prompt: admit, title: where it all went wrong in misc. flash fiction

Consider the cautionary tale of two early humans, Thogg Grainsmasher and Chudd Stuffowner.

Thogg’s family’s tradition of pulverizing grain for bread with a stone club went back beyond all tribal memory. Chudd’s surname developed differently, having been the Outsiderkillers a dozen generations back, until his grandfather Stuggz Outsiderkiller murdered a particularly well-laden trader from some foreign land. With the largess of that lucky death, they changed their last names to Stuffowner. No one could object to it, as they had that whole mess of ill-gained needful things. If you didn’t play along with the freshly renamed Stuffowners, you wouldn’t be allowed to barter rent on any of that useful stuff. Not that the Stuffowners invented or constructed any of it, sure, but they were peachy-fine with killing outsiders and exploiting their neighbors, so tradespeople like the Grainsmashers had to call them whatever they desired.

Thogg smashed grain well, as his ancestors had, though he had to admit it bored him and didn’t get him much more than subsistence for his family. Thogg had dreamed of seeing more of what there was to see, wandering to a better land where no one murdered folks looking to meander in peace. Still, he had mouths to feed, so he did what he’d always done. Thogg smashed the grain.

Chudd, however, was looking to innovate upon those cruelties that had come before him. Chudd wasn’t happy merely having leverage in barters, he wanted a direct power over everyone. He was quietly going around to the most physically fit members of their community, trying to see who he could pay to beat up everyone who wouldn’t do as he said. Most laughed him off, of course, who could be so desperate and low to do that for any other man, no matter their price in trade. Lovan Holedigger politely declined. Stonk Fieldtiller declined with less politeness. Soruk Treefeller? She chuckled and punched him in his stump-ugly face.

Chudd came last to Thogg, offering him a better standard of living and an easier job on top of it. Just beat up anyone who didn’t obey the Stuffowners. He wouldn’t even have to do it every day, as he had with the grains, most days he could just hang out in a hut near Chudd’s, as an obvious deterrent to disobedience. Maybe all history would’ve been altered, had Thogg not said “yes” to Chudd’s odious offer, but all the arc of negative progress requires is one person who will give up principles for their comfort. Thogg was caught in a moment of weakness and it did not take long before he bullied others into working that job as well and didn’t take long before Chudd was the very first royalty in human history. Thogg Grainsmasher was given the newly-invented honorific “Officer” and Chudd updated his family’s surname to Godaboveyouall not long after, as well.

Consider our far better things, had those two not invented kings.