Poor Hank Fish

Image taken from www.columbia.edu/.../austro.html

Nearly four million years before the present day a group of three bipedal hominids, possibly humankind’s earliest ancestors, walked together across an open plain, in what one day would be known as Africa. On this day the scent of recent volcanic eruptions would have been hanging in the air, the horizen studded with smoking cones. Their passing left a tantalising record, a trail of footprints imprinted in newly settled volcanic ash. By examining the nature of the prints, their size, shape and the distance between them, we know they walked upright. By comparing this data with skeletons dated from the same era we assign them to a group of bipedal hominids that were not tall, about half the height of us. We take (very) educated guesses that they belonged to two adults and a juvenile of the species australopithecine afarensis, and with our fingers crossed we claim these as our earliest ancestors.

Getting along on two legs as opposed to scrambling about on all fours had come about relatively recently in the scheme of things. The innovation had allowed the use hands for tasks other than mobility, and provided the advantage of a longer line of sight to catch a glimpse of game or scout for danger. It was the means for these early hominids to range further and further from the safety of the tree-ed places, and to take up the regular eating of meat to power their lengthier trips and to sustain a growing brain. Walking upright really did set them off on the path to becoming us.

In this manner, wonderfully free from the weight of their predestination over the next 3.7 million years, this little group walked on by, leaving nothing but footprints. It's a wonder they didn't stop and look back on them with amazement, maybe they did. The footprints remained in the ash long after it had become solid rock. The imprinted rock was covered by layer upon layer of soils over the millennia. Then the turnings of the earth and the relentless sweep of time removed the covering layers, grain by grain, sweeping them away until our groups’ signature footprints lay within reach of dainty pick and brush work by those inclined to such things.

A hefty 3.7 million years after first being laid down they were uncovered by someone very inclined to such things. Dust soaked anthropologist Hank Fish discovered a trail of fossilised footprints in the dry Tanzanian plains of Africa in the early nineteen seventies. They were the find of his life.

*

Aus – tral – o – pith – a - cine, Af – ar – en – sis, is how Celia first learnt to say their name when she was two. Celia Fish was only a babe in arms when the news of her father’s discovery entered the public domain. By the time she was six her father was a well-known Professor of Anthropology at Hobart University, inclined to give his views vociferously on local talk-back radio on matters not in the least connected with anthropology, and still touring on the strength of his one, great find. Celia’s mother had been an outspoken student. They fell in together, and managed to form an alliance held together by love and common understanding, ‘with no need what-so-ever for any medieval marriage ceremony’. Together they held sway over little Celia’s life, which she remembered in later years as a succession of ‘healthy differences of opinion’, or, as Celia remembers it, violent arguments.

Casts of the Hank Fish’s famous footprints were displayed in the Hobart Museum, set in a tasteful diorama featuring a dried, landscape representation. The interested public came for a look, bringing their children. A cursory glance in the anthropological room usually sufficed, before they wheeled their bonneted offspring off to the room containing the stuffed animals.

Celia went to see the impressive, twenty foot long panorama with her father on a regular basis. They took a cut lunch every Friday. When he was in an agreeable frame of mind Hank Fish explained the display in such interesting detail that young Celia could see the group, a family just like her own, like ghosts walking before her, the male in front and the female holding the young one’s hand.

On other occasions Hank paced moodily up and down, sucking on his filthy pipe, stopping periodically to peer over the red, silken rope at one section or another of the display. On one occasion, while Celia peered in the sodden brown paper bag, dissatisfied with tomato sandwiches and hoping for a biscuit, he climbed right over the rope. When Celia looked up, he was walking the diorama with carefully measured paces, at right angles to the line of footprints. When he reached the back of the display he knelt and scratched at the plaster there, and could be heard muttering to himself. Quite a little crowd gathered, and Celia was extremely ill at ease until he was ushered out by a kind but firm curator.

On walks to the park or along the street, where other children might carefully avoid treading on the cracks, dreams of the diorama and the ‘hom-in-ids’ who had left them, floated in Celia’s mind. She walked hand in hand with her mother, after ordering her grey haired father walk on ahead, ‘just like in Daddy’s footprints people.’

Hank Fish died when Celia was twelve. He had been ‘getting on’ for as long as Celia could remember, and had drunk much more than he should in the end. But still, she missed their Friday outings.

