A/N: A short sequel to the 1981 movie "Caveman".

Zug-Zug and Other Things

"This is the life, right Lar?" Atouk asked as he leaned back in his chair. The primitive wooden chair complained a little as it creaked but reclined as needed.

Lar grinned broadly as he took another drink from his wooden cup. It had some kick to it, but he liked the way it made him feel. "It sure is, Atouk. What do you call this stuff again?"

"I think I'm going to call it 'alcohol' although Tala wants to call it 'fire water'. I found some fruit rotting and it seemed a shame to throw it away, so I gave some to Tonda and it made him downright agreeable." Tonda was the musclebound, bully-ish leader of the tribe that Lar and Atouk had been part of until they were thrown out. Starting their own tribe of misfits, they had advanced in knowledge to defeat the bully tribe and unite the two groups to work together. "We can probably find some other uses for it too. Boola got a torch too close to it and it caught on fire and burned."

"I can feel it burning right now," Lar agreed and he took another drink and pounded his chest. A bit of it spilled on his fur business suit and he wiped it off with his sleeve.

"Tala wants to open a place where we can sell alcohol to lots of people to drink. I told her to wait until someone invents 'the toast' before doing it."

"I don't know what a toast is, but you know what's best. Cheers!" Lars said as he finished off his cup.

"I've been so busy lately I haven't had a chance to invent a toast yet," Atouk confided as he made a note on a piece of slate with a rock. "Everything was so simple back in the old days. Then that day came when we left the old tribe."

"October 9th."

"Right, in good old year one zillion B.C."

"What's B.C.?" Lar asked.

"I don't know. Maybe Before Caca."

"I thought everything came AFTER caca."

"Then I guess something else happens in a zillion years. But the day that happened after we got thrown out...and I think we'll call that October 10th just to keep things in order...we started inventing everything. I found those berries that make you happy and fall over if you eat too many, they had to drag me away. I think I call those 'drugs'. Then we found out how to walk upright and things REALLY picked up."

Lars grinned like only he could. "Yeah, we could run faster, see further, and impress the ladies more."

Atouk shook his head. "You and the zug-zug. Then the fire came from the sky and we invented cooking and torches. Plenty of ool...I mean food...and fire and next thing you know Ta invented music. Well, he started it and then we all started to join in. We should maybe call it 'Atouk's All-Start Band' or something. Then YOU invented dancing."

"I don't know what it was, but that music made me want to move. Maybe I can use it to dance with some ladies."

"Everything comes back to that for you, doesn't it?" Atouk asked.

"Well, it does help make our tribe get bigger, if you know what I mean. There's zug-zug and there's everything that ISN'T zug-zug."

"Yeah," Atouk said while reddening a bit. He had been smitten for Lana, Tonda's mate, but realized that Tala was the one for him. "Someday maybe the whole world will fill up with people if we keep up with that."

"I'll do my part." There was that smile again. "You'll have to feed everyone, though. Something big like that egg from the flying macha."

"That WAS good. Ock said they dropped it off a cliff and it fell very fast before breaking and cooking in that hot water. I think I will call it 'break fast' or something."

"I don't know if that name will every catch on. What other names have you come up with for things?"

Atouk stood up and walked over to the wall of the cave, looking at the writing there. "Let's see...when we jumped into the water to save Lana, I think I'm going to call that 'Life Guard' or maybe 'no glug-glug'. And then the water took you away and we had to search for you - that was a lot of fun, so I think we'll call that a 'search party'. Then you were frozen in the hard water, that made me sad. I think that should be 'cry' something, like 'cryogenics' or something."

"That hard water wasn't easy to walk on, but sliding was nice. It was hard to move, and we kept crashing into each other," Lars said.

"If the macha wasn't there, it would have been funny to watch. Maybe we can try it again but call it 'Ice Capades' or maybe 'Hockey'. But while we were doing that Tonda stole all our women and we had to fight to get it back. We invented those fighting things, let's call those 'whip-ons' because it helped us put a whip on those other guys."

"Did you see the look on Ta's face when you launched him into the cave from the tree?" Lar asked.

"No, I was too busy trying to guess how far he would go and where he would land. I think I'm going to call that 'ballistics' because he was a little like a ball," Atouk said. He added the word beside a drawing of a bent tree and a small man flying through the air. "We could probably make the tree throw other things too. Or make a small verson of it to hold," he said as he grabbed some charcoal and drew a picture on the wall of a big 'Y' in a hand. "If we could get something that stretches and put a rock in the middle, then pull it back and let go." He demonstrated with an imaginary one in his hand. "I suppose I will have to invent something stretchy. Maybe take some of that tar from the pit and dry it and rub it flat. If it works I'll call it 'rubber'. That might work."

"Does everything have to be to fight with?" Lars asked. "There's..."

"I know, zug-zug," Atouk interrupted. "There isn't much invention for THAT, though. I did learn to tame an animal, though."

"Only when you gave the macha some of those red berries."

"Yes, but with enough time I wouldn't need to keep using berries. But maybe something smaller, like those things I'm going to call a 'wolf'. At least they should be easier to feed."

"And smaller caca," Lar laughed.

Atouk finished putting 'wolf' on his list of things he wanted in the future that he had called a 'to do' list. "Not too bad, my friend."

"Friend?"

"Bobo. I'm changing all our old words. Friend means bobo."

"Friend," Lar said, testing out the word. "Bobo. Friend. Okay, I can remember that. What's your next invention?"

Atouk walked over to the far side of the room. "We've been making a lot of progress - everything has happened in less than a moon. I think I'm going to call that a 'moonth' and make October one of them. Anyway, I've invented something that could be the biggest thing ever." He moved away an animal skin and revealed a box with a big flat space on the front. There were two wood bits on the front and a couple of sticks that protruded from the top.

Lar was transfixed. "What is it?"

"I don't have a name for it yet. It uses that thing we discovered yesterday, electricity. It shows moving pictures on the flat space here. You can see and hear things all day."

Lar stood up and slowly walked over to the box, stroking it gently. "It's even better than zug-zug."

"Gog says we shouldn't use it - he says that everyone will want to do nothing but stay in front of it and watch while their brains turn into stone."

"I don't know, I mean you can make a bigger one. And then one that makes better sound. Then one you can put on the wall of your cave. Maybe a really really big one outside. And then make some that are lighter and smaller and then you can hold it in your hand and take it everywhere with you and..."

"Whoa Lar! Gog already says this could bring down civilization in a hundred turnings of the seasons just from a box on the floor. How fast do you think it would happen with one to carry everywhere?" Atouk stared at Lar but couldn't keep a straight face and started laughing.

Lar leaned against the wall of the cave while he laughed heartily. "That's a good one," he finally was able to get out.

Atouk wiped the tears of laughter from his face. "I know. We've come this far in a moonth. Can you imagine how far we'll get in a zillion years?"

The End

A/N: When a friend and I went to a theater to see this movie when it came out, we ended up being the only two in the whole screening. By the time the double feature started playing, the audience swelled to five. (For those of you too young to know what a double feature is, look it up.)

An odd feature of this movie is that it was written and filmed so that there was be no language barrier - the little dialogue there is consists of a limited vocabulary made up for the film. Oh, and the very opening when it tells you onscreen that it's "One Zillion B.C. October 9th.