... having been breathed out

The cave woman and cave man lie side by side, each head filled with bright images the other can’t see. Even when they press their ears or mouths or noses together, the skull wall is still in the way. In one head there is a gazelle staining a pool with its bleeding hoof. In the other, a patchwork of faces and forest fastened together with thorns. They look at each other. Is that a world in the other’s brimming eye? No, just the cave reflected, cold and dark and home. They bump globes sadly. The gazelle is fading. The forest is just the forest outside. ‘I am hungry,’ one gestures. ‘I am hungry too,’ gestures the other.