‘One of the most common types of metaphoric transfer is synaesthesia … i.e. the transfer of information from one sensory modality to another.’ (Bretones Callejas, 2001, p. 4)

Professor Hans Grets’s paleoanthropological team often commented upon his cool demeanour at the moment of the big discovery. He’d observed each fragment of bone being unearthed from the excavation site with unnerving composure. Only when the fourth femur was finally extracted did Hans acknowledge the magnitude of their find.

‘Well, that’s something,’ he said.

When journalists reported on his discovery—two skeletons, male and female, the link between Neanderthal and human—they found it impossible to resist the obvious pun on the lead scientist’s name. 

Breadcrumb trail leads Professor Hans Grets to homo sapiens’ nearest relative, read the headlines.

Hans did not protest when the skeletons were informally christened ‘Hansel’ and ‘Gretel’. 

No one knows of the images that haunt his dreams.

Every night, the same story.

Hansel and Gretel are chased from their homeland, dropping white slips of a paperlike material—flower petals, or thin, colourless leaves—on the ground as they flee.

Something has been written upon them.

Even in the dream, Hans maintains his scientific incredulity. It can’t be writing, and those marks can’t be words. Spoken language wouldn’t emerge in homo sapiens until, conservatively, 150,000 years ago. The first evidence of literacy doesn’t appear until about 3000 BCE. It’s inconceivable that Hansel and Gretel would command a written language.

And yet, a careful examination of the marks on those dream pages makes it impossible to deny. The symbols are words. What is even more curious is that Hans is able to decipher them.

We are afraid. Come rescue us.

Hansel and Gretel have scattered their messages in vain. Most of their notes are eaten by the birds. The rest sink into the soil and sprout up as vegetation.

Many years later, the earth and all its creatures voice the same refrain: We are afraid. Come rescue us.

Hans awakens to beads of sweat streaming from him. His body feels like a polar ice cap, melting.

Would you like to know more about this story? Watch the video I made about it.