*

It was some time after this, roughly twenty-five years or so, that the whole mad project, as Celia called it, of Ben’s was born. It had begun not long after they had first met at university in 1990. Celia was a third year anthropological archeology student, following in the ‘footprints’ of her father. Ben was doing something complex with nano-particles for his PhD in physics.

Celia laughed when Ben, over first-date beers at their local, told her about his invention. ‘As you would,’ she defended herself, ‘if someone told you they had invented a time machine!’ Later that evening, Ben showed her how it worked, and how various objects could disappear and reappear at the turn of a dial. In an Einstein-theory-of-relativity-like demonstration, a clock reappeared three hours slower than it should have, and she was convinced. Not long after this night they declared themselves in love, and made plans to get married as soon as Ben finished his PhD.
As more time went by the prospect of the completion of the PhD, and consequently the wedding, seemed to be increasingly distant as funding for the former was continually refused, people actually laughing when Ben put forward his proposal.

Ben broached the idea with Celia during a crackling purple, window rattling storm one Sunday afternoon. They had filled the bedroom with candles, and were lying on the bed drinking vodka from small glasses. Celia tried her best not to let it worry her that Ben’s PhD had stalled at the starting posts, about all his work and incredible talent going to waste, but although she prided herself on her feminist position, a watered down version of her mother’s, she was secretly itching to start planning the wedding. Why, only that day she had given in to the urge, and her first bridal magazine was tucked out of sight in her bedside drawer, like some girls conceal a vibrator.

‘Everything will be all right, won’t it Ben?’ she asked. She wanted him to say something reassuring. Ben had quite a lot to say, as it turned out. Much of it was startling, and not much was reassuring, to Celia’s way of thinking. He laid out, piece by piece, a plan to send … someone … he paused meaningfully … back in time. He wanted to send … this someone … for increasingly longer periods, to times increasingly in the past, and when he was certain there were no ill effects … ‘

Celia moved away, to curl defensively at the foot of the bed, her arms tucked between her knees.

‘Yes, it’s you that gave me the idea, Cel. And your father.’

‘What idea? What do you mean?’

So he told her. He told her he was going to track down the exact moment when the famous footprints her father had discovered were left and film the whole event. Celia made no attempt at all to hide her disbelief.

Ben was not put off by her snorts of disgust. ‘Narrowing the time to a reasonable closeness, prior to actually sending you into the past is the critical part of the idea,’ he explained. Using a highly calibrated cycle of darting particle transportations, he had been able to do just this, he went on.

Celia gazed at him glumly, I'm going to marry this guy?

‘In order to actually pinpoint the right day I plan to send you back and forth, back and forth, you know?’

Celia managed a depressed nod. Yes, she knew.

‘… To have a look if the footprints are there, or not, and so on... ‘Eventually, after a … number … of trips the exact, right day will become clear,’ he explained, then fell silent.

Celia noted a look of … yes, expectant pride on his face. She curled into a tight ball. ‘Oh.’

Apparently encouraged, Ben went on. He told how he planned to make money selling the footage shot by Celia; money for his PhD, money for their wedding, and their … life … together. He faltered, waiting for a response. When Celia did not respond he reached down the bed and pulled her up beside him. Wrapping his arms around her he held her close to him. ‘Cel, Cel, only if you want to, okay? Only if you say yes.’ He kissed her cool cheek, and nibbled her ear-lobe. This never failed to make her giggle, despite her best efforts she could not stop herself. Ben explored other parts of Celia’s body, delighting her with his tender touch. Where words failed, caresses did not. She opened herself to him like a flower unfolding.

‘Yes, I'll do it,’ she had murmured sometime later, that stormy Sunday afternoon, when they were lying sated, wrapped in rumpled sheets.

*

That is how she came to be huddled now, shivering, in the long, dry grass of an ancient landscape that in about three point seven million years time would be called Tanzania. About to come face to face with her ancient ancestors, ‘…That’s the idea anyway,’ she muttered to herself.

The journey, if that was the right word, for Celia was never sure what to call it, had gone smoothly, with minimal disorientation this time. She had woken dazed in the transportation pod, with no idea of who she was, or where she was, which was disconcerting, but normal. The glowing red images passing before her eyes had still taken a few minutes to register in her fuzzed brain, but gradually the carefully designed symbols and letter combinations had done their work in her cerebral cortex, and other susceptible parts of her frontal lobes.

