CAVE DATE
Don’t listen to the archaeologists or the anthropologists. What do they know? They’ll tell you that cave paintings were made for ritual or some belief in ancient magic, but they have it all wrong! Well, maybe they’re right about it being a ritual, and maybe about magic, but they never mean the right type of magic. What you have to understand is, those paintings you see weren’t made by “shamans” or “wise elders”—they were painted by LOVERS. They were painted in the LULLS, the times when enough had been gathered and enough had been hunted, the times when all your great great great GREATS would relax and sit around the fire, eating or drinking something fermented and fun.
While Cave Grandma told a story you could sneak off when nobody was looking and go a few fires over until you found that CUTE CAVE GIRL, the one who knows where the best berries are, a secret the two of you share. You would meet her there and sneak off to a cave.
Caves don’t really change that much. Today they are just as cold and dark as they were in those days. Lucky for you she knew how to make fire. So the two of you collect a big bundle of BROCCOLI (if you didn’t know, broccoli was the size of trees in those days, or at least that was what I had to be told to eat it). Then, with your BROCCOLI WOOD, you sneak off to the cave. It’s a good cave, right near the secret berries. You’ve been past it many times running errands, like chasing mammoths, but if you’re being honest you only pretend there’s mammoths around there so you can bump into her and see her smile.
“What are we doing?” she will ask when you take her to the cave. She might be a little confused, but she’s so proud to know about fire and she just wants to show you. The fire is warm and nice and so are you and so is she. It was much simpler in those days. You take the charred end of a stick and go to a wall, she teases you “You don’t know how to make a torch?” She insists that sometime you let her show you how to make a torch. She doesn’t want to lecture you, but wants you to know that it’s important a young man have some skills if he wants to make something of himself. It is flattering that she cares about your future.
To make her smile you play along, but work is pretty busy, with all the hunting and gathering. Neither of your schedules are free until at least the next moon— not to worry, there are plenty of moons to go around and the two of you are taking things slow anyways. You touch the charred end to the wall. Immediately, a sense of relief washes over you. You’ve done many experiments with all sorts of coals on all sorts of rocks, but never in a cave. It would’ve been really embarrassing if it didn’t work in a cave. You ask her to look away while you work. She’s a little confused, but plays along patiently.
“Voilà,” is what you would say, but French won’t be discovered for thousands of years, so you have no choice but to tap her on the shoulder. She turns around, and the cave walls light up from her smile. “A MAMMOTH?” She recognizes it! She asks for the stick, then for you to turn around. You are convinced, you draw yours way faster, you wait for a long time, then remember French won’t be discovered for thousands of years, and you feel a tap on your shoulder. You notice a DEER and beneath it you see some marks on the wall where she was practising. She’s very happy to see that you see what she sees.
MAMMOTH, DEER, what other animals are there? It’s your turn again, and she’s still so proud of the fire that her smile makes it hard to focus. To impress her you draw a SABERTOOTH. That’ll show her how tough you are. She’s seen one too. You both agree that they’re no good, but maybe if they were smaller and nicer and lost the mean teeth they’d be worth having around. As the fire grows small you go through all the animals you know: the BIRDS, the BISON, the GIANT SLOTH, the WOOLY RHINO. The two of you bond over the fact that you’ve both seen them. It feels good to know someone out there sees things the way you do. You’re certain you’ve gotten down all the animals, but she makes you turn around again. What is she thinking? All the animals in the world are in this cave. She probably had too much of the ferment. After a while there’s a tap on your shoulder, you turn around ready to see whatever it was she made up, but there’s two little people there. “Us” she says. It’s possible that no couple has ever had as good of a date since.
FAST FORWARD, SOME FUCKING NERD GOES INTO YOUR CAVE AND SEES YOUR DATE AND WANTS TO MAKE ALL SORTS OF CLAIMS!
Illustrations by Max Shoham.
JOHNNY CARTER:
“CAVE DATE” was edited by Charlie Zacks and Kat Mulligan.
MAXWELL NORMAN’S ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Sly & The Family Stone - There’s a Riot Goin’ On (1971)
This funk classic from the dawn of the Seventies resonates way too well in the America of 2025, with Sly Stone’s disillusionment with the Civil Rights Movement and the dreams of hippie culture forming a dark, anxious haze around the experimental hard funk he composed. As the so-called West grows enamored with far-right strongmen to paper over the crushing weight of technocratic capitalism and digital fragmentation, the nihilism Stone embraces here on songs like “Luv n Haight” and “Runnin’ Away” can feel all too enticing, in turn rendering the music surprisingly comforting. The band’s godlike talent for deep grooves and dreamy melodies keeps things light enough to be danceable, with singles “Family Affair” and “(You Caught Me) Smilin’” coating their bitterness in the kind of effortless hooks on lighter Family Stone fare from other records like “If You Want Me to Stay”. An unequivocal masterpiece whose relevance in 2025 only enhances how much new ground it broke for funk in 1971.
GET HIP
McGill Black Student Network Library, a good resource for locating and borrowing books by Black authors. The BSN Library is currently looking for volunteer staffers. Anyone can sign up.
Kat Mulligan and Maïka Hebert are reading tonight at an event for Pastiche.
Black Writers Matter, edited by Whitney French, is an incredible collection of works by contemporary Black writers. You can order the E-Book or the paperback via University of Regina Press.
Pulse Mag (MTL lifestyle magazine) is accepting submissions until Feb 17.
Scrivener Creative Review, a publication based at McGill University is back and accepting submissions.