Not only had the earthquake dislocated their grazing area, it had also closed off the beach entrance to the cove, and it became necessary for him to leave and enter by way of the jungle. Because of the cliffs enclosing the inlet, he was forced to traverse the same path as the dinosaurs on his occasional trips outside his refuge.

For a time, he avoided contact with the animals by using the simple tactic he-had early discovered. If one approached, he hid in the foliage. After several close calls, he decided the only solution lay in their extermination.

The mountain rose sharply above their common path and it was little trouble for him to support a number of large rocks several hundred feet above that passageway so that, when one approached, he could, from the safety of the jungle, pull out the support and bring the rock crashing down upon the beast. His early efforts succeeded only in frightening both the objects of attack and himself, but as his timing and skill in mounting the rocks improved., he found he was killing more than he was missing. Eventually he arrived at the plan of allowing the monsters to kill themselves by means of a rope hidden on the path. Although such an arrangement necessitated his spending much time resetting the traps, it was better than the first method, which had occupied almost all his waking hours.

With his forced reentry into the physical .he found an aloof satisfaction in going through the long-forgotten library in search of material which might be useful in the campaign of extermination.

The child-like delight he knew in poring over the manuscripts was replaced by feelings of joy, regret, and melancholy when he came across the liturgy and rituals. To his surprise, he found no error there, no thought which later experience contradicted, no shamefully excessive humility, as he had remembered it. He was astonished and in this simple miracle saw the ultimate mystery of himself and the world more clearly than ever.

Days passed in which he lost himself again in the once plaintive incantations of powers unseen, now become hopeful intimations of resolved contradiction,. His knowledge he came to view as foam on the sea, his powers, those innate and those granted, those borrowed and those lent, as limitless in potential. No intermediary stood between, as before. In unhindered dialog he conversed unselfconsciously with nature and drew from her hope and strength. No longing for union, no crying for justice or justification, no seeking to understand. From the vesmaning peak he leaped into a wordless realm with total, naive confidence.At night, as his mind loosened itself from his reins, he sometimes wondered where and how and why it might end. By day, there was no returning of these thoughts, which he saw as the remnants of anachronistic habit.

. . . .

On the 84th day of the sixteenth year he was awakened by the half-animal, half-human scream. At first he thought it was only a dinosaur which had been hit a glancing blow. Then he realized it was the sound of not one but a large number of the creatures.

He rushed to the edge of the path and despaired at the sight of the great herd which he had let himself believe he had reduced in number but which now stood in strength above his refuge, All the stones had fallen during the night and there was nothing left to stop the dinosaurs.Retreating to the beach, he stood helpless while they methodically chewed their way through the jungle. By noon they had reached the house, where his library provided a filling meal. There was more than they could consume before leaving at nightfall.

He cried out, "Why, 0 Lord, hast thou seen fit to visit this ruin upon me?" He spent the night sifting through the rubbish. Only scraps of the library, and the mill, the spring, and the statue remained. Largely from memory, he pieced together most of the liturgy and certain of the scientific documents. He spent two weeks rebuilding the house.

Safe from the elements, he turned his attention to the problem of the monsters. Knowing they would return, he made one complete circuit of tire island along the beach seeking another location but found none suitable.

The magnitude of the task forming in his mind caused him to enter the jungle to seek his son. but neither aid nor haven was to be found.

He thought of the mountain. There would be complete seclusion and safety-above the belt of vegetation. He mounted the slope hastily. and came onto a bare, rocky terrain which rose steeply to the peak far above. He circled the island at that height but found no level places, no artificial shelter which would lend itself to habitation. Returning to a point above the inlet, he stood with his hands on his hips, looking back up at the barrenness of the mute colossus.

At first, he thought it was only a wisp of cloud trailing from the summit. Squinting his eyes, he perceived a structure there. It was smoke from that small structure which he saw. He began to climb.

The air became thin and he was forced to rest frequently. The outline of a wooden hut gradually became clear. Leaning in a chair against the shack was a large man of great age—long white hair and beard—dressed in a flowing white robe.

