The cave is cold, but full. Fuller than any cave should be. In the moons after the longest dark, my tribe swells with strangers, all come to the same place to lift stone that will never move.
I know this hunt. I have starved through winter. When the snow eats the herd and the belly hollows, a good hunter grows lean and hard, because the world made him so. These do it backward. They eat all winter, soft and warm, and then, when the sun starts to return, they come here to punish themselves for the softness.
They lift the heavy stone. They run on the ground that runs back at them. They watch their own faces in the still water on the wall and do not like what they find.
The old ones of this tribe, the ones with the marked skin and the loud rank, they know the truth. They watch the new bellies flood in and they do not fear. They have seen this. They know the new ones will thin out by the next moon, drift back to their warm caves, leave the heavy stone alone again.
I understand this. In my tribe too, many say they will hunt. Few walk into the cold.
They call this a beginning.
It smells like guilt.