A Caveman's Love Story...

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He looked at her with rapt concentration, as he always did whenever she passed by. As expected, she was still in his eyes, the best looking one from the female clan. This time she was carrying dry sticks on her head; a sign that her household has some domestic work to do today.
As the leaves on her waist swayed along to her melodious steps, he felt the usual strange sensations circle around his body. In vain he had tried to fight it, so long ago he had given up. He had decided then that he must have her, but he had faced the small matter of surmounting two obstacles that stood between them, two obstacles that remained erect up till now...

First, there was the problem of getting her to like him. He was not one of the more verbal males around, not even within his own small household. He knew few words, and even fewer songs. All he could do was look at her keenly everytime she passed by, and wish she would by some luck stare back at him nicely. But he had grown frustrated by the lack of progress his efforts in that regard had yielded.

On many occasions when his frustrations became unbearable, he had tried to think of something he could do for her, but thinking too had never been his strong suit. If only he had the head of Gunta, the clan griot, he would have invented something as meaningful and important as the axe. But he didn't, and there was little he could do to change that.

He could have tried to impress her by creating the red magic, the one the clan head calls fire. But he remembered too well his first attempt at striking stones, an attempt that had also been his last too. He had almost burnt down the whole plants surrounding the cave of his household. His mother had been extremely scared for a full moon that the wolves would have free rein to attack them. It had been so severe that it had taken an everyday all-night-vigil by his father for two full moons to convince her that they were safe.
So that option was out of the question, there definitely would be no toying with the red magic...

He was at a loss as to how he would woo her, the only option that remained was by physical prowess. This was the second obstacle...

He knew at least two other men from the male clan who liked her as well. He was sure because he had on different times noticed the way they also looked at her; longingly and keenly like he did. It made him feel like crushing their eyes through the back of their skulls with his big thumb. But then that was the problem, he was not built for physical battles, and Ene, the smaller of the two men, still looked like an elephant when compared to him.

It looked like a no win situation truly, but what was a man to do? If he wanted her, he had to somehow prove he was better than the others. He balanced his jaw on one hand and sighed deeply. When that too did not help, he stood up and made to retire back to the cave. That was when Eureka struck...

...

Dini worked tirelessly from dawn to dusk. He sought out the strongest trees and fetched their most solid branches. He never spoke a single word to anyone while working, and work he did. Soon, people started to notice; they watched him as he had watched Lonu, only this time they didn't have love in their eyes, just fascination. And not long after, Lonu noticed him too...

Today men live in glass and marble houses, they build mansions and skyscrapers. But they do so only because of Dini, the man whose desire for love birthed the first stick hut.

Needless to say, Dini and Lonu had a long and blissful life together...

THE END

#SladenSpeaks

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