The First Night
Drowsily he awoke. A loud, harsh shout had disturbed him. It was night. Eyes wide, he stared into the jungle, As he listened to the quick echo die away, engulfed by the dense vegetation, he realized he was listening to the vestiges of his own voice.

Insensible at first to the cold of night, he peered intently at the wall of plants. The sudden awakening sent his mind on its willful way: There had been other days and other thoughts but he could not remember. Had he been dreaming? Now he had awakened at night. He understood neither the act of waking nor the condition of night. Hazily he remembered the afternoon, the plants whose colors, invisible in the darkness, were still vivid in his memory but whose forms, half-visible in the starlight were newly revealed to him, transformed grotesquely by night. That which had been before the afternoon was kept from his conscious thoughts by a barrier of indeterminate composition, whose presence he vaguely perceived.

Evasively, he looked at his watch: 10:36. The glowing dial seemed unduly bright, casting a phosphorescent pallor on his body, on the ground, on the jungle. He looked at himself. White trousers and a white shirt with short sleeves. Neither clothes nor a watch had been a part of the initial experience of awakening and their appearance, useful as they might be, confused him. As he put his hands in the pockets, which were empty, he noticed the pallor did not fade. He looked up. The glow came from the circular white reflection of a moon so close that its progress across the stars and black sky appeared to be stirring the uppermost branches of the trees noiselessly with the consummate ease and patient affection of long, understanding acquaintance.

Loathsome as the task was, he thrashed about in the undergrowth until he found several pieces of dry wood, for the thin clothes, apparently intended for the heat of day, afforded little protection from the damp, sharp coolness of the night air. He set about making a fire and quickly grew weary from the rubbing together of two sticks.

Emptiness was filled as the flames at last effervesced crackling out of the not quite dehydrated wood. The fire seemed louder and more pertinent, closer and more familiar than the jungle sounds. Stretched out nearby, he was asleep before he could think about what he had learned or what he might know.

The Second Day
Interrupted by the soft increase of light filtering through the trees, long dreams in which he was tortured, mutilated and subjected to intense pain of many kinds vanished rapidly. Coming slowly to consciousness, he hovered momentarily on the brink of uncertainty: Where was he? He looked at the watch, which showed the hands not quite in a vertical line. Memories of the previous night arose dutifully and rapidly. Orientation was, he observed, a sub-conscious if not involuntary action.

Daylight and the fact that the fire had burned through the night brightened his spirits. Without direction he started walking ambitiously through the forest in search of means by which he could ease the hunger he felt. Occasionally he spied fruit in the trees but had neither the desire nor the need to climb for his breakfast. Whatever had provided clothes and a watch would provide more readily accessibly nourishment. He had been walking for thirty minutes when rising doubts about the real beneficence of his unseen benefactor were forced aside by the unexpected border of the jungle.

Ending not in an open expanse of grassy plain as he had somehow expected, the jungle was stopped by a high cliff. He threw his head back only to find that, because of the wall's concavity, he could see no farther than twenty-five or thirty feet up the precipice. Or was that the top? To the left and right, the wall curved inward until it was hidden by the jungle. He shinnied up a tree which rose some distance above the others.

Nodding peaks of greenery and lazily stirring fronds met his gaze when he reached a point above 'the level of the jungle. He felt both shook and surprise before the panorama which opened itself to him. The wall of rock rose as far over him as he was from the ground and encircled the jungle, containing an area eight or nine hundred yards in diameter at its widest point. A fault, he thought, sunk from a larger jungle but he saw no trees, no plants protruding at or near cliff's edge. His isolation pressed down firmly as he saw that the concavity in the rock was a feature common to all portions of the circle.

Despair gnawed within him as he lowered himself to the ground. In the jungle again, he looked about hesitantly, then defiantly. There were growing, randomly mingling feelings of hate, fear, anger and awe. "hat is it?' he said loudly, *What have I done to anger you?' He looked up at the green hatching, the strip of uncluttered blue between it and the cliff, and the jagged edge of rock. "Forgot to wind your watch? Is that it? Take your watch! Why should I know the time here! I can measure it better with my own steps, by the number of circuits I can make around your jungle in a day!" He stripped the watch from his arm and threw it at the jungle. "Take it! I don't want it, or you, or your jungle, or your clothes, or your life!" In an attitude of righteous self-pity he hung his head and, sobbing, cried out, "Take them all, everything, it's all yours, you can have it when you want it." After some minutes, no more tears would come and abruptly, he stopped sobbing.

