As their numbers dwindled they merged their little bands into larger, until at last there came a time when no more children matured sexually. Their bodies stayed childlike though full grown.

   Then they called each other to gather together into one last group – in the land once called Africa where humanity had been born.

   They picked up their gathering baskets, their traps, their bedding and their few implements, and set out on the long last trek. From all directions they came. From the vast cold and temperate reaches, from the warm band around the equator. Those who had oceans in their direct path veered polewards until they reached a land or ice bridge.

   It was many season cycles before all were assembled. Most died on the journey. Those who gathered in their final home would scarcely have populated a small village; old children with calm all-wise faces and innocent bodies.

   They discarded their traps and lived on the fruits of the forest.

   Each new-moon-rise they gathered in a great wheel and drowned in the pale light, sending their wordless, soundless song to the universe, as if to say: ‘The human story is completed, this is the end.’

   One by one the forest took them. Until there were – no more.

Back to Contents