The young one holds a bright stone before her face and speaks to no one. But it is not no one. Inside the stone, small spirits gather. I see their names swim up like fish, hundreds, faster than I can count, faster than a herd fleeing a spear.
She dances. She does not dance for the fire. She does not dance for rain. She dances for the swimming spirits, and when they throw her small glowing hearts, she smiles the way I smile when the hunt goes well and my belly is soon full.
But she catches nothing. No meat comes. No hide. The hearts float up and vanish. Still she reaches for them, hungry, and the more hearts, the more she dances, and the more she dances, the more the spirits watch, and the circle turns and turns like a snake eating its tail.
I know this hunger. It is the hunger of the one who wants the tribe to look at him. To be first at the fire. To be the strong one others follow.
But her tribe is not here. Her tribe is water in a stone, and water cannot warm her, cannot walk beside her, cannot drag her from the river if she falls.
She feeds them her face for hours. They feed her nothing but the feeling of being fed.
I have seen a starving man chew bark to trick his belly.
This is that.