He looked at her. She looked back. They focused their eyes on the busted rock lying in the dirt.

"Hunm," he grunted, pointing at the black, shattered shards - at the mark they'd left on the cave wall.

She scowled, unsure.

He reached down and lifted a single, jagged chunk, holding it out as if he wanted her to take it from him. Timidly, she did, and for a moment, she gazed at it - then back at the wall. He urged her to come forward, patting the flat surface with his calloused hand.

"Ahm," he said, mimicking a strange circular movement.

She lifted the rock, pressed it to the wall, and drug it down - leaving a thick, clumsy streak of black.

"Ahhh," he smiled, and picked up a shard of his own. He zig-zagged it across the wall, creating haphazard curves and edges where it touched.

She laughed aloud, a barking noise that echoed down into the cave. Each of them grinned at the other, and they pressed their rocks to the wall - scraping intangible shapes along the surface. They worked in a frenzy, crazed with the thrill of discovery.

His lines were abstract, shapeless. Hers circular and formed. They stepped back and examined the wall, now covered in odd markings and swirls. The man reached over and squeezed her shoulder. She smiled at him. He smiled at her.

They reached down, each of them selecting a new chunk of the jagged black rock, and they turned to blank wall behind them...

When, and as, she moved

The world moved along

And me, I tried with feeble feet

To match the vib'rant song

But woe, my mind

In blissful ache

Usurped my will to glide

I found myself unwittingly

Entranced

By each immaculate stride

And though our paths

May never cross

Apart from circumstance

My eyes will wander

O'er to her

As we shift and dance

I was going about my own business, loafing around the house on a well deserved day off. I had a book in my hand and found myself pacing as I read. The television was blaring some incoherant cartoon while my three year old son danced and jumped and climbed and spun like a washing machine filled with shoes. I let him go about it. He wasn’t bothering me, so I wasn’t going to bother him. We’ve been trying to do that lately - let the child entertain himself.

I made my rounds - kitchen, living room, laundry room, garage, and back through - reading all the while. It was a good book full of morally grey characters and simple, bloodcurdling descriptions of violence and I was lost in it. Somewhere along the way, I decided to change my trajectory. I went down the hallway instead of through the living room, and - out of the corner of my eye - I saw it.

An asinine amount of toilet paper was coiled on the lid of the john like some feathery serpent. I stared at it, aghast, confused, boiling with a ghastly, confusing rage that I’ve only been capable of reaching since becoming a father. Immediately, I knew what had happened. He’d snuck into the bathroom while I was pacing, snuck in here and undone the entire roll in a frenzy, with a wicked smile etched into his cherub's face.

“Son,” I called to him in my very best ‘dadvoice.’

“Whassisit, dad?”

He came around the corner, all big eyed and covered in his magnificent golden locks. I knew he would use his innocent features in an attempt to buy me off. He would play dumb, as if he were one of these drooling children that can’t tell the difference between green beans and french fries. But I was wise to his tricks.

“What’s this,” I asked him, indicating the catastrophe in my sacred lavatory.

He looked at me, blinked, then turned his attention to the pile he’d made on the comode. He turned his gaze back to meet mine and raised an eyebrow as if I’d suddenly lost my mind.

“That’s toilet paper, dad,” he said, scoffing at my ignorance as he walked away. "Geez."

And, of course, it was funny... so I laughed.