The True Story Of Easter

The wind blew across the speargrass, waving indolently. It had been coming from the west for a long time now, and had progressively sucked all the moisture and life out of the land. The grass was thin and yellow, the trees were spindly and struggling, and the creeks were dry, reduced to puddles of mud. Most importantly, the animals had disappeared.

Gure and Lana sat near the fire, not far from their mum who was pounding grass seeds into flour to make into bread. There wasn’t much of it around anymore. They looked out over the grasslands to the group of people approaching slowly from the distance. Even from here they could sense their dejection in their sloping shoulders, their shuffling step, their arms carrying only unused spears.

‘They didn’t get anything’, Lana said.

‘No’, said her brother, ‘it doesn’t look like it ey.’

They stared at the adults as the women stood up slowly, their arms motionless by their side. The men walked into the campsite, looking at the ground, avoiding the looks on the faces of the women. No one spoke. They moved off into a corner under a shady tree and sat down, quietly mumbling among themselves. The women returned to their work, but perceptively slower so. Flies buzzed on the late afternoon air.

‘What are we gonna do? I’m hungry!’

‘I know, shush. Everyone’s hungry.’ Gure put his arm around his little sister’s shoulders and hugged her. She started crying.

‘Shh, don’t cry. Look, I’ve got a plan.’

‘What plan? What do you wanna do?’

‘Well, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time’, Gure began, ‘but you gotta keep quiet about it, all right?’

Lana rubbed her eyes and nodded.

‘All right. So, you know how the whole country’s gone to shit since that wind has been blowing ...’

‘Yes’

‘I reckon if we go in the opposite direction of that wind, we should find everything that has been blown away, ‘cos it should be over there’.

Lana stared at him. Even at the age of ten she could see flaws in that reasoning.

‘Really? You reckon?’

‘Trust me, it makes sense it you say it out loud long enough.’ Gure nodded convincingly.

Lana wasn’t overly convinced. She’d known him for a long time. Big brother he may be, but he had strange things going on in his brain sometimes.

‘So, all right, what’s the plan then?’

‘Are you in? You’re not allowed to tell anyone.’

‘I’m in. I’m hungry. What do you wanna do?’

‘Tonight when all the adults are asleep we steal one of dad’s spears and we go that way’, he pointed with his chin over her shoulder, ‘and we go find food, and then we bring it back for everyone.’

‘That’s your plan?’

‘It’s a good plan.’

‘What if we don’t find anything?’

‘Have you got a better plan?’

‘I don’t.’ Lana looked down at her feet. They were dirty. ‘All right, let’s do it.’

They waited until everyone in the camp had disappeared to their various corners and nooks and crannies, under trees and bushes, near little fires, and had laid down to sleep. It didn’t take long. There was nothing much to stay up for. The bread the women had made had been passed around, but there hadn’t been much past a mouthful per person.

Gure disappeared into the dark on tiptoe. He came back not long after carrying a long slender spear.

‘Let’s go”, he whispered.

Lana picked up her carrybag she had made out of grass a few days ago. She nodded. ‘Let’s go.’

They sneaked down the track towards the dry river bed, taking care not to make any noise, and followed the bank of the river. They knew it well, and they knew that if they followed it for long enough it would take them in the direction of the sunrise, towards the high country. They usually stayed away from the high country, because it was cold, but now that didn’t seem to matter anymore.

The full moon rose over their heads as they walked on in silence. The stars spread out far and wide above their heads. Their shadows flitted and danced around them. The land was quiet.

The walked and walked for hours. At one stage they found a waterhole that had not quite dried up yet, and they laid down on their bellies and drank their fill. They sat down and rested for a bit, then moved on, pushing on.

The stars wheeled around in the night sky, and time passed. The land rose up, became steeper. The trees became smaller, more scrubby, further apart. The temperature dropped noticeably.

Eventually a faint shimmer of light appeared on the far horizon in front of them, as they descended into a wide valley they’d never seen or heard of before. In the middle distance there was what seemed to be a creekbed, and from where they were standing they could see the reflection of stars here and there on the ground. Water. They looked at each other. They needed it. It had been a long time between drinks.

Lana started forward, but Gure grabbed her arm and dragged her down on the ground.

‘Shh’. He put a finger on his lips. ‘There’s something moving down there’.’

