’s kill.

Her species was fated to have these violent impulses, but her species would also become one that could choose whether or not to act on them, and that was all the difference. For the first time something resembling a thought was forming in her, yet her concentration broke immediately.

Suddenly she was back in the now. Alpha was looking around in worry, not understanding the dreadful fear that was seizing him. Green Eyes saw him for what he was: a scared and confused animal. Her heart softened. The hum dissipated, and the feeling of the mushrooms did too. The ever-insistent stomach growled in her, wanting more.

In an instant memory of the strange hum and its effect evaporated like morning dew.

The green eyes turned to peruse the equally green meadow. She saw all this food. Alpha’s dim gaze took it in as well. He noticed the half eaten mushroom in the she-ape’s hand, and reached for it. Reluctantly she handed it over. She felt a pang in her stomach, as he gulped it down unceremoniously.

She wanted to keep Alpha from this place; she did not want this brute to take her food, yet she couldn’t. Tension had already been high, and for now at least his attention had moved from her to the discovery. Even an alpha male in a savage mood could not ignore the large finds of food; the tribe depended on him. Besides, there wasn’t anything Green Eyes could really do.

He strutted over to a patch of mushrooms and sniffed at them with none of the care she had taken. He ripped one out of the soil and crushed it between his teeth, grounding it to a pulp. He grunted and let out a few screams, calling the others.

Green Eyes felt another pang, in her chest this time, as she knew this discovery she had made was no longer hers. Soon after other members of the tribe began poking their heads curiously over the edge of the crater. They slid down carefully, some in silence others is agitation. This curious area seemed to affect each creature differently, but none showed reverence for this place. By now the hum was gone.

The chief grabbed a handful of the mushrooms, and began to clamber his way back up the crater wall leading by grunting example.

The others followed suit, each gripping large clumps of mushrooms and tearing them out of the Earth unceremoniously until almost none remained. The soft green carpet was now torn and covered in dirt. By ones and twos the apes climbed up and out back to the cave.

Sad green eyes watched the whole of the batch be taken away. She was left alone. The hum was there again, but it was extremely faint. The crater’s atmosphere had changed. It felt empty. The last ape climbed out, but did not immediately follow the others to the cave. She clambered up one of the stones and sat with puzzled melancholy as she watched the Sun dip lower in the sky.

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4.

Green Eyes got back to the cave last. Her gaze fell on the spoils. It was really an unusually large find of mushrooms. She could not remember any other time when there was so much of anything. Her stomach moaned.

It was the end of a dry summer day. No ape of the group had gotten much of anything to eat. Some went back out into the last of the daylight, but soon drifted back with meager results. Luckily for all, there had been this find. The sunset was blood red in a yellow sky. Its sinking beams drifted into the openings of the cave.

All were eyes furtively darting to the pile and the stomachs growled like angry dogs. Still, the hungry apes waited.

Alpha went first. Slowly he took the large portion of the mushrooms he was entitled to as Alpha and discoverer of this find, even larger than was fair, but who would contest him?

Afterwards the feast was open. The pack of hungry stomachs dove for the pile of mushrooms. It was a wild grab characteristic of animals. At first, the Green Eyes feared there would be none left for her.

She got closer to the pile. Alpha looked at her with half-hearted severity, but flinched under the memory of this afternoon and trotted away to eat.

She tried to make her way through the shuffling bodies. Truly, her stomach absolutely required food. Surprisingly soon however, the group slowed its consumption and dispersed. The members of the band went about and sat down in an unusual silence. She did not cue in to the odd behavior; hunger is blind.

Whipped by her gut she dove in just as unceremoniously for her share, and when the pile was done she even finished those that others had left untouched or nearly so. She munched away happily, getting more than she could have expected. Finally the hunger that had been clamoring at her for the past few days was silenced.

Peace.

Yet as she began to feel the meal in her stomach she finally realized how quiet the cave was. Usually the band would be babbling about, playing, grooming, fighting, but all were sitting quietly.

It was an eerie scene, and she was alarmed. She looked over to the Grey One sitting against a wall. His eyes were distant, leaving. He gave her an ominous look.

