The tribe has decided I am no longer of the tribe.
No one says why. There is no wound, no smell of sickness on me. I still bring meat. I still know the good paths, the ones the young ones do not know yet. But today they gather at the flat stone where we share the burnt-water that keeps us awake, and they push toward me a wheel of sweet food, and they make the sounds that mean warmth, and I understand: this is the sound of leaving.
I look at the place where I sat. The cave-of-light I stared into each morning is dark now. Someone will sit here soon, warm the stone with a stranger's body, and my scent will fade from it like breath from cold air. I carry my few things out in a hollow box. My hands know this hollow. My hands do not know what to do now.
Strange. The place did not feed me. It gave me thin tokens I traded elsewhere for meat and fire, and I never once understood the trade. So why does my chest hurt as when a hunt-brother falls?
Because a tribe is not the meat. A tribe is the ones who turn their heads when you enter.
They turn their heads. I go out the mouth of the cave. Behind me, the burnt-water still steams, and already they laugh at something I will never hear.
I was good in that cave.
That is the wound: to be good, and still be sent to walk alone.