Day 1 – Part 2

So here is an overly simplified history of my people. 6000 years ago, an all powerful being said, “Let there be light.” A few days later, the first man and woman were created. Yeah, kidding. The earliest generations of human ancestors ventured forth from the primeval forests with their bipedal gait and opposable thumbs something like four million years ago. While fascinating, I’d like to skip 99.7% of that and get myself firmly into Neolithic territory in the next few days. I’m confident for two reasons. First, I have the gift of hindsight. Second, I’ve watched my fair share of wilderness survival programming.

My goal for today is to shave off 2 million years of invention. For that, I need two things in particular. First up; Rediscover fire. People from Homo Erectus to Cub Scout Pack 420 have relied on its heat and utility. Unfortunately, Prometheus isn’t around to steal some from Hephaestus’ forge. Therefore, I determined to make it the old fashion way by rubbing two sticks together with the hope of getting a spark. I’d seen it on TV after all. “How hard could it be?”

Congratulations if you answered, “Pretty damn hard for a boy from the burbs.” Your reward is the satisfaction of being correct. It took me four hours, but with enough desperation and elbow grease I miraculously created smoke. Unfortunately, the bark fibers collected as kindling didn’t catch and my spark went cold. I switched to dry grass and tried again. Another two hours later I finally got my campfire.

The sun had already started descending by then, and fire is a very hungry beast. I needed the second basic tool with enough daylight to harvest some wood. The hand axe is our earliest known tool. The axe that first comes to mind with its metal head and wooden handle a couple million years beyond my means, so I’ll settle on the caveman version. It’s quite literally a “hand” axe where a sharpened stone is held in the palm of one’s hand. My vague idea mostly involves bashing rocks against each other and flaking bits off to make the sharp edge.

Earlier, while I rested my tired hands from the failed attempt to create fire, I scoured the area and collected some candidate rocks for tool making experiments. I recalled that early humans used flint for their tools. Naturally, I sought some myself and I’m not about to let minor matters such as not knowing what flint looks like stop me. My solution was to grab a variety of different types of stones. One of them had to work. I was committed enough that I even snuck to the cliffs by the Wolfman/Dogkin/whatever-they-are-called den for a selection of its rocks.

With my small fire and a stack of dead branches, I started my first stone tool. The process involved hitting one rock against the other really hard. I called the rock that broke my axe, and the one that didn’t my hammer. My first attempt ended up as decorative rock chips like you’d see in gardens. The second, from a shiny black stone amongst those I collected a few hundred yards from a Dogkin licking its crotch, flaked easily and left behind a fine clean edge. Bingo, I finished it and used the last remnants of daylight to cut branches and saplings for my fire. Full disclosure, the axe I worked so hard for wasn’t very good. The thin blade section was too delicate for chopping and it broke before separating the first branch. Darkness descended and I swear the Bronze Age can’t come soon enough. If this is my last entry, I hope whatever ate me choked.

Day 2

Well I survived the night. As expected, my next-door-predators hunted me but they didn’t seem overly fond of fire. Eventually they moved on to easier prey after a few hours. Otherwise it was an utterly miserable night. I had to let my fire die down to embers for lack of wood to burn and hid up a tree until dawn. Still, on seeing that first sunrise, a sense of pride and accomplishment budded. Maybe I can actually do this.

I haven’t explained how I’m recording all of this yet. Obviously, I wasn’t brought to this new world with a pen and paper, so what am I using? The answer is the voice recorder on my Smartphone. Back when Death first spirited me off to purgatory, the charge on my phone was 47%. While dictating this log entry, it’s still holding at 47%. Honestly, I have no idea why the battery hasn’t completely died by now. A wizard did it or something.

As an aside, I briefly pondered how to make the battery explode during the most frustrating periods of fire starting but ultimately decided against it. Mostly, because it sounded like a better way to injure or kill myself than to actually start a controlled fire and I didn’t think hitting it with a rock would do anything other than irrevocably break the thing. Having a working phone sounds like a crazy cheat in my favor but isn’t very useful in reality. Everything, even the compass, needs a persistent online connection. So I can’t access any of my books, call anyone, nor open youtube and Wikipedia.

Over the course of the harrowing night, while I shivered in the upper boughs of a tree, I had time to think about my failed axe. It’s a case where my modern experience led me down the wrong path. You see, I’ve used steel hatchets while camping and they are amazing tools. Hatchets are compact, incredibly strong and have tapered well defined edges. I fixated on getting a similar axe-like shape on my stone axe, but expended no thoughts about how axes functioned as machines. Case in point, consider the steel hatchet from earlier. It had an edge sharp enough to shave with, but the sharp edge only aides splitting the wood. However, the wedged shape can’t be neglected otherwise I’m chopping wood with a knife.

Lesson learned, I picked up a new rock and started to chip away at it. Bit by bit stone came off until I ended with a hefty shark-tooth shaped rock with a smooth back that comfortably fit my palm. In subsequent field tests, this improved axe performed much better. I can’t imagine cutting down anything bigger than saplings, but it chops through deadwood and branches admirably. It’s also great at stripping twigs and scraping bark away from branches. By the early afternoon, my new camp had a couple relatively smooth wooden poles along with big pile of burnables.

Right, I neglected to mention that I changed the location of my camp. Turns out, humans require water to survive. Crazy right? My old camp, while close to rocks and wood, was very far away from the stream. And frightening off predators was surprisingly thirsty work. In the morning I relocated to a promising spot next to the stream (Henceforth to be known as Adam’s Creek) where it bends like a horseshoe around a tiny hillock.

It felt pretty defensible too. An attacker would have to splash through the creek and climb a steep embankment to approach anywhere along three sides. I laid my firewood/stick-pile across the remaining open side to form a barrier.

Despite the precautions, it still made me uneasy about being eating me while I slept. I stayed up most of the night sharpening one of the wooden poles by firelight. I really wanted a spear and that felt pointy stick was a good first attempt. Eventually, I’ll unravel my sock to use the cotton as string to fix a proper spearhead, but that can wait. It’s been a quiet night so far. Maybe I’m finally safe.

Day 3

I’m currently in the upper boughs of a big tree. Can’t leave, or else the creature below will rip me to shreds.

One might ask how I got myself into this mess. Well it wouldn’t have happened back in my old world because I’m fairly certain centipedes don’t grow eight feet long there. Short answer, the local wildlife here are ridiculous; something I should have considered when nature called.

My morning started normal. I went off to pick blackberries. The bushes are looking a bit bare and that’s concerning, but one problem at a time. After breakfast, I explored deeper into the forest to harvest wood and left with my rock axe and spear. The urge to pee hit, and I wasn’t inclined to water the saplings destined for firewood. Like an idiot, I set aside my spear and sought a bigger more suitable tree.

The centipede approached while my back was turned. Fortunately its creepy-crawly little legs are noisy which alerted me with enough time to climb my toilet before being pounced. It’s a bit of a standoff. I’m just out of reach of the wriggling mass of legs and crimson carapace but I’m also not sure how to climb down without being devoured.