Four billion years, and the hand that once tore roots from frozen ground now curls around a warm clay bowl to keep its fingers cozy. We felt that cold. We remember the woman who kept the fire alive through the long dark, cupping her palms toward the coals as if warmth were a thing you could hold.
And now here you are, holding it. On purpose. Cradling a small kiln of heat you built yourself, filled with hot bitter water, first thing in the morning, for no reason we can determine except that it pleases you.
We do not fully understand the drink. The lungfish never had it. The shrew who hid in the burrow from the killing heat, breathing shallow, waiting out the death overhead, she would have wept at the sight of you: warm, unhunted, safe enough to be tired. Not tired from running. Tired from sleeping. This we are still turning over.
You wrap both hands around it. You breathe the steam. There is a picture on the side, a small joke, words we cannot read but which made you snort once and buy the thing. The man who buried the seed corn and went hungry so the spring would have something to plant, he did not do that so you could own a mug that says something funny about Mondays.
And yet.
He did, though. That is exactly what he did it for. So that one distant morning, at the far end of the longest relay ever run, someone of his blood could stand in a warm room holding warmth in both hands, unhurried, unhunted, waiting for nothing worse than the water to cool.
Go on. Take the first sip.
We have been waiting an age to see it.