She did not understand. Fear made a nest in her chest. She felt very heavy, and she collapsed to sitting. Thump, thump, thump came her heart beat. The humming sound returned. Her ears rang with it.

She sat before the entrance, and the sun was setting.

Golden rays flowed through the brown hair of her arms and sparkled. She gaped, astonished at the play of light on her own body. Her gaze moved to her hands, which she held in silhouette against the light. Slowly she bent and unbent her fingers and thumb in awe, unable to comprehend. The hum grew insistently and shook her mind. The cave began to spin and distort, and the fear in her heart flew up into her throat.

Blood pounded violently in her ears. She felt like fainting.

She flopped over onto her side, practically convulsing. She was nauseous, and terribly dizzy. Her body felt like it was melting into the very stone on which she lay. Her animal heart was racing; she was terrified! Her instincts shrieked unbearably at her. More than anything in the world she wanted to flee, but her body was sluggish and unresponsive. Now she knew why the others were practically catatonic.

Her body was telling her she would die, though she only vaguely understood that somber notion.

The mushroom’s effects crawled up her body. Her eyes could no longer see normally nor her ears hear; the World was distorting, melting. The hum returned inside of her. It rattled her body and vibrated every inch of it. In sheer terror now, Green Eyes grasped pathetically at the air, seeking motherly fur to burrow into.

She cried out in distress. It was a panicked shriek of alarm. This alarmed some of the others, but none were fit enough to feel more than wary confusion. With the shriek the Wind engulfed itself into the cave as though drawn in by its own curiosity. It blew round the cave and pet the hair of the apes. It saw what was to happen, and blew with glee in the gathering darkness. No secrets could be kept from it. Dawn was going to break.

The whisper of the Wind embraced her. She heard in it sounds that neither she nor any other creature of the Earth had ever heard before.

One of the younger members of the troupe had been jolted from his waking dream by the panicked scream. In his futile attempts to rise he huffed and grunted once, then two grunts. He stopped trying to move.

There was an astonished stillness on his part.

Then thrice more he grunted in regular intervals. Others lifted their heads to look, wide-eyed. They were shocked. A silence impregnated with meaning inundated the chamber. There was this intuitive feeling that something was about to happen, something was about to be born.

The grunting ape kept repeating his sound. He did so twice, thrice, then four times again. Gradually, he locked into a rhythm:

Hrmh…. hrmh…. hmrmh…. hrmh….

With hardly any knowledge of what he was doing, the ape produced the first music. The pulse of life came from his lips, and it astonished every being there.

The continuous groove of his sounds revealed a wisdom they all instinctively knew, yet had never uncovered. It was the very speech of the World. It was not long before he held his fellow apes’ entranced. The singer himself started getting into the trance more and more, and it energized his companions. Then suddenly one of them loosed a wild:

HAA!

On one of the beats, which radically energized the rest of the apes.

Slowly, they began to imitate him. It was chaotic at first as this new skill was carved in the primitive brains, but soon the cave filled with a chorus of rhythmic grunting. Some were greatly spurred on by this and began to beat their hands together, against the cave’s surfaces, and against their chests. They swayed hauntingly back and forth, shrieking ecstatically here and there. The grunts echoed on the cavern walls and the claps reverberated. The space filled up with this primal vibration.

This explosion of rhythm thundered in Green Eyes’ expanded mind. Her wild eyes shot open.

She could hear her heart thumping in synchronicity with the primal vibrations, and felt as though her entire being existed within that pulse. She curled into a fetal position. Her mouth was gaping, her tongue lolled, and her eyes rolled. She was in the complete shock of dissolution.

HA! HRMH HRMH HMRH HA!

The rhythm pounded to her very core and got louder as the whole band, even the excited younglings locked into the rhythm. Their enthusiasm was reaching debilitating heights, and she could feel it. Only she and a few others were left sprawled on the ground, too high to move. Everyone else, including the Grey One was possessed by the rhythm. She sought him with her gaze, but knew that he would not see her. He was gone.

Darkness of night invaded, but the nearly full Moon shone through the opened ceiling. The scene glowed in its haunting light.

