We don’t vanish without a trace. We are not like animals, content with burrows in the ground. We are not very skilled at survival without clothing or tools. Our feet are soft, our skin is easily cooled, and our stomachs are too weak to drink water straight from a stream. We must create in order to survive. We build cities, aqueducts, and shields, for we must in order to have an edge over the beasts of the field. And so, wherever humans have tread their covered feet, their path never vanishes without a trace.

Jennifer Arnett