10. AN ESCAPE FROM THE STONE AGE

The first human woman was called Lucy when her DNA was examined...

Lulu was sitting or standing or lying or maybe simply floating along in The Past when she bumped into Elaine as the latter was contemplating the miracle of death by trying to remember a love song by Donovan.

“Sorry,” grinned Lulu, “I wasn’t looking where I was going or not going, if you see what I mean. I’ve been here a long time, and I get to be forgetful. It’s easy forgetting stuff when there’s nothing for you to remember anyway.”

“I’ve not met anyone else who made any reference to time like you just did,” said (or maybe thought or could be dribbled) Elaine.

“I know. It’s boring, isn’t it?” replied Lulu, “but when I arrived here The Past was a spanking brand new place and I had nobody to converse with. I spent ages moping around on my own.”

“That must have been a long time ago,” suggested Elaine, “I don’t think I’ve met anyone with a story like that to tell.”

“Oh, you won’t,” thought or said Lulu, “I was the first, you know. My man might have beaten me to it, but if he did he got lost somewhere. I loved him, I did, loved him like no woman ever loved a man before. He was strong, and his chest… you must know what I mean, was so hirsute.”

“My man had a hollow chest that hardly had any hairs to improve it, and very little else to commend him,” Elaine told her, “in fact, my greatest pleasure in death is going to visit him and haunt him. He hates it when I pop up and tell him a few home truths. He hates to be reminded of himself!”

“Owongo was so sweet to me,” sighed Lulu, “I tell you what, how about you and me taking a peek at my old home.”

“That might be fun,” decided Elaine.

“Mind you, don’t expect anything particularly sophisticated,” said Lulu, “it was only any old cave by any old river valley, but the fishing was good and Owongo loved his hunting. He’d go off with his mates, all of them arms swinging like so many supermen, and it wasn’t just their arms that were swinging in summer! In winter, which wasn’t very often, it being balmy most of the year round, but in winter we would sling a skin on him for warmth, and then his whatsit would sadly be out of sight and I wouldn’t be able to see any swinging in that department!”

“How times changed,” sighed Elaine, “and from the sound of it , not for the better.”

“Come on. Take what ought to be my hand but isn’t there, and I’ll let you into my world for a moment or two,” laughed or wept Lulu.

The man was standing by the river under a brilliant blue sky, the sound of trickling coming from the sweet smelling waterway that clearly ran from the distant white-capped mountains, and he was grunting almost melodically. As Lulu had intimated he was naked as the day he’d been born and Elaine couldn’t help but admire the way he stood looking into the waters as they splashed by him.

“That’s Owongo,” whispered or shouted Lulu, “I don’t like to scare him, poor dear, when he’s singing so beautifully. He can’t get his head round me talking to him when I’m supposed to be resting on the floor of the ancestors and at the same time popping up from time to time and chatting to him.”

“The floor of the ancestors?” queried Elaine, the term being so unusual she had no idea what it meant.

“Come. I’ll show you. Owongo can’t see us, but I may say goodbye before I go back with you into the Past.”

They didn’t walk because spectres without feet can’t walk, but they moved hastily along a pathway made of little more than regular use by passing feet until they were on a level plain between two hills. The air had a special aroma to it and had Elaine been more worldly wise she would have called it the stench of death.

“This is the floor of the ancestors,” explained Lulu waving an arm that she didn’t have so that Elaine could grasp the enormity of what was, in essence, an uncovered cemetery where the dead were simply laid to rest on the naked grassy earth. Some of the bones she could see were covered with piles of stones, but most were left so that the dead could become easy carrion for passing hungry wildlife.

“I was found here, at least a tiny bit of my skull was,” smiled or scowled Lulu, “many, many years, too many for me to comprehend, passed and men came here in search of evidence that we lived in our time. The earth had moved, of course, since my time, but part, just a tiny part, of my skull was found but there was enough for the future men to extract what they call DNA and conclude that my mitochondrial DNA was unique in that I had no human ancestors. I’ve gone to the trouble to learn all about it. You see, I was the first woman, and they called me Lucy even though they only had that small part of me to investigate. I’ve learned all this since, you know: A woman can’t help but be interested in her roots!”

“Then I’ve heard of you,” exclaimed or whispered Elaine, “when I was at school we were taught about Lucy and what life was like in the far distant past! It was a story that quite took my fancy! So you’re Lucy?”

“Was. I was Lucy, but so much time has passed I doubt that it matters very much what you call me. Come on, I want to say goodbye to Owongo, for the zillionth time.”

“Surely you can meet him in the Past?” asked Elaine, frowning.

“Oh, after I died in childbirth he quickly found another woman and I suppose he fell in love with her. He still is, you know. I see him sometimes when I’m bored, and after three million years it’s easy to get bored. I see her with him still, wandering the fields of for ever and he never notices me. But here, in life, he’s got to.”

Then she led Elaine back from the floor of the ancestors and crept up to the naked man who was still standing staring into the swirling waters of a pristine river.

“Boo!” she said, and he jumped several inches into the air, and scowled at her.

“Lucy,” he growled, “you’ve just got to stop doing this! I’m with Mirumda now and you’re in the past. I’m sorry and all that, but I can’t help it that you died.”

“And I forgive you, sweetheart,” she said, and pulled Elaine away.

“Come on,” she murmured, “let’s go back to where we belong. You can see how he is. Grumpy … and desirable still.”

“I like him,” admitted Elaine, “he’s most definitely a cut above my William.”

“Poor you, then,” said Lulu as they stepped onto the strange non-surface of the Past, and crowds of strangers drifted past them on their way from nowhere to nowhere and nowhen to nowhen.

“Yes,” sighed Elaine, “poor me. Poor me indeed.” And she wandered or drifted away from Lulu looking for someone to love or hate.

© Peter Rogerson 02.09.21

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