Dreaming In Situ

 

Upon observing an elegant flint spear point.

 
I look upon merely its photograph. This is no cloddish lump of wrought stone. It sings. Its perfection is astonishing. Little bits of a tale begin moving forward.  Rivers reverse. Time runs back and back and back.  I begin to sense him, deep in his time on earth. He is a hazy image still. Is it urgency or resignation in his heart as he works away? Why does a man sit chipping stones as if it were the only work? Is he sick of bloodletting? Or is it just life?

He is no clownish cave dweller such as in people's awkward beliefs.

He knows more about the animals his people hunt than we know about ours now.

So what then, Long Dead Man, if I could hold this elegant thing in my hand and run my curious forefinger along its delicately chipped edges?  Could I squeeze my eyes shut and see you there, in the world as it was? Are you rough, with all hairiness intact or are you groomed, a specialist and a respected man?  Or are you everyman making your own points?  Are you sleek? Are you dark or fair?

I say that you are fair, and fairly young.  In your thirties, but somewhat more worn than most men are now. You are tanned for sure. You are profoundly muscular.

 
I think there is a woman who braids your hair long and that you are blue eyed. She loves colors. I think she braids colored strands into your hair and that you are a little vain. I think you might wear scents and use face paint too.

Perhaps this woman has learned to weave cloth. Perhaps she works skins.  In any case she makes the coverings you wear, as you sit there day in and day out, a heavy skin on your knee, working when the light is good.

When he was five or six his father started him chipping flint. Out in the daylight on dry days they worked together. The boy getting better and finer in his work until he pleased his father enough that his points were finally used for small game. Birds and rabbits and other little things.

I imagine placing the point carefully back down, the moment passing. He tumbles back into his unknowable time. But for that moment I knew him.

Just dreaming.