it was a long long time ago. pre history. a man, scarred and striated was covered in sweat. he hauled a rock two hundred miles from a sacred site where men of his kind had first seen the elephants morn their dead, past the thick and brutal beasts of the field, through the unknowable angers of the air. he hefted it on his back, crouched low and stumbling.

then, at his destination, and with blood under his fingernails, he meticulously chipped out of the rock’s surface his symbol for the panther with a smaller, hand sharpened, stone; making careful note that the panther’s tail curl downward as when ready to pounce, that the eyes were discernible. finished, he hefted the rock once more climbing through a wet quarter mile stretch of cave, his second trip through this place that had scattered in its shallows the waste of animal meals and the blood soaked feathers of true feather beds. he was here weeks before, hefting, as now, but hefting a different weight. the remains of his father, mauled and torn to nothing by the great cats. in a naturally occurring pool deep in this cave system he submerged his fathers gathered and wrapped bones. he labored through this cave a second time to wedge his sacred stone over the pools narrow mouth, to seal forever the remains of that great man, his father, where they might rest undisturbed by the slathering snouts and hard hands that find use in great men’s bones. having done so, having sweated and bled, he sat there in the dark corridor, running his palm over that fierce panther which would forever after guard his father and his resting pool, full of sadness but satisfied.

ten thousand years later a man in denim shorts is breathing heavily. his legs are coated in Deet, the metalicized wrapper of a chocolate Powerbar crinkles in his pocket as he moves. he is by most peoples standards portly, which hinders his headway somewhat. the Maglite in his helmet is at mid-beam and still illuminates the entirety of the cave walls around him. he moves slowly, checking his GPS to make sure he is on the right course. he knows full well that up ahead somewhere is a narrow alcove at the end of which a large stone is unnaturally lodged. this is his second trip to these caves. the first was with a colleague from the university. having come upon this artificial formation he feigned a charley horse and begged out of the session, concealing his find from his colleague. if there was something behind that stone it would be his to find, his to claim. no matter it was his colleague who revealed the cave system to him, his colleague who stressed that this system was pristine and needed to be explored. truth be told he despised his colleague, his colleague snorted once at his rat-cult theory and that was enough, he’s hated him ever since. hated his foppish wavy hair, his height, his baritone voice, hated most of all the giggles and doe eyed looks his colleague elicited from the female faculty. a great find here might change some of that. seeing the passage narrow he knows he has arrived. he soaks in the moment, imagining what might lay in store for him, headlines in some of the papers, publication of his findings in some of the bigger journals. maybe some discovery channel coverage… certainly a promotion to chair… and there in front of him is the stone. it’s edges are calcified and will need to be chipped away. grabbing his brush he sweeps the dust first from the rocks face. he notices a series of depressions… he catches his breath and digs his fingertips into the dirt there, first carefully then more frantically… the ancient dirt comes away and to his complete surprise it’s a carving! a carving in the face of the rock! he was dumbstruck. stepping back to focus his helmet Maglight on the stone he saw the carving for what it was and knew that all the sucking up, all the feigned smiles, and doctored credentials would finally pay their weight. it was a primitively carved rat, complete with long tail and beady eyes. it was more than he could ever have hoped for, proof positive of his rat-cult theories. he nearly fainted. now everyone would see him for what he was, even his father, that “great man”, could no longer begrudge him his own greatness!