Pivot

 

Recap:

Dick Primale was a creature of high-definition. In his world, life was balanced between a ring light and a lens. He was 'optimized'—a collection of dry muscle, expensive grooming products, and a wardrobe of synthetic fibers designed to wick sweat he rarely allowed himself to break.

Then, the anomaly in the university lab—that silent, heavy rift of absolute zero-acceleration—swallowed his momentum whole. The world of fiber-optics and macro-balanced meal plans vanished. The 'modern man' didn't just travel through time; he fell out of the race entirely, landing in the silent, crushing weight of the Pleistocene.

Act I: The Smooth Thing in the Mud

The transition was a sensory assault. The smell of the Pleistocene hit him like a physical blow: the heavy, cloying scent of damp earth, raw musk, and ancient cedar.

When the Neanderthal group found him, Dick was a neon wound against the grey-green landscape. His compression shirt, a shade of 'Electric Cobalt' that didn't exist in nature, clung to his torso like a second, strangling skin. Compared to the group, Dick looked unfinished. He was unnervingly hairless, his skin a pale, exfoliated pink that seemed thin enough to tear under the weight of the wind.

He stood before the Patriarch—a man who was less a human and more a mountain given breath. The Patriarch’s skin was a landscape of leather and scar tissue, his brow a heavy shelf of bone that cast his eyes into permanent, watchful shadow.

Dick didn't have his phone to shield him, so he used the only tool he had left: The Pitch. He slid into a combat stance, his white veneers flashing in a desperate, predatory grin. He began to shadow-box, his limbs moving with a frantic, twitchy speed—the 'velocity' he had spent a lifetime perfecting. He pointed to his chest, then to the horizon, his voice a high-pitched stream of marketing jargon and 'alpha' affirmations that echoed uselessly against the silent trees.

Act II: The Living Curio

The Patriarch did not see a threat. He did not even see a man. He saw a novelty.

To a people who lived by the brutal math of calorie-in-versus-calorie-out, Dick was a fascinating waste of resources. He was a 'Fancy Thing.' His muscles were shaped for show, not for the lunging kill or the mile-long carry. His voice was a rhythmic, colorful noise that lacked the deep, resonant warning of a predator or the sharp clarity of a bird.

They kept him because his uselessness was a luxury. To feed the 'Smooth-Thing' was a display of immense tribal wealth. It was a flex of the Patriarch’s power—that he was such a provider, he could afford to keep a mouth fed that contributed nothing but noise. He would sit by the fire and watch Dick’s 'routines' with the same vacant, entertained expression one might give a captive gecko in a jar.

Dick started his burpees—a name that, ironically, sounds more like a post-meal infant ritual than a grueling exercise. The children would giggle and poke at his synthetic leggings, mesmerized by the way the fabric snapped back against his hairless calves. He was their enrichment—a flickering, moving ornament that filled the long, terrifying silences of the winter.

Act III: The Pivot to the Idiotic

Two Years Later.

The cave had lost its gravity. The air, once thick with the focused silence of survival, was now cluttered with the sound of mimicry.

A group of younger males stood nearby, mimicking Dick’s stance. They weren't practicing the low, wide base needed to brace against a charging bison; they were practicing 'angles.' They stood with their chests out and stomachs in, glancing at each other to see who looked the most like the hairless toy.

The hunt had been forgotten. The meat was low, the fire was dying, but nobody moved to fix it. They were locked in anticipation. They were waiting for Dick to stand up and provide the next 'moment.'

The Patriarch looked at Dick—now a degraded asset, his cobalt shirt reduced to blue threads hanging from his waist—and felt a terrifying, wordless realization. The Smooth-Thing had brought a sickness more deadly than any winter.

They were no longer hunters. They were an audience.

And as the Patriarch felt his own hand twitch, trying to replicate a 'thumbs-up' gesture he didn't truly understand, he realized they had become slaves to the noise. The future had arrived early, and was about to get very, very loud.

Epilogue

They had fed him. Bathed him. Protected him from the cold, with furs better suited for a child. In lean seasons, they had given him food first, as one might nurse a presence whose utility had failed, yet whose absence lingered like a void.

No one remembered why.

The hunt had been forgotten. The tools dulled. The young learned the gestures before they learned the weight of a spear.

Generations later, when the tribe thinned and scattered—the marks they left behind puzzled those who came after.

Figures without purpose. Bodies posed to be seen.

Evidence of attention, preserved without understanding.

They had not been conquered.

They had adored the thing that replaced them.