Even silence, that of nature in quiet, non-committal repose, was the reply. He tried to weep again but the empty breast produced only a series of ludicrous, rasping noises. He looked up as if to see who was there to laugh.

Slowly, with the careful motion of a man in pain, he retrieved several pieces of fruit from the tree he had just climbed and, fondling them, walked back to his campsite. The fire was out and he kicked impudently at the smoldering ashes, only to draw his foot back with a cry of real pain. It was not a severe burn, but the mere occurrence immobilized him. His body tensed and hardened, he knotted his hands into fists and the fruit burst noisily, spraying him with a bright orange liquid. He glared at the jungle, as if expecting his foe, laughing raucously and armed for mortal combat, to appear momentarily. Inexorably, the orange liquid ran down his face and into one corner of his mouth where he could not but taste it. The sweetness irresistibly summoned forth his hunger which now refused to be ignored. With as much nonchalance as he could muster, he relaxed, squatted, ate what was left of the fruit and slept. On awakening, he impulsively set out to find the exit in the wall which he was certain existed. After an hour of futile searching he returned and settled himself in the middle of the clearing, where he allowed the waves of afternoon heat and light to lull him to sleep. His dream was peopled. In a brilliant whiteness, from which the beings arose and into which they disappeared, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups, now hovering far above, now standing on his level, he recognized others, male and female, of his own kind, observed their clothing, saw them in converse as they approached and heard their strange tongue when they stood before him. He asked, "Who are you? Why don't you speak to me?" One answered "I am speaking to you. What do you want?" "I want to know why?" "Why what?" "Why I am here?" "That is not a question." He felt awed and on the defensive in the presence of the strangely vaporous beings who for all their apparent lack of substance moved with an ease and self-confidence which aroused a feeling of envy in him. More mocking than inquisitive, he said, "If why is not a question, then what is a question?" Another being appeared and he noticed now that they were all of an age. "Very good. You are right. We must define. Linguistically and syntactically, why is a question. In reality, it is not." He was satisfied with himself. The being was about to stumble. *All right, what is reality?" As he spoke, it was as if he were turned inward for he no longer saw the region of whiteness and when he looked again no one was there. *I said, what is reality?" When he was left alone with his question he shouted, 'You don't come to answer because you don't know!! Losing patience, he turned to walk away only to see a girl beckoning in the distance. Shielding his eyes, he also saw that she was standing on a broad path, which shimmered like metal and far away narrowed to a point. Walking to that point and beyond without speaking, she led him to a wall of rock like that which surrounded the jungle. Silently she pointed and he saw an inscription in large block letters:

That Most Wanted And Least Needed Is Justice.

He turned and his puzzled look fell on empty space. She was gone, the wall was gone. "But who can lead me back?" The whiteness vanished and he was awake, rubbing his eyes.

"Jungle," he thought, looking around in the night and wondering for a moment how long he had slept, "Jungle, I'm leaving you. I'm tired of your disgusting monotony. Yes, after only two days I find your company and your presence intolerably boring. Goodbye, jungle."

Under the dark moon-shadows dropping heavily from the black trees and vines, he made his way to the wall, before which he stood motionless, pondering the best method of scaling it. Had he seen a ledge from the top of the tree in the afternoon? There one would at least be removed from the accursed jungle, and it might lead upward to the world above. He mounted the tree with moderate agility if not great skill, seeking as he rose the haven which he slowly began to fear he had imagined. Swaying broadly with the unaccustomed weight, the tree brought the wall closer and closer. It was no mistake: There was a narrow ledge at a level just below him. By adding motion of his own to that of the tree, he was soon only two or three feet from the cliff at the farthest point of oscillation. If the leap were timed correctly, there would be no problem in landing on the small horizontal break. With little conscious effort he coordinated his movement with that of the tree and thus made constant the distance of oscillation, so that he was able to concentrate on timing. At the extreme point, the tree hung, momentarily stilled before overcoming inertia and starting the backward swing. In that position he was almost directly above the place where he wanted to land. He would have to jump while the tree was still moving forward in order to have the necessary motion to cross the small space. Pushing backward on the tree would only precipitate him to the ground. After what he considered unduly long but unavoidable delay, he jumped an instant before the tree reached the limit of its forward movement. In midair, it seemed he hung suspended by the realization that there would be no way down now, for the tree would obviously be far beyond his reach. Time stopped and he observed his action and apparent suspension in a leisurely, almost careless fashion. Below was the darkness of the ground. In fact, looking on all sides, he thought he was sunk in a shaft of darkness from which spewed forth the crystalline sparks and stream of night which spread diluted and less black overhead. It was with a feeling of unreality, of removal from actual participation and of general disinterest that he felt himself settle sharply on the rocky ledge. As if awakened from a troubled sleep, he focused his eyes and looked about. Sound and the dimension of nature came back slowly so that he lay unmoving until he had reestablished continuity with his former self.