Lana nodded wide-eyed. He let go of her arm, then started moving towards the creek slowly and carefully, like his dad and his uncles had shown him. His sister followed closely behind.

There was a shape down below, hairy, round, alive. Edible. Gure could feel his mouth start to water. This what they were here for. He slowly lifted up his spear, getting ready for the throw.

Lana’s hand grabbed his shoulder. ‘Stop’, she hissed. ‘It’s moving away’.

Gure lowered his spear in annoyance. Those bloody women. He had heard his father say that a hundred times. He thought it sounded really good, and it seemed like very much the appropriate thing for the occasion.

‘Wait’, his sister whispered.

‘What?’ He gritted his teeth.

‘What if there’s more than one of them here? What if there’s more? If we follow it without killing it it could lead us to its mates.’

‘So we could kill them too?’

‘Exactly.’

Gure furrowed his brow at that. It seemed like a really good idea.

‘We’d be able to take back heaps more.’

‘That’s right. Food for everyone.’

‘All right, let’s follow it.’

They hunched down low and crept down towards the creek. The animal in front of them appeared unaware of their presence, and was making its way slowly across the creek, through the water. It hopped up the other bank and headed towards a rock wall. In their slowest gear they followed it, staying well behind, moving in slow motion. Laying flat on their bellies behind a large clump of fat tussock grass they saw it hop up to a wide crack at the base of the rock wall. It wiggled its long fat tail, which, Gure couldn’t help but think, looked particularly juicy, and squeezed itself through the crack, disappearing from view.

Gure swore comprehensively in his mind, like he had heard the adults do when they thought the kids couldn’t hear them. ‘Why do I listen to you? It’s gone! Now what? We’re fucked.’

Lana shook her head. ‘No we’re not. Not yet. Let’s follow it.’

‘What, in that hole?’

‘Yes.’

Gure looked at the hole. It looked very dark. He looked at his sister. ‘You sure?’

She nodded solemnly. ‘Dead sure.’

‘All right. Here goes.’

He lay down on his guts and wormed his way forwards. The crack touched his ribs, but he turned sideways and managed to squeeze through. Once inside it opened up considerably. He beckoned to his sister. ‘It’s all right, it’s bigger on the inside. Come on through.’

They found themselves in a muddy damp passageway. It was chilly, and they shivered. No one in the camp had had any skins to make cloaks out of for a very long time. They would just have to put up with it.

They slithered forwards in the mud, following the tracks of the animal. They rounded a corner, then another one, and another one. The tunnel led upwards, then pitched down. The prints before them on the ground led them on and on, and before very long they realised they didn’t have a clue where they were anymore. Gure felt faintly worried at that, but shrugged it off. His sister’s eyes were glowing bright in the near dark, and she seemed to be enjoying herself. You just never knew with girls, did you.

Just when he was about to consider increasing his level of concern to wild panic, not to mention claustrophobia, the tunnel widened and opened up into a cave. There in front of them, thirty paces ahead, was the animal. It was sitting upright now, holding its paws in front of it. He closed his fingers around the spear. Anytime now. He could already smell the burning charcoaled meat. Yummo.

His sister’s hand closed around his spear hand. ‘Wait’, she breathed in his ear. ‘Look what it’s doing.’

He looked. There, in front of them, was another animal. A tall one, a massive big bird with long legs. How the hell had that thing gotten in here through that squashy tunnel? There had to be another way in and out. He took a closer look. There was something strange about the bird. It was standing close up to a wall, beak touching, and on either side of it there were low walls pushing into its flanks. There was nothing behind its arse, but it wasn’t moving backwards. It almost looked as if it wasn’t able to.

The other animal, sitting on its haunches now, and supporting itself with its long tail, was making barking noises at the bird. The bird responded with low booming sounds that appeared to be coming from its chest. The hairy animal barked again, more insistently, it seemed.

Lana’s voice appeared in his eardrum. ‘It looks like they’re talking.’

Gure nodded. It did. He wished he could understand what they were saying.

‘Look’. His sister squeezed his hand. Her lips were almost touching his ear. It was tickly.

He looked. His jaw dropped in disbelief. There, in front of him, the bird had started wiggling its fat arse and had popped out an egg. Pop. Just like that. And the hairy animal had caught it in its paws. It was green, the colour of polished jade, a stone the adults sometimes used to make tools out of, but it was hard to get, and the men often had to walk for several days to trade for it, if and when they did. The women really liked it, because it could be made to be really shiny, and they made holes in it and strung bits of it up around their necks. They thought it made them look pretty. He thought it made them look as if they had bits of stone hanging around their neck. Somehow though he doubted if they would appreciate him saying that, so he had kept that to himself. He was fairly certain Lana wouldn’t mind a bit of it for herself.

