This clever little piece offers a take on the development of language and tools, casting the reader as a cave-dwelling early man, with a simple task: get some medicinal bark to help your mate with her headache.
The writing is consistently funny and witty. Historicity is wisely sacrificed in service to the narrative--a dinosaur is featured in the final act--and it makes for an entertaining piece.
On a deeper level, the piece examines art, map-making, language, and human relationships, all in a short, relatively constrained piece hinging on one single puzzle.
It took me several replays to figure out what to do; every location is important, and with the possible exception of one reference I didn't get (the direction of the creek), relevant to that single puzzle.