Nodding under the caresses of the wind, the tree continued to sway. A feeling of spatiality expanded within him: the barely visible treetops spreading in the distance, the black edge of the precipice rising beyond them, and behind it, admitting of no penetration, the night sky, made phosphorescent by the moon and tangible by the stars.

Going cautiously on all fours, he progressed a short distance in a slight upward direction. What little light fell from the moon did not reach the inner recess of the ledge and he proceeded by touch. Wondering if the gentle slope was a product of his imagination, he continued to crawl, pausing now said then to examine the width of the ledge, which remained constant at about three feet. After an hour and a half, in which the moon had disappeared below the far rim, and his hands and knees had become raw, he found himself at a point where the ledge narrowed to a tiny shelf no more than four inches wide. He paused and squatted, stretching his tense and sore muscles. In spite, or because of the now almost complete darkness, he observed that the level of the forest seemed to be some distance below. A realization which buoyed his spirits, for he felt that the rim of the precipice could not be far away. He imagined himself emerging triumphant there, but in daylight. What would happen if now he made his way past this narrow little shelf (he would not believe that this was the end, assuming instead that only a thick wall of rook had here settled on the ledge, on the other side of which his path would continue uninterrupted to the top), what would happen if he burst over the rim into a strange, unknown world mantled in darkness? He looked at his own little world dormant in the night. It would be better to wait for the sun. He would reach the top and wait there until morning.

Emerging from the protective overhang, he posed himself on tiptoe and let his hand seek out and embrace the face of stone whose coldness he felt penetrating all parts of his body. Spread-eagled thus, he advanced only a few inches with each step and was unaware of the passage of time. The fortieth step was interrupted by the thunder of falling rock. A boulder, bouncing off the face of the cliff with such speed and sound that it blocked all senses save the auditory, plunged downward at a place ten or twelve steps back and settled with a dull, echoless thud into the jungle floor. While the maddeningly loud noise resounded in his mind, he groped instinctively but at first futilely for the other senses. He heard the rook fall again and again before he saw, felt, smelled and even, it seemed, breathed once more. He quickly ascertained that retreat was impossible for the shelf had been carried to the ground with the rock, a fact which only affirmed his assumption that the way to the top would soon open itself to him. The eighty-fourth step proved his assumption correct when he emerged onto a ledge more spacious than that where he had begun, having as it did a vertical clearance great enough to allow him to stand.

Neither his tired muscles nor the near miss on the shelf gave him sufficient cause to rest or to proceed cautiously. Walking rapidly he found his rate of advance slowed only by the steep incline of the ledge. Beyond the opposite rim he saw trees dimly outlined against the night sky. He rounded each irregularity, each protrusion, without thought of the nearness of the open side of the ledge, thinking instead only of his proximity to the top. Across the fault he saw that he was almost level with the plane of the world. He looked forward, searching in the darkness for the point of emergence, and stopped abruptly. He did know how long the blank wall had been ahead of him, blocking the way completely, for he had been looking only at the world in outline on the other side of the fault. The wall was smooth and polished as if the favorite of time, carefully honed by tending eons. He stared at it in disbelief and gasped. Where, a moment before, there had been polished stone, there was now an inscription. He put his hands before him, shielding himself, from the white-glowing letters, at the same time touching them as if to affirm their reality, and stepped back. As he fell, his fingertips retained the heat of the letters in their knife-sharp engraving and his mind echoed with silence in the presence of what he had read: