Kali lay on her back staring at the sky that shone blue and clear, its surface unmarred by the passing of clouds. The sun shone warmly down on the earth and caused the land around her to shine in golden ripples, as wheat swayed softly in the wind.
She stood in the waist high grass and watched the young ones mucking about in the reeds. Probably making small boats and such to send down the river when they tired of the toys. Wagons were traveling in from the city of Umma, the closest of the large gathering places.
Eventually Kali began to run towards the small building where people gathered to talk. She wouldn't be allowed in, though she could stay outside in the slanting shade of other reed buildings and listen.
Wen she arrived at the small building, a strange sight caught her eyes; two men were laboring to put a long shaft of wood in the middle of a reed boat. Kali could tell from her angle that the shaft had once been a spear, but the top was broken off.
'Why break a spear?' her mind wondered. To break a weapon was a very stupid thing to do as it meant one less way to protect yourself against marauders or bandits.
A scribe, a boy a few years older than her, stood nearby. A thin man with a hooked nose supervised him. They were writing carefully on wet, clay tablets supported by wooden boards. Their hands moved carefully, using slim reeds tipped with sharp ends. Obviously this was important; usually only one of the two scribes who lived in the village attended something. Two made it special.
Kali's eyes skimmed the gathering crowd for familiar faces. Her mother was there, balancing a babe on her hip, it's dark eyes watching everything with a thumb in it's mouth. Her father and almost all of her brothers were in attendance and an old woman Kali worked for sometimes was there, watching the whole scene with animosity.
A triumphant cry went up from the two men; they stood up straight, wiping sweat off their brows. Kali squirmed into the group who was family and saw her first glimpse of the boat.
Because of the sides being pulled upward and inward, she couldn't see how the shaved off spear was being held upright. A long cord was stretched taut, pulling the back and front ends up, almost making the shape of her mother's eyes.
A flash caught her eye, a bolt of undyed cloth with two more shafts of wood ('probably spears' she thought) were tied to the end. The cloth was being passed to those aboard the boat. A large man moved in front of her and she squirmed around to see again.
The men were now doing something with ropes that raised the cloth upwards and allowed it to stretch between the two poles. A few minutes later the scribes were still taking notes furiously, the men were still working with the ropes and people kept blocking her vision.
Before she knew it, her pushing and sneaking between people had allowed her to get to the front. She could see the boat-thing now, and before anyone knew what happened she'd been picked up by her brother Vhel and put into the boat. Furthermore, the reed craft was being pushed away from the shore, and the relative safety of land.
The boat jumped forward so suddenly that her brother had to steady her. She stared up at him, startled. Vhel snorted at her frightened expression, his eyes twinkled with mischievousness.
"We can go anywhere now Kali-ba," he grinned. Pointing at the cloth he spoke intelligently, "the cloth catches the wind, the breath of gods, like clothes drying on a line. The cloth is tied to the pole-" he pointed at the upright spear. "Which is tied to the boat." Kali thought about it for a moment and realized the truth in his words. She stared awe-struck at the piece of cloth, which was letting them travel upstream so quickly.
Her eyes traveled to the shore, and the blurring images that were her parents. Vhel noticed this and motioned for the cloth to be pulled down. The speed dropped off suddenly and even Vhel lurched forward, Kali turned back, amazed at the progress they had made. She looked back at the cloth and murmured the lines of a fisherman's chant: "anywhere, everywhere, for the god's breath guides me." The chant spoke of the tides, which rose and fell when a person was near the sea at morning, midday and in the evening. But now, they could go everywhere, and they would. Kali spoke quietly so no one might hear her, "no matter how big it is, we'll go there."