‘Ow.’ He cursed in his mind. Lana had nudged him with her elbow, a bit too enthusiastically for his feeling. She pointed at the two animals. In front of their eyes the hairy animal had grabbed the egg, which was the size of two human palms put together, and had deftly slid it into the pouch it had at the front of its belly. Then it barked again, and the fat-arse bird had produced another one. This second one the hairy animal smashed on the ground till it broke, then lifted it up to its mouth and ate the contents.

Gure and Lana were gobsmacked. Their jaws dropped to their knees. Their eyes bulged. Gure almost pissed himself, and had to repress the urge to let rip a cracker of a fart. This animal was eating eggs. And it seemed to be enjoying it too.

The world spun around them. They felt dizzy and confused. Eggs were edible? No one in the history of their people had ever mentioned trying to eat eggs. They ate bloody well everything else they could get their hands on, with cockroaches, ants and centipedes high on the menu.

As they lay there and stared in disbelief, the hairy animal barked at Fat Arse again. It duly produced another egg, caught by Hairy and palmed off into its pouch as well. Then it barked again. Another egg came out, was caught and slipped into the pouch. Another bark, another egg. Into the pouch. And another one. And another, and another.

They laid on their elbows and watched in horrified fascination as one egg after the other was produced and snuck into the animal’s pouch, until it bulged out precariously and stuck out in front of its belly like it was a highly pregnant woman. Gure shuffled his feet a bit uncomfortably. There was something about women and pregnancy that he hadn’t figured out yet, and he had heard the older boys sniggering about it. He always wondered what they were on about, and what was so interesting about it.

At long last it seemed the pouch was chock-a-block, full to bursting, and Hairy Animal turned away, giving one last bark to Fat Arse. The big bird replied with a sonic boom from its chest that somehow didn’t sound very friendly and managed to convey a sense of menace. Hairy shrugged and waddled away, disappearing towards the other end of the cave.

Gure nudged his sister. ‘This is us, come on, let’s go get him.’

‘What about the bird?’

‘Never mind the bird, there’s more meat on that hairy bugger, let’s go.’

They crawled across the cave floor to the corner where they had seen Hairy disappear. They turned and followed, rounded another corner and there to their surprise was a wide open cave mouth, letting in grey early morning twilight. They blinked. Clearly it was dawn. They watched as Hairy, not hopping anymore now, clearly too burdened with the heavy load of eggs in its pouch, slowly leaned on its front paws and walked itself out of the cave. Gure and Lana followed, with baited breath. Would it take them to others of its kind now?

They watched as Hairy steadily descended the slope leading back down to the creek where they had first seen it. There were no others like it to be seen anywhere.

Gure swore silently in his mind again. He was getting good at this. All this crawling around in confined spaces and holding back panic-diarrhea for nothing, and now it even looked like Hairy might be getting away. No way that was going to happen. He cast a quick sideways glance at Lana by his elbow. She nodded nervously. They needed food, sooner rather than later.

So finally, after all this time, it was now going to be his hour of pride. He was going to become the hunter he had always dreamed of being, like his dad and all the other men at the camp.

With one swift move he stood up, drew back his spear-arm, lined up his target like he had so many times with his practice spears back at the camp, and with all the power, might and desire of his twelve years of age he launched the spear at Hairy.

Hairy’s ears twitched, she spun around and rose up, dancing out of the way, balancing on her tail, and the spear, flying and flopping and wobbling through the air like a messenger of death, failed to hit her in the chest, where it would have punctured her lungs and finished her off. Instead, twisting away at the last second, the spear caught her sideways in the front. In the skin of the pouch.

