Act - 1 - Revolution
Chapter 1
Act 1: Revolution
Chapter 1
14,600 Years Ago
Earth
Poking David in his ribs once for each syllable, Gaea inquires innocently, “Whatcha doin’?”
Having such a small village population means he rarely needs to see who is speaking to him. Without looking up, David mimics the six-year-old’s playful tone, “Nuuthin’!”
Hoping she can pressure the boy, who is eight years her elder, Gaea engages her cutest face and confesses, “I want to help.”
David balances on his three-legged stool and cuts through pieces of tough pork flesh. In his most sarcastic tone, he says, "You can’t help me." A look of extreme disappointment melts away Gaea’s smile as David grins. He places a piece of pig meat onto the village’s silver platter, provided to them directly by the gods. The boy says, "You can’t help me because, as I already told you, I’m not doing anything."
Gaea begins to respond before stopping to think. She places her index finger to her mouth and stutters, "But—I…" She watches as David places another cut of meat on the tray before removing her finger from her lips. The girl pokes him again several times in protest. "But you’re butchering! I want to help butcher!" Folding her arms over her hemp halter top, she pouts with a quintessential stomp. "I’m confused."
Gaea’s broad brown loincloth and halter top are the common dress for all women in their village. They are several shades lighter than she and David, both of whom have deep mahogany skin colors. The boy shows two rows of perfect teeth as he smiles, feigns shock, and asks, "You’re confused? I’m confused. Here, I thought I was doing nothing this whole time. It turns out I've been cutting meat for sacrifice!" Satisfied with his sense of humor, David gazes at her through kind eyes. He chuckles and confesses, "Well, if I’m cutting meat, that can only mean one thing."
Gaea’s sharp intake of breath coincides with the happiness returning to her posture. It arrives in an invisible wave that nearly picks her off her feet. Hoping she was seconds away from good news, she answers meekly, "Butcher lesson?" while smiling from ear to ear.
Nodding warmly, David acknowledges, “I think it is about time for another lesson. Grab yourself a seat. When does anyone here ever tell you no?”
“They don’t.” Circling the short wooden table in an excited skip, Gaea declares victoriously, "Nobody tells me no because I’m too cute. Except." Plopping down on a stool, she steadies herself opposite her fourteen-year-old elder. "Except mommy and daddy. They tell me no a lot," admits Gaea sadly.
David's back remains facing the center of their village. He leans across the table and suggests, "It’s probably OK that they say no sometimes, though. Right?"
"Yeah." Gaea nods, giggles, and agrees, "That's ok." The friendly pair have their village’s standard appearance. They are both tall for their age and dark-skinned. They have sharp features and flowing, jet-black hair. Donning the men’s traditional garb, a single front loincloth made of coarse hemp fabric, David laughs at the child’s innocence. Gaea rests on her forearms after crossing them on the sturdy table. She asks, "What do you want me to do?"
"Do you remember how to cut through a tendon?" Another smile erupts across Gaea’s face. She grabs the dead boar’s rear leg as it rests on the slaughter table between them. Carefully, David gives the girl his dagger. He warns, "Careful, careful. Remember, let the knife do the work."
Two colorful parrots explode from their perches within the dense foliage that surrounds David’s home. They encircle one another as they noisily take flight over the village’s jungle clearing. Daily, their village hunts the pack of wild boar that surrounds it. Aiding David’s sacrificial preparation, Gaea carefully removes the tendon stone from behind the pig's leg tendon. It is a flat, soft green stone with intricate metal attachments protruding from it. After placing the blood-soaked device on her table, she smashes it with the ivory butt of her friend’s knife. Tiny arcs of lightning travel harmlessly through the wooden slats.
Somewhere in the jungle’s canopy, a shrieking family of monkeys settles some sort of argument. David remarks, "Good job! Always smash the tendon stone. We don’t want the village to wake up in a few hours when it begins to beep, do we?"
“No, we do not!” She admits, “Daddy hates it when that happens!”
Peaceful jungle sounds are interrupted by Adam, Gaea’s father, resuming his daily exercise routine. Tall and dark-skinned with long, flowing black hair and sharp facial features, Adam is another typically appearing member of David’s village. Except he has a much more muscular frame. From his hut's entrance, he sprints twenty yards straight to the side of the wooden pedestal on which their chief lives.
Standing six inches taller than his brother, Adam, Ezekil is both the village’s main guard and always stationed on the chief’s platform. He overlooks the jungle dominion while totally ignoring his older sibling, whose path ends inches from his right hip.
Shaking his thighs loose, Adam returns to his hut’s entrance to resume his exercise. Picking up two full wooden buckets of water stored just inside his hut’s entrance, he carries them by his side back to his chief’s pedestal. Intently compacting fine brown sand with each stomp, Adam carefully steps into each divot made during his sprint. Again, returning to his hut’s entrance, he sets down his buckets to begin the whole routine once more. David has seen Adam's athletic display thousands of times before. Even still, Gaea's uncle and his statuesque resolve are what impress the boy.
