CAVEMAN • Fiona Murray

I met the caveman back at a time when I used to go wandering a lot more than I can now. I was doing hikes up and down the east coast, with just a backpack and a map. I was curious how far I could go up the infinite coastline that looked like such a diminutive scrawly line on my map.

At that time in my life I was trying to work out whether to get back together with my ex-girlfriend and go back to my job in Brisbane, or whether to keep walking around a bit longer.

Then I met him in a naturally hollowed out bit of the cliff structure. It was at the beginning of my day, when the sun was still soft on my face and my morning coffee still motivating my steps.

“Come, have some tea.” He had a husky but gentle voice which startled me.

Initially I thought he was a hiker like me, just stopping for a quick brew in a nice spot. I stopped and chatted to him for a bit then sat down. That’s when I saw he had a nest-like spot on the floor behind with blankets and a few other objects of domesticity on the sandy ground, a single bowl and a roughly carved wooden spoon.

He said the billy can was just starting to boil, and he picked it up and did something I’d previously only heard about from my father in an ad hoc science lecture when I was young. He picked it up and swung it around the way the proper bush men used to do to get the tea to the bottom.

“Centrifugal force!” I whispered in awe.

“What?”

“Nothing. Looks delicious.”

We sat for a while, and because I was a little bit bored and a little bit lonely I agreed to another cup, then another.

“So how long have you been living here?”

“Not sure, I think there’s been about three equinoxes.”

We drank the tea in silence and I stared out over the contours of the landscape thinking how stunning the view would be in the mornings.

“So what do you do?” I asked, starting to get the creeping feeling in my belly that perhaps he was dangerous, a fugitive, a homeless man. I subtly looked around and thought about how I could escape.

“Not much. I watch the sunrise every day, and usually see the sunset unless I’m napping. I drink my tea, sometimes I have visitors like yourself.”

“What else?”

“That’s it, I just sit, listen to the birds, feel the wind.”

He stared at me for a long time and I started to get nervous and moved to run. Then he opened his mouth.

“What’s that?” He asked, pointing at the backpack beside me. It was my best piece of equipment at the time, it had special nylon pockets and an ergonomic harness.

I explained all the features and he looked away, unimpressed.

“What are you doing here?” he asked with soft curiosity.

“I’m trying to clear my head. My life is very confusing right now.”

“Why?”

I opened my mouth but struggled to articulate all the complex emotions I was experiencing.

Then he reached out and took my map and looked at it for a moment. He carefully crumpled it and added it to the fire. I sat in awe, unable to react.

“More tea?” he asked with a smile.

I nodded, in shock, wondering how I’d find my way back. He poured me more tea and I sat for a while longer, mostly in silence. I tried to explain again all the important decisions I was trying to make, but he just stared at me and smiled and stoked the fire and poured me more tea until I felt the flood of stress slowly dissipating.

After a while I continued on my way.

I walked for a couple more weeks on the coast, thinking about the caveman and then I got bored and came off the track and took the train, watching the city creeping up through the window in the afternoon haze.

Just like on the track that morning I still find myself wondering about that strange man. When I’m about to turn the key into the door coming home from work, or washing up my one bowl, or hitting the button on the kettle for my morning coffee, or taking the bins out and I can hear the last birds calling mournfully through the sky, or in the moment of silence after I’ve read my child their last book and I hear the sigh of descent into sleep and I lay there for a moment – I wonder whether the caveman is still on the coast, or migrated to the hinterland. I wonder if I might stumble across him again one day.

I showed my kid how to make tea in a billy in the backyard, swinging it around to make the perfect brew, but he didn’t understand.

Most nights I watch some TV and fall asleep on the couch and in the tiny ethereal space—between when my wife shoves me awake at the end of the show and when I open my eyes—I see his face so incredibly clearly, like I’m sitting right next to him again.


Fiona Murray lives in Sydney where she is a writer and social worker.

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Every Day Fiction