Helena Walker: The Path

Cooking Lessons

There I was, on the outskirts of the taiga, hidden in a bush with Vera while staring at a pack of wolves devour a megaloceros. Megaloceros was a large deer to put into simple terms, the males had massive antlers that were realistically too big for its head. That was the hamartia of this poor bambi.

We watched as it got chased by the squad of killer wolves, gliding across the snow and trying to avoid chunks of it being taken away. Each chomp ripped a bit of flesh from its body, the snow below was painted red as the deers velocity dropped. We watched as its neck was bitten, those sharp canines jabbing into its fur before being released. We watched as it fell to the scarlet ground, a victim of the hunt.

"Bit brutal." Vera said with a blank expression, she was there to make sure I didn't become those wolves next meal.

"In the name of science." I said, using a telescope to get a closer look at the wolves.

The wolves ravaged the carcass, I noticed their tendencies of eating were uniform. They chowed down on the meat around the bones before snapping the bone itself with its jaws, licking out the bone marrow. Their blood stained mouths then took the bones and chewed on them, as if they were a regular Labrador in your house. After the body was left to only fur, the wolves turned to the bushes, there I saw them feasting on some of the berries that were suspended within the leaves, then also eating the mushrooms between the plants. The wolves soon left, and I had my answers.

I tapped Vera on the shoulder, signalling for us to leave. Checking our surroundings first, we started to run down the cold slopes of the forest, the wind blew against my hair as I dashed, I have to admit it was fun feeling the breeze hug against my face, the cool air was soothing. Eventually we reached the village once more, it was not too many hours since I had first got there.

"You 'understood' everything?" Vera asked, confused at what exactly I was prepared to do. I nodded at her and went into one of the smaller buildings, she followed.

Inside this building was several large cooking pots, when I mean large I mean large. To the left of me was a row of primitive refrigerators, using spark powder to keep themselves running. Right when I had my idea, I went to prepare the meat of what I had prepared. By infusing the prime parts of the meat with salt, I could give the wolves their nutrients while also raising their blood pressure which I could tell was low.

I grabbed the heaps of salt infused meat which was slightly dried out now, Vera looked at me with a look that asked 'The hell are you doing?' but I chose to ignore it. I placed the meat to the side and placed wood underneath the bottom of the cooking pots, then lit a fire to heat the water that I would pour in. After doing so, I grabbed a fruit from a storage area. They called it citronal, to me it just looked like a lemon. I grabbed a knife and sliced the fruit in half, dropping it entirely into the pot, then did the same to 3 more.

I then added bones into the pot, their bone marrow mixing into the concoction as I stirred: then plant fibres, then some sweet tree sap, all things I'd grabbed earlier or was already on hand. Finally I added the salty meat and then mushrooms, they bathed in the soup like liquid and absorbed some of the nutrients. I sat there for a while, in my own little trance for a bit, cooking for prehistoric creatures is something I'd never thought I'd do. I could almost hear myself internally laugh.

Once I deemed the meat and mushrooms cooked, I retrieved them with a comically large spoon, placing them onto a plate of some sort. There I cracked open a argentavis egg, which one of the tribe mates had been so happy to give. With my bare hands I mixed the egg, whites and yolk, with the meat and mushrooms into a type of hunk of meat. I poured a bit of the liquid over the amalgamation of a meal before dipping my hands in a washing basket.