She checked her equipment again. Weird how all that shiny metal suddenly looked so completely out of place. Rising to her knees, she held the video camera to her eye and panned along the sunlit plain, and the small rise nearby; focusing on the open stretch of ash and mud running along the nearly dry riverbed. The stale, earthy smell of the dark mud wafted to her, carried by a gentle breeze. Turning the video camera towards herself she began to speak in a quiet, serious tone;

‘Celia Fish, speaking to you from three point seven million years ago in a place that will one day be … Tanzania, Africa.’ She paused. ‘When you hear these words, you will know that, however hard it is to believe what I am saying, I am speaking the truth. I will bring back soil samples, insect specimens …,’ she waved away a group of flies intent on exploring the corners of her eyes, ‘… we’ve been putting up with flies for a long time it seems.’ She paused again for the imagined polite laughter.

‘And I will bring back video footage of one of the earliest human, or humanoid, activities known to … man and woman kind today. A family, out for a walk together. A famous family, you could call them our First Family. I bring you the Australopithecine Afarensis Family Outing!’ Turning the camera off, she smiled to herself as she sank back into her grassy covering. ‘Corny, melodramatic, just perfect.’

Setting the camera on its tripod, she busied herself for some hours gathering test-tubes of different soils, and then grasses and the odd leafy twig, and made detailed notes. She tucked the test tubes of specimens one by one into the pockets of her field bag, and settled down to wait.

She waited a long time, and fleeting doubts as to time and place began flitting through her mind, although her previous brief trips had, without a doubt, narrowed both down to this day, and this place. Then she became aware of the rustling and cracking of grasses. Her pricked ears caught sounds of life approaching; soft murmurs, rising and falling in tone. ‘Surely, it’s them?’ As the sounds grew louder Celia was amazed to find her-self listening for a recognisable word. The noises they made were definitely not human, but they were not like any chimp or ape she had ever heard. Celia held her breath; her eyes and the camera trained on the slight rise about ten metres away, over which she guessed they were about to appear.

It was them. When they appeared; the male first, the female following and holding the child’s hand and chattering while she walked, Celia was taken by surprise again, this time by their size. Even the male was only the size of Celia’s ten-year-old niece. The child, who she knew was thought to be six or seven, looked no larger than a three year old. Celia gazed at their sloping foreheads, receding chins and close-set eyes with wonder. ‘Can they really turn into us?' she asked herself, enthralled.

While she was busy with these thoughts her hands were working on their own operating the video camera. Zooming in, she chose the best shots she could, wishing she could film from different angles. Still, it was fantastic how the sunlight was glinting through their reddish fuzzy hair, and a group of umbrella like trees and a smoking volcano in the distance provided a perfect backdrop.

That it should all flow so smoothly seemed incredible to Celia. The three Australopithecine Afarensis walked past, at a steady pace, across the muddy flat. She could even hear the male replying to the female’s chatter in an un-human, yet oddly familiar voice, and hoped the camera was capturing the sounds. Celia was so close she could actually hear the small sounds their bare feet made as they passed, leaving behind the oh so famous footprints.

They disappeared into the distance of place and time, leaving Celia in a state of total exhilaration. ‘We did it! It worked!’ she crowed. Barring some catastrophe she could not bring herself to consider, she had the proof they needed to prove that Ben’s idea was not crazy. ‘It won’t do me any harm either,’ she thought with a wry smile.

Celia had no more time to spend on these thoughts. The portal back to her own time would be closing soon. Ben had stressed the impossibility of being able to come back and get her if she missed it. Only he could operate the complicated machinery. As Celia had no desire to spend any long length of time four million years in her own past; she must get a move on.

She hastily gathered all her paraphernalia, zipped and clicked the various pockets and compartments, as she sped off towards the portal site. She checked her stopwatch, ‘Damn!’ There was less time than she thought. She set off at a jog, cutting across the nearly dry riverbed, her feet also making small sucky sounds in the mud and ash that released a stale, earthy aroma as she crossed.

Still some distance from the portal site Celia suddenly stopped as though she had run into something solid. She looked back the way she had just come, and followed the trail of her own footprints across the ash covered plain. ‘Oh bloody hell. No!’

