By Richard Boren

Once upon a time, tens of thousands of years ago, there lived in Europe two classes of primates. Although we don’t know what they called themselves, today we refer to them as the Cro-Magnons and the Neanderthals.

Although the two groups didn’t live together, their members would occasionally encounter one another in the forest. One day a young Neanderthal named Fil (pronounced “feel”) ran into an older Cro-Magnon named Thnk (pronounced “think”). Fil and Thnk had seen each other for years, and over time they developed the habit of taking a break from hunting by sitting down and having a chat beside the creek.

Thnk began the conversation. “So, what’s up?”

“Glad you asked,” said Fil, “we’re making big changes that will save Urth (pronounced “earth”). Urth was their name for the land in which everyone lived.

“I didn’t know that Urth was in danger,” said Thnk. “What are you talking about?”

“Our Witch Doctor studied the signs, and he told us that unless we stop using fire we will destroy Urth and us with it.”

Thnk couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What??? Stop using fire? How will you cook your food? How will you light your caves at night? How will you keep from freezing to death in the winter?”

Fil answered, “That hasn’t been completely worked out, but our Tribal Chief has convinced us we are in a crisis. Both he and our Witch Doctor say that they are working on some promising alternatives. For example, they say that if we leave a bunch of rocks out in the sun all day they’ll get hot. Then we can bring them into the cave at night to keep warm. I don’t know how that would work on cloudy days, but they say that we’ll figure it out. They are putting our best wood gatherers and fire builders to work on the problem.”

“We took a look at this issue ourselves,” said Thnk. Our Witch Doctor has been using a new kind of sign called Evdnc (pronounced “evidence”) and he doesn’t see a problem. In fact, our fire builders have discovered ways to make better fires with less wood. Now we have extra wood. I’m sure that we’ll come up with some uses for it.“ Thnk paused for a moment and added, “We just want to be warm and have plenty of food. Aren’t you afraid that giving up fire is big gamble? What if your Witch Doctor is wrong?”

“I wondered about that,” said Fil, “but if I say anything, all of the others will say that I don’t care about Urth, and our Tribal Chief will make fun of me and will call me a denyr (pronounced “denier”). And they say that soon anyone who burns wood will be punished. I’ve been getting pretty cold at night lately, but I have to admit that I feel great about saving Urth so I guess it’s worth it. Besides, even if it doesn’t work out as planned we’ll still end up with soot-free caves.”

A few months later Thnk saw Fil across a meadow. Fil looked thin and not well. Thnk thought about calling out to him, but it had started to snow so he headed for home where he knew that a nice warm fire was waiting for him.

Much time passed. The Cro-Magnons evolved into modern man. The Neanderthals became extinct. All we know of them comes from the discovery of bone fragments found in remarkably soot-free caves.