FIRE

A few postings ago I spoke about the Bushmen of Southern Africa or, as they call themselves, "The San".

After this meeting we returned to our campsite and by the light of a weak-batteried flashlight, I wrote this story. 
I intended, but forgot to post it along with my picture essay of the San.

Here  it is, belatedly:

F I R E !

The cave was in a rock wall about three times his own height above ground.

He discovered it when he climbed the tree which hid the entrance, to collect some eggs he had spied in a King Fisher's nest.

The cave was roomy, providing an entrance area and, just around a corner, a large space just right for him and his family. He climbed down, using the sturdy branches of the fig tree, and went to bring his mate and their three off-spring.

“This is a good place” she indicated, more by her smile than by her words.

He was proud of her praise and returned her smile with his own.

The cave was inaccessible to marauding predators and promised to remain their own space, not to be co-occupied by kiss 'n kin.

At first sight he had called her 'lada', meaning “song” or “melody” and she was happy, now to have a name of her own.

While he was the stronger, she was the quicker and more dexterous and so they shared in the labor of bringing their few belongings and some dried food supplies up the tree and into their new abode.

Both had seen “fire” before, when lightening had struck a lone tree and the grassland was engulfed in burning, and they enjoyed eating what sometimes was left as the charred remains of a ground hog, too slow to escape.

If only he could make fire himself when-ever and where-ever he needed or wanted it.

Then, one day he saw a large rock falling from the wall and a spark flew when it struck another rock on the ground.

It took no time before he was able to make a spark by hitting rock on rock.

It was “lada” who gathered some dried lichens and some very dry moss and indicated to him that he should try and make a spark while having the stone surrounded by this lichen and moss.

With determination he attempted it again and again.

Then, all of a sudden, it worked and a slight whiff of smoke curled upward and was followed by a small flame. Tiny twigs and small branches, followed by larger branches and then large pieces of drift wood, they had found by the river, enabled them to control the flame according to their want and need.

When the rainy Season started and the nights turned chilly, he sometimes allowed the fire to stay on, as he and his family enjoyed the warmth.

When one night low pressure air hung over the valley and the smoke created by his wonderful discovery, could not leave their rock wall abode, neither he, nor lada, nor their three children ever woke up again

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