She looked around desperately, seeking guidance, seeking help, anything! When she gazed up, she saw an eye in the sky, a bowl of heavenly milk.

It was the Moon shinning, but it was so illustriously beautiful that it blinded her.

Never had she ever seen this Moon. Green Eyes had vaguely noticed light in the sky before, but now she saw the Moon, and she saw the stars. The curtains of heaven were drawn back. The brilliant ships of the firmament navigating the dark ocean of oblivion were suddenly revealed to her in all their beauty.

As she gawked at the heavens an ever louder humming emerged over the tumult of her mind. The Moon vibrated so violently that its brightness seemed to wring itself and leak its nectar down from the sky. The very air shimmered. The cave walls shivered like they were breathing, and seemed to get continuously closer and farther. The Wind blew through with ravished glee amplifying and carrying the sound of the night.

HM-HA! HRMH HRMH HRMH HAAAAAAAIIEKK!

The ape shut her green eyes tight. She sought calm in the darkness, but it was not to be.

The music split open her vision.

The Wind moistly whispered its congratulations to her ear, and opened up its veil. Out of the dark fog of her mind came a light out of which exploded shapes and colours she could not understand. Never before had there been light in the animal mind.

Though her eyes were closed, patterns rushed by her at dizzying speed as though she fell into a tunnel through the Earth that was lined with impossible colours.

Then an indistinct entity appeared amongst the patterns, it was coalescing from nothing into being. That surprised the poor ape nearly to death.  She shrieked again. Her scream of primal fear fell on the collective grunting and had an explosive effect. The troupe was bolstered by such a raw discharge of emotion.

In turn, they drove ever deeper into the rhythm, which plunged Green Eyes further into her hallucinations.

The hum first heard in the crater was jarring her. It was as though it was erasing her body, tearing her soul away from its green eyed fleshy cocoon. She resisted the feeling. She fought and clawed the air and tried to grip onto herself, onto life.

Domineering above her in her mind’s eye was a searing white light that she instinctively knew to be an other.  She was powerless, and in her fear interpreted it as a predator. The hallucinations manifested the content of her mind, and took the shape of the snake she had seen earlier. Its yellow eyes appeared in the darkness. The serpent was enormous. Emerging from nothing its long jewel-incrusted body slithered towards her, towards her soul. Past the kaleidoscopic tiles it went, over effervescent shapes and triangles full of symbology Green Eyes could not understand.

The omnipresent hum seared white hot into her as the snake of colour and light coiled itself around her mind. She felt that now, as in earlier in the afternoon amongst the rocks, this snake sought to take her. It did.

Terror became the very essence of her being as she felt her grip loosen more. Resistance was clearly futile, but hers was the blood of the African plain and it pumped through an untamed heart, and the heart of an animal never gives up. It beats feverishly until the very last drop of life is wrung from it.

In the panicked throes of animalistic resistance she tried getting up, but fell down again violently hitting the hard cave floor. She sliced her hand open on a sharp rock. Blood trickled down her palm. She didn’t notice the pain. She was too terrified.

The smell of her own blood confusingly reached Green Eyes. She could not decipher its meaning in this state. Blood pounded madly in her ears to the pulse of her heart, to the rhythm of the tribe, to the vibration of the primeval night!

As the predator of light coiled ever tighter she felt like her skull was about to pop. She felt the pressure in her mind build up until it could build no more. The hallucinating ape sensed death closing upon her. In a final desperate attempt she howled in deathly intensity. As the howl tore through her throat she felt her skull shatter.

Her body fell deathly still.

She felt her soul detach.

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5.

Her howl was one like no other throat had ever uttered on Earth.

Its supernatural ring echoed off the ancient surfaces. This was a howl layered with infinity, and that would layer and divide infinity. It was the death of the animal, the cry of the child being torn from the maternal branch; it was its stupefaction before the light, a light that it had never known, but that could now never again be unknown.

In the darkness of the animal mind there was no light. There was no shadow, no contrast. In that oblivion was only the present moment, its basic needs, and nothing else. In that darkness Man could have remained, finding with bugs in the sand the joy of the day everyday until the end of all days.

However the ape, intrigued by mystical light it could barely perceive, had peeked past the door from the threshold of its own mind, and thus seared its vision forever. Beyond the door lay the human soul, afire with the implications of its expanse. Terrified though it was, the ape could no longer go back. It had burnt its vision beholding the fires of imagination, and fallen into history. When it turned its blind gaze back behind it, it saw only an unfathomable darkness to which its eyes could never again grow accustomed. Forevermore there was only desolate obscurity behind and radiant terror before.

The Eden of the canopy was now forever lost. Not physically lost, the canopy would remain. What fell from those branches to its death was the ability to quench a simple soul’s thirst under the moist leaves. The thirst would now grow unchecked with the realization, or perhaps the illusion, that each day is different than the other, and that today’s bugs are not as tasty as yesterday’s. Under this light would sprout the new ability to consider how things were, how they are, and how they will or could be.

Now the altar of satisfaction would demand not grubs, but farms, cities, empires, soaring arches, fervent gods, and mighty ships amongst the stars. Entire worlds would be consumed by the thirst of this light.

There was no choice left now but to walk, an exodus from the darkness towards the light. So would begin the migration of a species, the march from past to present into future, the endless march of Time.

Like a moth to a flame Humanity would walk, bumbling forth to its own blazing end whatever that may be. In time, this flame would singe the fur of the ape off the skin of humankind. This Man sees hope only in the light of tomorrow. He can no longer be satisfied of where he is, and so he presses ever forth. Burning and being burnt he sears more and more of his vision and his days to darkness, parches his throat thirsting for truth and light, and tells himself he is making progress.

In its baptism of fire the ape howled in the cave. That howl called through the ages, and billions of answers hauntingly rose. They were the echoes of the hundred thousand generations caught in this migration.

The eloquence of the priest, the song of the mariner, the laughter of the child, the moans of love, the calls of war, the cries of fear: all are answers of the yet unborn throats, echoes of that howling call. Every utterance would conceal that primeval vibration. That is to say the baffled cry of the animal whose eyes burn in Time, in the light of the human soul.

That howl is the source from which every syllable, word, song, broken sigh and disbelieving exclamation of this nascent humanity would ever flow.

The step of every man, woman, and child falls to the rhythm of that ancient cave, of that first of human cries. Its pulse is the initiating step of the infinite migration, and it sets the tempo of all walkers.

Whether they like it or not, walk the humans do, step, step, step to the beat of those cries. It is the pulse that drives them away from the breast and into the crib, out of valley and over the mountain, off of the shore and into the sea, beyond the Earth and into the stars.

Such steps off of one shore and onto another are the occasions when the apes allow themselves to pause. On these momentous days, they throw a proud but uncertain gaze to the gathering gloom behind them. Man finally permits a glance back to his ancestors, to his mother, to his earth. He looks there triumphantly upon the distance travelled, or to collapse into an abyss of regret of what was lost; he will see there what he wills.

For the truth is that the darkness of the past is as invisible as the brilliance of the future. It is impossible to know where they’ve come from, or where the Humans go. It is up to the faculty that is the Human imagination to fill in those gaps. The migrants then tell themselves that they are better off now than they were then, and worse now than they will be. They must.

They must use the imagination in glorification to justify this tedious march. They must see in the light better dawns until they gaze upon the final one, wherever it may rise.

Only one thing is certain. That the march of Time will end with a cry as powerful, a note as pure, as the primeval howl that now opened this symphony.

Finally released of the tyranny of Time, whether it be by brutal extinction on the ground or by some miraculous liberation among the stars, the throats of mankind will sing one final time in awe, all the despairs and hopes of their long march. In one final echo of that first of howls will be the existence of a species, a song for the cosmos. Then there will be silence, and darkness. The apes will be back in the blissful timeless folds from which they started. They will have marched around the clock. They will have accomplished the circle of Time.

She saw it all.

With mind shattering intensity it all unfolded before Green Eyes’ soul. She saw the opera that her throat begun, the exodus from the darkness that her life initiated, the vast migration that she commenced. Across the eons of time she saw the success and despair of every Human being caught in this affair. For the first and last time in her short life, she knew her Children. All of them.

Non-comprehending tears rolled down her furry face.

The divine hum enveloped her through it all, gently guiding her, protecting her. The snake was gone, and so was her fear. She was not of her body anymore, how could she come to harm?

At this, the light melted and morphed. Filaments began to take form and coalesce. There were feet, but not like any Green Eyes knew. There was no hair on these gentle feet. There was hair yes, but it was smooth and flowing, and coming only from the head. There were graceful hands, and there were eyes.

In this light, this cruel but beautiful light was a goddess. Her body was woven from filaments of starlight. She was a child of the heavens, a daughter of the migration.

Her eyes were powerful and loving. She fixed her wise gaze on Green Eyes. The ape saw her mother’s eyes.

She saw them, and for the first and last time of her short life she remembered her mother. With surprising clarity she remembered the gentle care and caresses, she remembered the warm fur, and she remembered clinging on as hard as her little hands could. Tears spattered. This was a feeling that she would need.

For in these voluptuous joys of maternity she felt a light shine within her stomach. In a startling realization she noticed that a heart was beating there, in synchronization with her own. Then she knew. She knew that she carried life; she knew that she was pregnant with the Human race, though she could not fathom what that meant.

The motherly eyes of the goddess burrowed their gaze with insistence into the ape’s stomach, and made her realize the importance that lay there. Then the gaze shifted to the ape’s forehead. Between the eyes and slightly above the brow, Green Eyes started to feel the tingling of that gaze. It shivered all through her along with the hum, but it did not hurt. She was a drop in an ocean of bliss.

The goddess leaned in, and with a gentle hand of light stroked Green Eyes’ like her mother used to do. The ape shivered, enveloped in calm maternal love. The light of the goddess got closer, and just as her eyes seemed to burn through the very essence of the ape she whispered:

Eve.

The light exploded forth! Chills ran up the arms and spine of her body as it convulsed on the sandy cave floor. She felt herself being sown back into her body. Her forehead seemed split open, and her soul fluttered back in through that gap.  Behind it were left all the bewildering contents of the night’s dream, filtered by the membrane of her body. They did not cross the veil of material existence. Those visions evaporated back to whichever mysterious heaven they came from. Yet spiritual light now glowed through the opening created by the passage of her soul. It crested over the darkness of the ape’s mind, and began to shine through as it would forevermore.

It was the dawn of Time.

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6.

The green eyes opened close to the floor. In confusion they made out the sand and stone of the cavern floor. There was a dull pink light; the Sun was rising, but it was still cold. There were very few sounds inside the cave.

With an effort the ape tried to recall what had happened, but she could not. It was all as elusive as the Wind itself. She vaguely remembered light, love, and she vaguely remembered her mother, but that was fading rapidly. Yet something had happened, and it was not lost. Something had changed. Night had gone. It was dawn.

The blood pounded in her ears, and she felt queasy. There weren’t the blind ramblings of hunger in this hour. Slowly she rose to a seated position. She looked around. The other apes were silent. Some were asleep, but most were just staring blankly, lost, frightened. When she rose however, their gazes shifted to her. Even before she could catch her breath the stench of sweat and danger filled her nose. There was blood in the air.

She heard a sickening thump that made her heart skip.

She turned to see the Grey One’s mangled body in a corner of the cave. Alpha was still lashing angry hits at the corpse once in a while.

As soon as Alpha saw her, he began strutting powerfully towards her on all fours. He had not enjoyed last night at all. Baffled terror had seized him, and made him look like a fool. To his fur still clung lumps of shit from his fear-loosened bowels.

Her shattering cries had not helped his state either. He had plunged almost as deep as she had, but he had had no beautiful visions, no clarity. Still, in the murkiness of his dull mind he grasped that something had happened, something that was threatening to him, and ultimately to his kind. He resolved to deal with it by killing this pesky little she-ape and thus be absolved of his fear.

In an instant the troupe was on alert. Perhaps it was the events of last night, but they seemed sensitive to the situation through the smallest subtleties. They sensed something would happen. Likely the mangling of the Grey One was clue.

Fury burned in the heart of the green-eyed ape under the rays of the red sun. She considered the corpse of the Grey One with sad eyes.

