Chapter 8

He stood on a high cliff near their cave. It was usually dark, pitch black this time of night, with nothing but a blanket of dots across the sky as far as the eyes can see. His clan, inside the cave, afraid. The usually silent night was awake with sounds. Wolves howled, panthers growled, hyenas whimpered, birds sang, insects made incessant noise. It was something that had never happened before and it could only be attributed to one thing, the giant disk in the sky that appeared as a sliver, and with each night increased and increased until tonight when it became a full shining circle.

For the first time, he could see that every night, the world did not disappear, that it was all still there, illuminated by the moon he could see the deep canyon with the river running down the bottom, the waterfall and the ravine extending far far ahead. It was all there but darker. What did this mean? His small Neanderthal brain could not understand, could not take it in could not comprehend the situation. His deep ridges over the eyes became even deeper, he looked far and ahead with seriousness in his eyes attempting to guess what the object in the sky really was.

He snapped out of his daze with a sound behind him, turning with spear poised to throw. From the brush came out a female. Small and young with a tender and slightly frightened look in her deep black eyes, sparkling as she reflected the large disk in the sky. She approached him, slowly, his spear lowered, face relaxed and he turned back to the valley. She came up next to him and tenderly slid her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. He sat down and she sat down next to him. They looked up to the moon together, along with the rest of the animal kingdom. It was a worrisome sign and yet at the same time, it made the night, a little less scary a little less fearsome.

On that giant white disk, high above, a small barely detectable flash occurred and began to move slowly towards the planet. It would have a week long trip, by then the moon would begin to disappear, day by day. The leader of the clan would come out to the cliff every night. The fear of the disk turned to pain as it began to seem like that which came to worry them, that which lit up the night was now leaving and would soon disappear. There was a pain, each day and he for the first time began to have a feeling of loss and desire to keep something. He began to go out and kill animals and throw them from the cliff hoping that the large shrinking orb would accept the food, for maybe it was hungry…

About seven nights after that night on the cliff with the moon being full, he was out with the other males out on the steppe trying to capture a mammoth when all of a sudden a sudden flash occurred. Men lost their focus as they looked up and the mammoth took the opportunity to run away. The desire to look up was great but the light too much..

A couple minutes later a loud sound of falling mountains and rocks and he realized that the moon, must be falling. He called his men and they ran for the protection of the cave. Cold sweat dribbled down his temples as they arrived to the cave. He howled and yelled. His clan looked at him in fear and confusion. The young female came to him to calm him down but he threw her aside. It was him.. he fed the moon too much and now it was coming to earth, it was his fault.

The noise got louder and the light became brighter, illuminating the dark cave shacking rocks free from the walls. They huddled together while he ran around beating his fists against his chest and against the rocks as giant boulders fell around him.

And then… the noise stopped and so did the bright light. Silence befell on the valley and outside, normal day seemed to be as if nothing happened. The cave fell back into semi-darkness.

He stopped his howling and his running. Be-stilled as if he was not sure if the sound was still going or stopped or if it was all in his mind. The clan came out of their hiding place, all unhurt and looked their leader with fear and curiosity. He looked at them and walked over to the opening, carefully peering out. All seemed ok. He slowly came out with spear in hand and others slowly began to follow him. As he walked toward the valley there was a most spectacular sight. The valley dry grass had been burned to a crisp. Four giant columns stood in the valley. Atop these columns stood a giant circular metallic building reflecting sunlight, glistening white with intense African sun. He realized that the moon had come and he better get the moon some food. As the clan neared he grabbed the paralyzed males and took them to the cave, he took out food that had been stored and put it in their hands and motioned to follow him. They ran after their leader with meat carcases of animals past the females. As they ran past the females, he motioned to the women to do the same and they ran to the cave and grabbed as much as they could. He ran up to one of the pillars and laid down the food with the rest of the clan following. Then he backed off with the rest of the clan and waited.

At that moment giant poles protruded from the top of the columns and the columns began to fall slowly towards the ground. As this happened, the giant disk began to descend down until the columns lay on the ground sprawling in four directions and the disk lay atop the columns. From the disk a giant walkway emerged landing steps away from the food. The clan had moved back about 150 meters back afraid to be too close. Four cars emerged from the the underbelly of the building and slowly drove down the ramp.