She jerked up, bounced backwards in fright and surprise, and took a great big leaping bound. The spear, stuck in the skin of the pouch and dangling down from it, got caught on a branch of a bush near the bank of the creek. In panic she leaped sideways and with a spray of fine droplets of blood the skin of the pouch ripped, the spear let go of the skin, and an egg fell out of the pouch. It rolled onto the ground and rested on the grass, unbroken. Uttering a loud bark of dismay Hairy turned away from them, rose up on her hindlegs and took a giant leaping bound, careering through the air like a meteorite, and landed far away. As she touched the ground another egg fell out of her pouch onto the ground. She didn’t pay it any mind, and took another leap, panicking and trying to get away from her attackers. She leaped again, and another egg fell from her pouch. She hopped again, really picking up speed now, and as she landed another egg fell onto the ground, rolling away down the creek bank. Another hop, another landing, and another egg falling out. Gure raced forwards to pick up his spear, but as he got to it and lifted it up to have another go, Hairy was disappearing behind the bushes, dropping an egg every time her big flat feet landed on the ground. Gure stood still, holding his father’s spear in his hand, and his shoulders sagged. He had failed. They had had one chance at securing meat for their starving people and he had failed miserably. Tears came to his eyes, and he blinked. Crying like a girl, that was all he needed now.

Lana appeared behind him. ‘You missed it.’

‘Yes, I noticed, thanks. We’re fucked now.’ His voice cracked.

Lana shook her head, her hair dancing around on her shoulders.

‘No we’re not.’

‘Whaddaya mean, we’re not fucked? We didn’t get any meat, we’ve got nothing to eat, we’re miles away and when we get back, if we do, dad will flog my arse for stealing one of his spears.’

‘We can eat the eggs.’

‘What? Are you insane? You can’t eat eggs, everyone knows that.’

‘Yes you can. That hairy animal was doing it.’

‘Yeah, but that’s an animal.’

‘So are we. Come on, help me find them.’

Gure shrugged. It sounded like a stupid idea, but it wasn’t like they had any alternatives now.

Lana got her stringbag and walked down to the creekbank where she had seen the first egg fall out of the pouch. Sure enough, there it was, lying in the grass, all in one piece. She picked it up gingerly and held it in her hand. It felt heavy. There might well be a lot of food on one of them.

Gure trailing despondently behind her, she moved along, following the fine trail of blood from the torn pouch. There, underneath a bush, was another one. She put it in her bag and looked around. She could spy another one down the creek bank and went to retrieve it.

Gure watched her pick up eggs left right and centre, and his flagging spirits lifted. He was, after all, by nature inclined to look on the bright side of things. This didn’t look so bad. He picked up his spear and went after his sister, joining her in the egg hunt.

Two days later they staggered back into their dusty camp, their legs buckling beneath the many stringbags full of eggs they had slung around their shoulders. They had had to stop and gather grasses to make more bags, there were that many eggs. They had feasted on eggs on the way back, and they felt in great shape, better than they had for a long time.

Gure went and stood in front of his dad.

‘Goodday dad.’

‘How are you.’

‘We’re back.’

‘You are.’

‘I borrowed your spear.’

‘You did.’

‘I’ll give it back now.’

‘Thanks.’

They stood in silence and looked at each other. Gure shuffled his feet and said:

‘We brought back food for everyone.’

‘You did.’

‘You’re not angry?’

‘No. You did good.’

‘I did?’

‘You did.’

‘Oh.’

His father lifted up a hand and clapped him on the shoulder.

‘Well done. Let’s go and have a feed. I can’t wait to try one of those eggs. Who would have thought eggs were edible, ey.’

‘Yeah. Hah. Who would have thought.’

His father frowned. ‘I wonder if they make you fart.’

‘Yeah.’ Gure looked pensive and thought off the last two days’ journey. It had been a very gassy experience. ‘Yeah, they do. Heaps.’

***

Much later.

‘You sure you wanna do this?’

Lana stood at the edge of the camp, looking up at her brother. She shifted her baby to her other hip. It grabbed her left tit, stuck it in its mouth and started sucking on it, an expression of sheer bliss on its face. She patted it absentmindedly on the head.

‘Yes, I’m sure. People need to know about this, everywhere.’ Gure scratched his beard. It was one of the drawbacks of being an adult. It was itchy and annoying.

‘It worked out well for us.’

It had. Three days after they had returned with the eggs the rains had finally arrived. The creeks had filled up with torrents of water, the trees had recovered, and the animals had returned. Life was good and plentiful again. They ate eggs every day.

But he felt restless, had done for a long time. He had a strong feeling that he had to do something. He had discovered how women got pregnant, and often at night, after he had finished putting the theory into practice with his sister’s girlfriends, he would lay awake and stare up at the stars, particularly when the moon was full. There was something gnawing at his being, and he needed to rise to it.