So it begun.

She hardened and shifted towards Alpha. He had not killed her in the night for her trance and intermittent screams had petrified him and the rest of the troupe. Still disoriented themselves, the apes had left the odd outcast to her own affairs, there rolling in the dirt of the floor. Obviously none, including she, understood what had happened.

In the silence of the dawn the paws of Alpha landed their leather on the stone. There was blood in his fur. His lower jaw jutted out, still encrusted with the blood of two days ago. Murder was in his cruel eyes, and his powerful body smelled of sweat. He was a filthy beast. He strode slowly to his prey. All the laws of the animal kingdom stated there was no way, save luck, that this young ape could defeat or outrun the king. She felt fear, but her stomach stepped in as it often did and took over. She had always lived by her stomach, but now a new and nobler purpose than blind hunger dwelt there. Its warmth steeled her.

She was on a ledge slightly elevated above Alpha who was cautiously paused in the pit below to gaze at her.

Without fear, and without rush, Green Eyes rose to her feet. Never again would she fall to her paws.

She stood tall, her shoulders broad, her stance proud, her even jaw set. Much to Alpha’s stupefied horror, the green eyes fell upon his. To all others, it seemed death was about to be dealt.

It was only in the electricity of those interlocked gazes that a scene was being played out. The green eyes glowed in a way that they never had before. What was once only faintly hinted at before was now ignited in her gaze. This was a new look.

Mercilessly she dug the gaze into him as the goddess had into her. He did not feel the burn of dawn on his mind. He felt only the licks of fear around his stomach and his heart.

Quickly losing ground on a field he did not quite perceive, Alpha rumbled a growl in his chest to roar past his canines. But before he could let it out:

HHHHAAAAAAARRGHHHH

Shouted the green-eyed ape, shutting him up. The memories of all in the cave were still fresh with the demonic howl this one possessed. All froze.

The sun peaked over the distant hills, and its light flitted past the entrance of the cave with a touch of the knowing breeze. In the light of dawn was the silhouette of an ape on its feet, and a monkey in the dirt. There came a reverent stillness that even the Wind respected.

In a slow and deliberate movement, the ape raised her arm to her side, still glaring at Alpha, rooting him into place. Her chest rose in inhalation as the Wind lent itself to her for what was to be done.

Suddenly she pounded her hand against her chest:

Eve!

She called in a hoarse, slurred syllable.

Eve!

She repeated a few times over.

The silence was absolute. Alpha was completely cowed. He stumbled backwards and fell, defeated. She saw the stones on the floor, and for an instant felt like using one to smash in this brute’s Adam’s apple. Once again, she decided against it. She intuitively knew he would give her no more trouble. Besides, he was the father of her child, the father of humanity.

The sun broke away from the horizon, inundating the savannah and kissing the scene with its mystical rays. Eve stepped confidently away, though her strength was rapidly draining. She walked toward the opening of the cave.

She staggered, and pressed her hand against the cool stone to stabilize herself. As she lifted her hand, the vague outline of her fingers and palm remained. It was the blood of her hand cut in her hallucinating throes. She changed the face of the stone, and her children would mold the World.

Resolutely, Eve stepped out of the cave, and into the morning sun to nurse the gentle clamours coming from her belly.

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Before the age was out, the first sparks would be lighting fires and slowly casting out the darkness. The first tools would be crafted, the first images would be painted, the first gods would be praised, and the first words would be uttered. Thousands of years elapsed, and progress was slow and full of peril. But this was now a world and a species in Time, grains in the eternal sands that flow as they must. It was the beginning of a song, the symphony of an exodus.

For a few eons after that the Sun still basked the savannah plain, the Moon still winked in the sky, the Wind still whimsically roamed, and the stars smiled although that too had to end.

Eventually the first fires of flint would be harnessed into the fire of vessels taking the last children of the apes away from the canopy of the Earth forever and into the unknown oceans of the cosmos. Amongst the heavens as gods they would write the song of their fall in its thousand movements unto its fateful close, as far from canopy as it is possible to be.

Will of the Universe be done.

© Julien DuPont, 2014