Primordial Discovery

He looked at her. She looked back. They focused their eyes on the busted rock lying in the dirt.

"Hunm," he grunted, pointing at the black, shattered shards - at the mark they'd left on the cave wall.

She scowled, unsure.

He reached down and lifted a single, jagged chunk, holding it out as if he wanted her to take it from him. Timidly, she did, and for a moment, she gazed at it - then back at the wall. He urged her to come forward, patting the flat surface with his calloused hand.

"Ahm," he said, mimicking a strange circular movement.

She lifted the rock, pressed it to the wall, and drug it down - leaving a thick, clumsy streak of black.

"Ahhh," he smiled, and picked up a shard of his own. He zig-zagged it across the wall, creating haphazard curves and edges where it touched.

She laughed aloud, a barking noise that echoed down into the cave. Each of them grinned at the other, and they pressed their rocks to the wall - scraping intangible shapes along the surface. They worked in a frenzy, crazed with the thrill of discovery.

His lines were abstract, shapeless. Hers circular and formed. They stepped back and examined the wall, now covered in odd markings and swirls. The man reached over and squeezed her shoulder. She smiled at him. He smiled at her.

They reached down, each of them selecting a new chunk of the jagged black rock, and they turned to blank wall behind them...