‘Yeah. And somewhere out there in the big wide world there’s people who don’t know about it. I’m gonna go tell ‘em.’

‘All right. Well you look after yourself. You gonna be a while you reckon?’

‘Yeah, I reckon. There’s a lot of walking about to be done.’

‘There is. When you gonna be back?’

‘Dunno. I’ll see ya when I get back.’

‘All right. I’ll see ya then.’

‘No worries. See ya then.’

She gave him a big hug and held on tight for a long while. He stepped back out of her embrace and walked away. Stopped, turned and waved. She waved back. She stood under the shade of the tree until she couldn’t see him anymore.

***

Much, much, much later.

Gure pulled his skins closer around him. This place was freezing. The bloke in front of him by the raging fire stamped his feet. They were swaddled in hard skins. The people here wore those things around their feet so they could walk through snow. Unbelievable. The bloke looked at the egg in his hand. He turned it over and over.

‘And you can eat ‘em, you say?’

‘That’s right.’ Gure shivered.

‘We’ve always thought they were inedible, ey.’

Gure sighed and rolled his eyes in his mind. If he had had a leg of Hairy for every time he had heard that over the last however many years he had been going for now, that would have been a Hairy with a lot of bloody legs. Try hopping with that many legs.

The bloke in front of him lifted up the egg Gure had given him to his nose, sniffed it a few times, then held it next to his left ear and shook it, while listening attentively. He frowned and shook it again. Gure‘s mind wandered. He’d gone further than he’d ever imagined he would, and he was tired. He had walked, and swum, and run, quite often from people chasing him trying to kill him. He had crossed rivers and creeks and mountains. He’d come to big bodies of water and had tied sticks together and floated across them to the other side. Looking around the cave where he had been welcomed, he thought the people here were peculiar, different from a lot of the others he’d met on his travels. They had eyes that were very unusual. They weren’t narrow and tilted like those of a lot of the other people he’d spent time with on his way over here.

He glanced over the fire to the young woman sitting across from him. She smiled at him. When she did a light came on in those strange unsettling eyes, the colour of the summer sky. He smiled back, and scratched his beard. There wasn’t a lot of it left that wasn’t grey now. It was still itchy and annoying.

The woman stood up, came over and sat down by his side. They looked out through the cave entrance together.

‘You come from a long way?’

‘Yes, bloody long way.’

In front of them the bloke with the egg was now tentatively licking it, sticking it in his mouth and trying to bite it. Gure sighed again, and rolled back his aching shoulders. He’d have to explain one more time.

‘And what did you say your name was again?’

‘Gure.’

He was used to people mispronouncing his name. It had happened just about everywhere. It seemed people made different sounds with their mouths depending on where they lived. He had been called everything under the sun, from Goora to Guru to Hoori to Koore to Koorie to Fuck Off You Bastard. He didn’t mind anymore.

‘Gure’, he repeated.

The girl frowned and opened her mouth, trying to get her cheeks and tongue around the unfamilair sounds. Something stirred in him at the sight.

‘cuh ... cwuh ... cruh ...’

‘Gu-re. Try again.’

‘guh ... cuh ... cwrw?’

He hadn’t heard that one before, but it would do.

‘Yeah, that’s near enough. You can call me that.’

She smiled at him again. Those bright blue eyes burned straight through him like a fire.

‘I’ll call you Cwrw’

‘Yeah, no worries.’

‘So how long do you think you’ll be staying, Cwrw?’

He looked out through the cave mouth onto the grey sea down below. The people had told him there was no land further beyond here, that this was the end of the world. It sounded good to him. He’d seen enough bloody land, and sea too at that.

‘Dunno yet.’

‘And where did you say you came from again?’

Gure pointed over his shoulder towards where the sun rose.

‘That way.’

‘Ah. East?’

‘Yeah, but a really, really long way.’

‘Ah. More East?’

‘Yeah. Heaps more further but.’

‘Soo, like ... heaps more further Easter?’

He frowned. That sounded about right.

‘Yes, I think you could say that.’

She smiled and snuggled closer to him. He smiled back. He looked out of the cave mouth. He had no more desire to try to get across that sea, even if there was something on the other side. In front of him the bloke finally bit down hard on the eggshell and it exploded in his face. Gure put his arm around her.

‘Yes. Let’s call it Easter. That’ll do.’