For crossing the tracks so recently left in the mud by humankind’s earliest ancestors were others of a much later species. The imprints of Celia’s running shoes were also clearly defined in the soft ash, cutting straight across those of the First Family, making a complete mockery of the First Family Outing.

Celia sank weakly to the ground. She felt faint, and a bit sick. She tried to cry, but could not. Somehow she made it back to the portal in time to be shunted through the same configurations that had gotten her here, but in reverse.

1971 Tanzania

Image taken from www.britannica.com

About three point seven million years later it was another lovely day on the Tanzanian plain, although perhaps a little warmer than the one Celia had experienced. Hank Fish did not normally notice the heat, the flies seeking moisture from his orifices, or the thin trickles of sweat that ran continuously down his body; he was used to all that. But today Hank was less likely than ever to notice these things. It was the last week, of his last field trip, before beginning a life of relative ease back in Hobart, teaching at the university - and he was onto something! For the last few hours he had been working steadily, firstly with chisel, pick and gentle taps with his hammer, and now with fine brushes.

Hank leant back on his heels and surveyed what he’d just uncovered with a strange mixture of emotions; relief, pride and exultation were the three he could identify off the top of his head. It was three sets of footprints, two larger and a smaller, that Hank had revealed in the ancient stone layer before him. He felt certain they were very ancient indeed, and bipedal, for he could tell by the heel imprint, and no matter how hard he searched he could find no handprints. He suspected they were most likely Australopithecine. Possibly Afarensis or maybe his old mate Africanus. ‘What ever they are, they are just the ticket,’ muttered Hank happily. ‘Just the bloody ticket.’ He set back to it with a fine haired brush.

He allowed himself a little whoop of excitement as he worked. He would get Roy to help him analyse and catalogue them, he decided. He would call him on the two-way soon, but not just yet. The way Hank figured it, the rock bed seemed to continue quite a bit further, with only a light covering of sandy soil. He worked with mixed feelings as he remembered the time years ago when he had unearthed what turned out to be the find of the decade, the first africanus jawbone and skull fragments, only to have the leader of the expedition, and quite rightly so he knew, categorise it, publish and have accolades heaped on his insipid blonde head for ever after. ‘Just keep calm, old fellow,’ he told himself, and set to on a fresh patch of ground with his chisel, whistling cheerfully through his teeth.

A couple of hot, damp hours later, Hank stopped again. He sat heavily on a rock and wiped his brow with a damp pocket-handkerchief. Shaking his head slowly, he rested it in his hands, eyes closed. ‘No.’ Soon the solitary word filtered through his clenched fingers. ‘No! NO! It can’t be!’ His agony carried over the plain, but remained unheard. Similarly the clenched fist pounding the air beside him remained unseen.

Suddenly he leapt up and ran to the Land Rover. He wrenched and pulled until the side mirror broke off in his hands. He ran back to the site and knelt down with the mirror and tried a couple of different angles. There was no mistaking it, (a tear of frustration trickled slowly down his cheek); neat, even whirls, a few millimetres apart, spreading about eight inches by three inches. At one end, clearly reflected in the mirror, a single word; ‘Nike’ and underneath it the digits ‘8 ½’.

This footprint was not ancient; it clearly belonged to a member of his own species. And if this footprint is not ancient, then all these other footprints, reasoned Hank, were obviously monkey or ape, and were obviously baked hard quite recently by the fierce African sun. How could he have been so wrong? Nothing made any sense anymore. He repeated the word ‘obviously’ to himself a few times to try it out, but it just wasn’t obvious to Hank at all. Not at all. He sat with his head in his hands again, and re-evaluated his future. He sat for some time.

*

Hank was very handy with a pick. He was equally handy with a chisel. It did not take him long at all to do what he decided had to be done. He spent longer ensuring that his work could not be detected, that the sandy gap in the length of footprints appeared as a fault line where natural erosion had taken place. He assured himself the interruption to the footsteps would scarcely rate a mention. He would ensure it did not.

When he was finally, quite satisfied that his handy work was beyond detection, it was late. The sky was stained a bloody orange on the horizon and Hank Fish flung his tools into the back of the truck. They struck the tail-gate with a sour, metallic clanging. As he drove slowly away from the site Hank noticed a nasty taste in his mouth, one no amount of water from his canteen seemed to be able to wash away.