Spring came early, as it had come early the year before and the year before that. Dordogne sniffed the air, searching for the scent of game that had grown scarce. Nothing. They would be hungry again today, unless those nice people down the road had something to spare.
Returning to the cave empty-handed, Dordogne could not meet his wife's eye, so ashamed was he at his lack of hunting skills. None of the other men in the village were doing much better, but that made no difference to one man who had already buried two children. Francie was making do with grace, brewing up a pot of nettle soup, but Dordogne felt her silent disappointment.
The men of the village held a meeting that night, to discuss the changes that had taken place. The animals that once were plentiful were gone, but more troubling was the river that had appeared one day in their great-great-grandparents' time, forming a boundary to the north of the village. The river had now grown so wide that they could not cross it. There were days when the wind blew from the north, carrying a whiff of mastodon that made a person's mouth water, but there was no way to get at the beasts. The herds of wild animals might just as well have been wandering across the face of the moon, equally unattainable.
Yerog the Wise stood within the meeting circle, his Council of the Learned behind him. He announced that he would make a 'powerful points' presentation, and all were to listen carefully. Yerog and his advisers had determined the cause of the changes, and they were going to offer the only solution available. Dordogne looked around, but none of their taller neighbors, the people of that other clan, were there to lend their knowledge.
Slowly, as if preparing to speak, Yerog the Wise ground his foot into the soot of the fire and then imprinted his mark, a large footprint in carbon, on the wall of the cave. "This is the reason," he said, pointing at the dark smudge. "We burn the trees, and the waters rise and the animals flee."
Just yesterday, Dordogne had run into Sapiens in the open grassland, stopped to chat and learned about the handy gizmo that the tall, blond neighbor used to fling his spear. One thing led to another, and they were discussing religion, though the tone was quite civil. Sapiens had such a different set of beliefs, coupled with a host of ancient ancestors who supposedly carried some vast store of knowledge. Because of his faith in the wisdom of these very ancient ancestors, Sapiens and his clan were not at all alarmed by the climate change, not when they were so sure that their ancestors had seen the weather change from hot to cold. Now it was going back to what it used to be, according to Sapiens. Adapt, he said cheerily. The man was deranged.
"From this moment on, we will stop burning and within ten years, the cold will return," Yerog the Wise announced. "The ice will grow and the river will disappear. Then, we can walk back to our ancestral hunting grounds and we will soon prosper."
A humming through the cave meant that the motion was passed unanimously. Dordogne went back to his cave and scattered the last remnants of the fire, poking with a stick until the stones of the fire pit grew cold. In the dark, there was nothing to do but go to sleep.
"It's freezing in here," Francie groaned. "Can't we have a little fire? It's a small cave."
"No fires," Dordogne said. "It is forbidden."
"The Sapiens aren't using all their fire. Why don't you buy some of theirs?"
"If they were wise, they would stop putting all that smoke into the air. Cuddle up, darling, we'll share body heat."
"Body heat my arse. I can't stop shivering."
After a week had passed and Sapiens had not seen his neighbor, he thought he might drop in. Out of charity, he brought along a haunch of meat to share with those who had once been flush with wild game and berries. He knocked on the cave, but heard no sound beyond the whistle of the wind and the steady drip of condensation. The same silence greeted his knock at every cave, as if the entire village was deserted.
"Hello there," Sapiens cried out, and a weak voice answered back.
"Has the ice returned yet?" Yerog the Wise asked.
"What the hell are you going on about?" Sapiens said. "It's the warm cycle now. The ice won't come back for another twenty thousand years. This is how it's supposed to be. The earth changes, old man, it isn't like those flies in the amber beads that my wife is so fond of."
"No, it's the fuel we burned. It made the ice melt."
"Where is everyone?"
"Frozen." Yerog sighed, using up his last breath.
Chilled to the bone, Sapiens returned to the comfort of his hearth and home, to tell his clan of the Neanderthals and the crazy notion that killed them all. He put another log on the fire, to watch the sparks fly up like the souls of his good friends Dordogne and Francie. Adapt to a changing world, he had told them, but some people would not listen. There was no talking to a Neanderthal anyway, so set in their ways, thinking that every rock was always where they found it and would never move from that spot. So enamored of doomsday scenarios, and now they were all dead.
"It's ironic," Sapiens said to his wife. "A touch of irony"
"Irony? What's that? Did you invent something else today, dear?" She crushed a handful of nuts against the grinding rock. "Thought I'd do a pecan-crusted halibut for dinner. For a change. Getting tired of mastodon every night."
"Change is good," Sapiens said. "In fact, change is inevitable."
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