The Edges of Time by Farahad Zama

Author:Farahad Zama [Zama, Farahad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: India Ink
Published: 2013-11-19T05:00:00+00:00

A few days later, Thin-legs slunk away from the fire, and sat down with his back against the lookout rock, away from the rest of the tribe. Strong-arm and Doe-eyes were now officially mated. He scowled when he thought about it and drove the end of his spear into the ground next to him. He didn't need her, he thought fiercely, but he still felt miserable. There was a break in the clouds and he had a good view of the sky. As the sun dipped in the west, the azure dome turned dark and the stars appeared twinkling in the sky. He oriented himself with the Cross and then started looking – he had noticed an anomaly and was curious about it. It was winter and he shivered in the breeze that now blew from the east. He wanted to go back to the fire but that would ruin his night vision. Now, where was that star...

Some time later, he heard a scratching noise and he looked up in sudden fear – it could be a snake. He relaxed when he saw it was a human female. She sank into the ground next to him and he recognized her as Slim-waist. She stayed silent for a while and the warmth of her body felt nice against his side. 'What are you looking at?' she asked softly.

'The stars,' he said shortly. They fell silent again and after a little while, he thawed. He liked her unspoken company. He pointed south in the sky. 'Do you see those two bright stars?' It took her a while but eventually she figured out which ones he was referring to. 'Imagine a sleeping line between them and a standing up one between those two stars.' He wiggled his hand, pointing to the other two stars in the Southern Cross. 'Where the two lines meet, that is the centre of the sky.'

'What do you mean the centre of the sky?'

'All the stars move round that point. I wish there was a star there – we could call it the Pole Star.'

They were silent again for a bit and then Slim-waist said, 'I see what you mean. That bright star over there was just above that Baobab tree and now it's gone higher and those stars on that side have gone down. They seem to go round that point between the four stars.'

Thin-legs smiled in the darkness. He had tried to explain it to others in the tribe but nobody had shown any interest. He wondered why he hadn't noticed Slim-waist before. He knew her, of course, like any other person from his tribe but he had always dismissed her as the annoying companion of Doe-eyes. He shifted slightly and his leg rubbed against hers. He jerked away quickly, but she didn't seem to mind. He fell silent, thinking about Doe-eyes, wondering why she should get so freaked out because he predicted the rains accurately. Suddenly he noticed that she had moved closer and their sides were in contact – shoulder against shoulder, hip against hip and leg against leg.

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