Lemon Tsupryk Q4 #4: Oldest Rememory

Warm things, moving things; shapes, dancing, alive. Browns and greys shifting into orange, flickering, flitting, sparks like stars but the stars are out there in the cold dark and you’re in here, surrounded by safe voices and familiar smells. 

There are many here with you. Some are dancing, and those too old or too tired to dance are singing. The being you came from—your mother—holds your little hands in hers and spins, despite the pain in her soles from a long day spent gathering mushrooms and fruit. Long-haired furs laid out on the floor far from the fire tickle your ankles as you spin by. 

“Be careful!” one of the older ones warns and your mother apologizes for you, halting your pair orbit by pulling you closer. The older one is mixing colors on sheets of bark, swirling spit and water and clay into reds and browns, the same reds and browns the bulls and horses running above your head are made from. It has been a long time since your family—your group, your people—have been back to this cave, and it has unanimously been decided that the return calls for a continuation for the bulls and birds and hooved animals decorating the ceiling and walls. 

Peeking out from behind your mother, you watch a strong hunter lift the old one onto his shoulders, up to the ceiling. The old dips the littlest finger on their left hand into the puddle of warm color and, with a steady hand, traces the curving shape of a bull’s back, the swoops of its horns, as the strong keeps singing. Your mother leaves your side to stoop down and hand the old another swatch of color at their request. The others cheer. 

Someone young, younger than even you, runs by on legs which have just learned to hold upright without buckling, and screeches with winded joy. You want to run with them but they are too small, your mother told you, which stings because the others are too old. You were born after a year of cold winters and illness, the only child. “You brought the sun!” your mother told you. 

But presently, she beckons you away from the fire. She is holding the flat bark with remnants of chalky white the old used for the underbelly of the bull, gesturing at the wall of handprints ranging from the size of hawk talons to bear paws. When you run to her she dips your hands in the paint one by one and lets you press them against the coolness of stone. When you pull away you look, giddy, at the two white prints with fingers splaying from palms like rays from the sun among the other hands, white and brown and red. 

You scratch your nose with your hand, and your mother laughs at the pale smear on your face. She wipes it off and lets you run back to the fire, imbued with the joy of leaving a mark; a mark saying you, you to whom those hands belong, were here.

—

“Hey! Dude, what are you doing?” 

Your friend swats at your shoulder. You blink at him, all his band-T and cargo pants-ness oddly alien. 

“That’s gonna stain so bad, and they’re also gonna know it was you and we’re both gonna get clocked!” 

You look back at what he’s pointing at: your hand, pressing against cold concrete covered in spray paint. Your tag looms behind it, bright orange words moving sideways like galloping animals with action lines extending far to the left. Your hand has smeared a hand-shaped smudge in the field of orange and when you lift it, the color clings to your palm, bright like direct sunlight. It’s mesmerizing, so chemically brilliant, but after a second or two whatever came over you passes.

“Man, I dunno,” you say, capping the spray paint can still in your other hand, “I’ll just wear a glove or somethin’.” 

You step back to admire your work and your friend follows, aimlessly shaking his own can and his head. Two strings of bright letters, with one smeared by a hand. Your nose itches and you go to scratch it, but stop yourself. Your friend seems oddly contemplative and you turn to him to ask what’s on his mind, but he’s already speaking. 

“That’s art, dude. With the hand there,” he points, “not something a robot could make. Take that, AI!” 

“Yeah, take that!” you echo, aiming for his face with orange-stained fingers. 

“Ey, get your Cheeto-hand away from me!” he pushes your arms away and takes off running. You know he’s smiling. You give chase; dead leaves and candy wrappers crackle under your boots like fire and, just for a moment, you think you can hear the singing.

Image: hand-drawn. (Get it? Like...hand? Ok.)
I am fully aware this blog is far over the word count but I do not have the heart to cut it down. It is the last blog of the year, after all.