A miracle

Animal hides pulled high around their necks, they wore their hair long and unkempt. This unwashed huddle hunkered down on haunches. Forming a circle twelve-strong they watched attentively the stranger in their midst. Craning their necks to get a better view, black eyes darting nervously from the stranger’s face to his slim, graceful fingers. A murmur of guttural tones greeted his preparations.

Watery afternoon sun slanted across sinew, tendon and weather-beaten flesh. Their primitive intellects had been promised a gift and they would settle for no less. He knelt at their centre, this tall man of athletic build, this elemental magician, this modern Prometheus, an old man of twenty seven summers, blue-eyed and blonde, brow knitted in concentration.

Bark prised from a dead tree limb lay before him. In it he had gouged a neat hole just big enough to admit a fingertip. Into the hole he inserted one end of a short straight stick. He began rubbing the stick between his flattened palms, spinning it in the hole and the men watched curling wisps of grey smoke. His drilling produced hot, powdery sawdust which glowed cherry red when he blew on it. From a fold in his hide he deftly withdrew a dry cottonseed head. He touched this to the embers and it too glowed brightly.

His pursed, thin lips blew harder. A sudden flare appeared as the cotton ignited. Sounds of astonishment greeted this development but ignoring his audience he dropped the blazing cotton onto a pile of dry leaves. The onlookers flinched and retreated a pace at the first burst of fire. Now he propped twigs around the crackling magic and new flames licked them hungrily. Larger branches were ferried to him and he arranged these tent-fashion around the flickering fingers of orange and yellow.

Thick blue smoke wrapped the heap for a moment but soon red tongues darted through, hissing and snapping, burning and returning plant life to dust. The small crowd gazed in awe and wonder as green timber crackled and spat diamond sparks.

A stranger had entrusted this band with a device of heat and light and destruction. It would shape civilisations as an influence for good and evil, industry and warfare. Drawn to the epic power of the display no one noticed the magician was no longer among them. When at last heads turned and scanned the distance, a plume of dust betrayed his position on the horizon. He walked barefoot, a small hide bag on his shoulder. In it he carried cottonseed and a short straight stick.

High above him a shooting star streaked like fire across the twilight sky.