Selam's Stone Age Quest

I walk to the edge of the village, towards the woods. The sun is still setting, I can see it through the trees, red, orange and yellow. It's beautiful. The whole world seems beautiful. The first time I saw a sunset, my mom died in that very same moment. Or so I thought. Turns out she was still alive, I just couldn't see her anymore because I was too busy looking at the sky. That's not really important right now though.

I don't know what returns me to these thoughts - maybe it's the tranquility of nature or maybe it's the cool breeze blowing through my hair - but something takes me back to that day when I was a little girl again. My father, who had been dead for a long time by then, took me outside as soon as I woke up that morning. He showed me where he grew his crops and how he used to hunt and fish with my mother before she got ill and died.

"Why do you look so sad?" he asked after we had returned inside and sat down for breakfast together.

"What makes you think I'm sad?" I asked him back, trying to hide my tears from him with a big spoon of porridge in my mouth. "I'm not sad!"

"I know you're sad." He said calmly and looked directly at me with his bright blue eyes. I wanted to tell him he was wrong but at the same time I could feel how true his words were: how could he know? How did he see that? "But I also know you're strong," he continued while wiping a bit of porridge off my chin with his thumb and looking into my eyes again. "You're strong like your mother."

And that was it - those simple words made me cry even more than before! Crying isn't generally considered a good thing but right then it felt really good! It wasn't like crying because you're sad, it was crying because there's no other way to show your emotions! By then I was already sobbing uncontrollably while dad just sat there next to me being patient, not saying anything else until I had calmed down again and the tears stopped flowing from my eyes.

Then he took me outside again, this time all by myself, holding my hand tightly in his big rough one. We walked along a path which led away from his house towards another village in the forest not too far away from ours. We passed many houses on our way until we reached Mr Finks' house halfway through town where dad stopped and knocked on the door once with his foot instead of using his hands like other people do because they have trouble moving their fingers any longer due to age-related problems like arthritis or whatever else might be causing them pain nowadays...

We were visiting Mr Finks again today although it hadn't been too long since our last visit last week as we were running low on supplies again so dad decided to go shopping for us both before dinner tonight (you know why!). By now I knew Mr Finks pretty well and appreciated having someone like him around for all sorts of things - not only did he sell some interesting items but also offered services such as fixing tools or sharpening knives if you needed your blades sharper than ever before! So whenever dad wanted some new or improved equipment for whatever reason (like hunting), he always went straight to Mr Finks' house first! As for giving him a visit without any real business today - well we had met up with Mr Finks occasionally during one of our visits last week when we talked about various topics including the latest news (if there were any) throughout the valley which extended over several kilometres towards east and west! But most importantly we had talked about...

"Kings & Queens! Kings & Queens!", shouted Mr Finks with joyous excitement in his voice while jumping up and down excitedly behind his countertop filled with odds & ends displayed on all sides of him! This man sure loves talking about kings & queens and does so frequently despite being alone most of the time - usually only another person joins in on these talks every once in a while but today dad apparently wanted to hear more about King Arthur who Mr Finks talked about often too but never mentioned names...