She tapped the egg. It sounded hollow. She tapped it once more. The shell wouldn’t crack. She whacked it hard with a hammer. It split open and an eel- like creature unfurled to balance on thin, tapered fins.

Within the split shell, Jemma noticed another smaller egg. She picked it up. It moved a little at her touch. Squeezing the shell, the second egg burst open and a tiny fish-like creature slithered out and off her palm to join its taller sibling.

Once both were conjoined, these mysterious creatures resembled a single exclamation mark. ‘What are you?’ Jemma asked in stunned fascination.

The smaller hatchling arched its body on top of the other’s head. Now both looked like a perfect but immature question mark.

At that moment, a mystery was revealed; a mystery that Jemma had puzzled over ever since she was a small child.

Who, back in the far distant past, had invented exclamation and question marks?

The answer came to her. Two black hatchlings at the dawn of writing.