Primitive Marshians.

Before earthlings entered the Stone Age they used wooden implements. Sadly their tools have mostly rotted away, not being stone, or iron, or plastic. So we can only guess what they looked like. Pretty basic I would imagine.

We thought we’d go back in time and see if we could make something we could use to eat with. A spoon.

So we gathered in an out of the way spot where earthlings were unlikely to tread.

We lit a fire and pulled out some fancy steel in the shape of sharp knives, which of course our first ancestors never had.

In those distant days whole communities would have sat together and worked together. The very young would learn from the very old.

Sadly most folks have grown up without the skills to reduce a chunk of wood into a spoon. Even the very basic skills don’t get taught in schools. Imagine a teacher asking their pupils to bring sharp knives to a lesson. It does happen but it’s very rare.

Older Marshians were given penknives as kids, they traded them, whittled sticks with them, and learnt how to sharpen them. Younger generations have never done that.

So in an impromptu outdoor classroom we set about sharing some of that knowledge. We brought tools with us that would have us arrested on the streets, given our paranoia about the misuse of such a basic tool. A simple knife.

After a couple of hours we made some lovely spoons

As darkness started to descend the starlings started to assemble.

Not everyone got to see the murmuration. Whilst we all went looking one way, there they were. Behind us.

We all know the collective noun for starlings but I bet you didn’t know that the collective noun for Marshians is the same as for a flock of those little golden birdies, Goldfinches.

Anyway a flock of Marshians descended on the marsh bright and early the following morning.

And they made contact with a very very primitive Marshian who eats through one end of her body and breathes through the other. She actually hangs upside from a stem in the water, with her breathing tube reaching the surface and her pincers poised to trap any unfortunate smaller creature below.

She was amazed at our soft tissues and our combined breathing eating and talking orifices.

Once we were over the excitement of our little encounter we got back to work, using some more primitive tools

more haystacks were soon appearing

In places previously devoid of them.

Meanwhile a plan to use the local willow was being hatched and bundles of cut stems were harvested. There’s going to be a surprise in store in a few days time when the stems have been transformed into works of art.

Inevitably some of the Marshians prepared to leave, so bade us farewell

Then with the power of their mysterious energy they were beamed away back home

And there they were, gone.