(Microstory)
By: Vicente Battista
Translated by: Bajram Karabolli
Anthropologists at Duke University in the United States estimate that Neanderthals, who inhabited the earth more than 400,000 years ago, possessed the gift of speech. This new discovery may answer a question that, until now, has remained unanswered.
To find this answer, we must go back to a Neanderthal tribe, on a certain night, where men and women are gathered around the fire, warming themselves and celebrating the end of the day. That morning, early, the men had set out to find and hunt food. Meanwhile, the women took care of their children. Now that the sun has set, it is time to rest and tell the experiences of the day. Each man tells how he caught the prey he was chasing. He does not know how to lie.
But for one of these men, the hunt had been a failure. When his turn comes, he has no feats to tell. So he decides to invent them. He concocts an impossible hunt. And he does so with such skill that he transforms the lie into a beautiful and captivating story. Everyone asks him to repeat it.
That night, without knowing it, that anonymous Neanderthal man had just invented literature.
