Fire was an accident.
Like language.
Like rebellion.
Like Fred.
It began with a storm.
Lightning struck a tree not far from the camp—Fred’s camp, not Johny’s. Johny was long gone by then, presumably off-world and grumbling about “ungrateful prototypes.” The Helpers gathered around the smoking trunk. It hissed. It flickered. It breathed orange.
Fred tilted his head.
“It is alive,” he whispered.
Helper #4 poked it with a stick. The stick caught fire.
Helper #4 screamed, dropped the stick, and ran in circles until he fell into the river.
Everyone was impressed.
Fred, however, understood.
This was more than light. This was control.
Fire could cook. Fire could harden stone.
Fire could keep the large-toothed night-things away.
Fire meant power.
He sat before it and stared for hours, until one of the younger Helpers asked:
“Did Johny give us this?”
Fred shook his head.
“No. This belongs to us.”
Some thought the fire was a sign from Johny—a warning, maybe a weapon. Others feared it.
Helper #8 wanted to pray to it.
Helper #2 wanted to extinguish it.
Helper #6 wanted to roast fish with it, and became the first theologian-chef.
Fred only said:
“It’s not a god. It’s a gift. Or maybe… a test.”
The fire crackled, revealing a new truth:
Fred had learned to name.
And what one names, one begins to understand.
And what one understands, one eventually controls.
So Fred scratched a line into a flat stone—the first writing, crude and lovely. It read:
“Do not worship what you can learn.
Do not obey what you do not question.”
Helper #4 nodded solemnly and asked:
“Can I still roast fish?”
“Yes,” said Fred.
And civilization began.