The girl places another chunk of meat on their platter, laughing. "Daddy is so silly," she says. "Oh! I just remembered." Dropping David’s stone-bladed instrument, Gaea retrieves a leather-bound package from her loincloth’s waistband. She proudly announces, "I finished my first knife."
"Ewwwww! Lemme see!" David extends his hand, and Gaea gently places her knife into it. After excitedly unwrapping his pupil’s project, he says, "Nice!"
Adam’s daughter carefully picks up the boy’s knife again and retorts, "No, it’s not."
"Sure, it is." Looking over the child’s first tool fabrication a second time, David disagrees. "It has an awesome blade-to-handle joint!"
Gaea peers up suspiciously with a maturely raised eyebrow. She tells the boy, "Now you’re just making things up."
Careful not to discourage his young student, David insists, "No, I’m not. Look." Indicating the base of her dagger’s blade, he says, "Right here, where the blade meets the handle, it’s amazingly solid. This dagger will never come apart. My first knife fell apart in my hands when I used it. Yes, your blade is a little dull because of its thickness, and the knife could be a bit more balanced, but you did great with everything I told you to do. Look!" Cutting a section of pig flesh, the boy struggles through a wince. "It cuts."
Refusing to buy a word of David’s schtick, Gaea smiles. She says, “I think you’re just trying to be nice.”
Placing her cutting device back into its leather package after wiping it clean on the face of his loincloth, David rolls the bundle together. Handing it back to his pupil, he says, "Well, if you’re not satisfied, then we’ll work on another one after the sacrifice. How does that sound?"
"David?" Neatly tucking away her blade, Gaea lowers her voice to barely above a hush. She asks, "Why can’t we talk about the—" Swinging a worried gaze, Gaea finishes in a whisper, "Annunaki?"
Leaning across the table, David whispers back, “You know you can’t say that!”
“I know I can’t,” admits the child. “But I want to know why?”
“Gaea, you are questioning the Gods,” David warns, semi-sternly.
The village’s youngest member says, softly over their carcass, “I have a secret. I don’t think the—Annunaki—are really gods at all.” She scoffs, “I mean, mommy and daddy say they are gods, but I don’t think they are.”
Not entirely objectionably, David smiles. “What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know. It just doesn’t make sense, ya’ know? What does a big ol’ God need with our tiny little village every night? Mommy says our village is very important, but I don’t believe her.”
David makes sure the patrolling village guards, Israel and Lrence, are keeping their distance with a volley of peripheral vision. He asks, "Why don’t you believe your mother?"
Attempting to explain her skepticism, Gaea says, “Because she says I’m very important too, but I think that’s just mommy saying mommy things. Mommy says mommy things, and daddy says daddy things when it comes to the Gods.”
David recommends, as best he can, “You should listen to your parents.”
“I want to touch one,” Gaea mentions casually.
As seriously as his kind nature will allow, David cautions, “No! You cannot do that. They WILL take you and you WILL NOT RETURN. You are too young to remember, but it has happened before; I’ve seen it. We’ve all seen it. I don’t want them to take you. None of us, not even the chief, wants the gods to take you. But if they do, you need to understand there is nothing any of us can do to stop them, not even your uncle.”
“OK, David.” Sadly, she resigns herself to his concerns. “I won’t touch an Annunaki.” Brightly rising from her stool, Gaea’s melancholy dissipates into the humid jungle. She kicks over her seat and screeches, “Raji!”
Raji, David’s uncle and sole guardian, is the only shorter, stockier member of David’s village. He greatly resembles his nephew, except for his long salt-and-pepper hair. Raji swings a dead boar off his shoulder, and it lands squarely in David’s chest. Placing the weapon in his left hand on the spear rack outside of their slaughter hut, he barely manages to return the hug of an incoming Gaea. The boy’s uncle announces, "Spear returned."
David drops Raji’s prize onto the table inside his butcher’s hut. He grunts, “Spear returned, check!”
Raji peels Ezekil’s niece off his leg only to scoop her into his barrel chest. He repays the embrace of his thick neck and inquires, “How are the butcher lessons coming along?”
“Gooood.” Again, Gaea removes her knife’s sheath from her loincloth’s waistband. With an air of accomplishment, she says, “I made a knife, Raji. Wanna see!?”
“Sure do!” Placing the girl on the fine, sandy ground, David’s uncle takes and unfolds the girl’s leather pouch. Removing the dagger to examine it, he maneuvers it as though he were wielding it on a hunt. Wrapping her knife again in its carrier before handing it back, he reports, “It has an excellent blade-to-handle interface. Sharpen it some more and add a little balance; next time she’ll be perfect.”
Shouting into David, Gaea snarks, “Told you!”
Never glancing up from his dissection, David retorts, “Told YOU!” to an eruption of laughter.
A flock of nestled-in birds, just outside the village’s tree line, squawk loudly and vigorously shake tree limbs before beginning their evening flight.