…And Then Came Man
Benjamin Myers
At first the wood was still.
For several centuries there was the sound of the whistling wind, the creaking of boughs and the shifting drifts of dead or dying leaves; natural noises played by the orchestra of the elements on its instruments of life.
Then one day a deer stepped out into a clearing. It stopped and sniffed the air, detected no danger. It nibbled at some bark and lapped from the shallow stream that ran through the centre of the wood and that night it slept soundly, curled into a circle of dirt swept flat in the ancient bracken patch. Deep in its sleep visions it felt a desire, a longing for another of its kind, and several short sunrises later its dream calls were answered when another deer appeared, a doe, and they sniffed each other, and
