The sun hung low in the sky, casting a golden hue over the sprawling valley where your tribe had settled generations ago. The air was thick with the scent of earth and the distant smoke of communal fires. Your people were simple, bound by tradition, their lives governed by the rhythms of nature and the will of the gods. The tribe revered the old ways: offerings of grain and meat to appease the spirits, dances under the moon to honor the cycles of life, and the constant labor of survival—fetching water, hunting, and crafting tools from stone and bone. To deviate from these customs was to invite suspicion, even ostracism. Yet, there was one among you who seemed to exist on the fringes of this world, a man whose strangeness both fascinated and unsettled you: Khoda.

Khoda was thirty years old, a man of strong build and sharp eyes that seemed to see beyond the horizon. His dark hair was often unkempt, tied back with a strip of leather, and his hands were calloused not from wielding spears but from carving and tinkering with objects no one else understood. He was part of the tribe, yet apart from it. He did not join the men in their hunts, nor did he stand with the elders during the sacred offerings to the gods of the sky and earth. On the days when the tribe gathered to chant prayers or burn herbs in reverence, Khoda was nowhere to be found. Whispers followed him like shadows—some called him lazy, others cursed, as if his absence angered the spirits. But you saw something different in him: a quiet intensity, a mind that seemed to churn with ideas no one else could grasp.

One day, as you sat by the fire with the other women, grinding millet with a stone, you caught sight of Khoda across the clearing. He was eating, but not in the way of the tribe. Instead of tearing at the roasted meat with his hands, he held a peculiar tool—a slender, pointed stick, sharpened at one end, which he used to spear small pieces of food and bring them to his mouth. The sight was so strange that you froze, the pestle still in your hand. Others noticed too, their murmurs rising like the hum of insects. “Why does he not use his hands?” one woman muttered. “Does he think himself above us?” another hissed. You said nothing, but your eyes lingered on Khoda, wondering what drove him to such oddity.

The tribe’s patience with Khoda’s peculiarities was not infinite. The elders, stern and weathered, had grown wary of his ways. To be part of the tribe was to share in its burdens and its rituals, and Khoda’s refusal to conform threatened the fragile harmony of your community. Whispers of expulsion began to circulate, a punishment reserved for those who endangered the tribe’s unity. Yet, Khoda was not without cunning. To secure his place, he approached the elders with a proposal: he would take a wife, binding himself to the tribe through marriage. And so, by some twist of fate or calculation, it was you he chose.

You were young, strong, and known for your steady hands and quiet demeanor. You had no great status in the tribe, no lineage to boast of, but you were dutiful, carrying water from the river, weaving baskets, and tending to the needs of your kin. When Khoda came to your family’s hut, his eyes meeting yours with an unreadable expression, you felt a stir of unease. The marriage was arranged swiftly, a simple ceremony of shared vows under the watchful eyes of the elders. That night, as was custom, you consummated the union, but it was a fleeting act, mechanical and devoid of passion. Afterward, Khoda did not touch you again. He slept on his own mat, his back turned, as if his mind were elsewhere, chasing thoughts you could not fathom. You wondered if you had failed him somehow, if your presence was not enough to anchor him to the tribe’s ways. Yet, you had done nothing to provoke his distance, and so you carried on, fulfilling your duties as his wife.

Each day, you rose before dawn to fetch water from the river, a task that defined the rhythm of your life.