Fast Moving Puddle

Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting located in the past. Though the term is commonly used as a synonym for the historical novel, it can also be applied to other types of narrative, including theatre, opera, cinema, and television, as well as video games and graphic novels. I chose the Prehistory time period, more specifically Pleistocene (Homo sapiens) I know, that’s a lot of references linked but I don’t know squat about this era but I chose it because it allows me to use my imagination. I get to build a world that I’ve never seen and experiencing something for the first time. I’ll try to keep it short but a lot of research was put into this short story.

---

I’m not much more advanced than my ancestors but a lot is happening in the world around me. The advances from the past to now are amazing and can be seen through the drawings on our homes. I do have to admit that I love to draw but my father has told me, ‘Only draw because of important things that we want to pass on to our newer family as we older family dies.’ I always scoffed at this knowing that I’ll more than likely die by the tusks of a mammoth.

One thing that I couldn’t get enough of other than drawing is the balls of fire in the sky. Sometimes the flew other times they twinkled but one thing I could tell right away is that some formed figures if you connected the balls of fire. My days were always filled with excitement. I got to pick out what I wanted to wear, hunt or gather, cook, and explore. I didn’t even mind the snow and ice.

My father and I were hungry and began our hunt. I noticed something odd on this trip, there were fewer animals for us to hunt. Were there enough of us on this land to eat all the big animals? ‘Father, where’s the food?’ I asked, kind of worried. ‘Looks like we are going to have to gather more than hunt today,’ he replied. I REALLY wanted meat. I do however like the small, black bumpy sweet balls that are now showing up by puddles.

Walking along I heard a sound never heard before. Both dad and I had our sharp tools ready for whatever was going to try and eat us. As we moved closer to the sound, the louder it got. ‘STOP!’ I screamed at my dad. He almost fell in a fast moving puddle that looked really deep. ‘What is this?’ He asked. All I could do was shrug my shoulders at him. I threw a berry in the puddle when something large jumped up and back in. We both decided that berried were good and headed home.

That night as the family group sat together and ate we talked about what dad and I found. We had more questions than experiences. The smaller puddles disappeared after a few days but this didn’t look like it was going to go away any time soon. We discussed dangers and wondered if there was meat to hunt in what we found. How would we hunt in that? After the balls of fire came out we decided that was enough talk and got to bed. ‘Before you go to bed offspring, draw on the wall what we found, the animal that we have seen, and us two standing by it. One thing that we did decide was that we would call it a river.