As the younger approached, the man rose and beckoned impatiently. When they stood face to face, the old man sat abruptly and looked into space. The tableau remained thus for some moments. The younger started to speak.

"Don't say a word. It's time you came." The old man began fingering his beard nervously. "Life up here is very difficult and highly unrewarding, you know.' He paused. The younger made to speak again.

"Do not speak."

The old man cleared his throat and almost as an aside said, "You may sit down if you wish, then, Now we must begin with elementary principles. By the way, why haven't you come sooner? There is little on this island but what is to be learned here. Of course, it goes without saying, a certain amount of preparation, should I say, maturity, is necessary for the development of proper receptivity; that is to say, the intelligence has to be cultivated, even nurtured, before the mind, or soul, if you will, is readied for the Lessons. He paused expectantly.

The younger was momentarily bewildered. He was reminded of his earliest poems.

"Now let us begin. As I indicated, we have to start with elementaries. "You, first of all, must realize that this world, contradictory appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, is not the only world." He looked up hopefully.

"Good. If that is granted, then why. Because man, you, I, all of us, is limited. Thus the world only seems one, when in all probability it is two. Possibly more. You have no doubt studied some science and art? Good. Those are two basic fields from which we may proceed." He arose distractedly, said, "Please take a seat, and sat down again. "?You must listen and keep listening. Otherwise, everything will have been in vain."

The younger was embarrassed. Emerging so suddenly from a world of compassionate contemplation and understanding, he was unable to respond. He had immediately visualized the old man’s years of waiting, but he could grant him neither the hoped-for reward, nor retreat. Either course, he felt, would be false and wrong. Yet he was afraid to listen, afraid to submit himself to the confusion of half-truths he saw springing from a mind which, under the duress of time and space, had long ago compromised itself irredeemably. He thought, I can not hurt him. "Tell me."

His fingers still, his gaze directed under the low-hanging clouds toward the sea, the old man seemed not to have heard. In the stillness, only the wind of the mountain was to be heard as it hurtled swiftly around the crags and pinnacles now whistling, now murmuring quietly to itself. Below, the dark band of jungle seemed laid out as an impenetrable no-man’s-land between the desolation of the gray peak which rose above it and that of tile silent plain of the sea spread at its feet to the horizon. The only visible motion was that of an angry little squall trundling noiselessly across the water and the dull stirring of the clouds which clung jealously to the security of the mountain.

"Very well then, you shall know." The gnarled fingers began their ordering motion in the matted hair. "At the outset, a number of those concepts which you call axioms must be elucidated. In. the first place…"

The old man’s began to drone liturgically. The younger was not listening. It was impossible. That which was to be known could not be communicated thus. Besides, his knowledge was not sufficiently stable to warrant or to expect final answers. What, after all, had characterized his life but the tedious process of removing the institutional and emotional dregs of emerging consciousness. He saw no reason to assume an end; perhaps a respite, but not an end. All that had been and remained was to choose from what was available, the heritage of the past and the creation of the present. There, in frustrated communion with God, did his birth and rebirth and that of his tomorrow occur. Whether a resolution of the unreasonable conflicts, the strident battles, the painful contradictions, and the ridiculous paradoxes of outrageous fortune was immediately forthcoming, he saw as being of no import.

He turned and started down the rocky path. The wind occasionally brought the old man's voice to him unexpectedly so that he consciously heard the words of the errant past, but they were meaningless. The last he heard was faint, from a great distance, with high pitch and marked intonation, a continuation and conclusion, a piercing, protracted "Aaaaalllsooooooo…" The peak and the shack were soon obscured by falling clouds of mist and he was glad when he entered the warmth of the jungle.. . . . .There was no haven then but that which he had inhabited so long. The inlet had to be retained. If all else failed, he could retreat to the beach.

Within two years, the plan he had conceived came to fruition. High above the common path, spreading parallel to it for a distance precisely equal to the width of the inlet, a gigantic shelf was constructed upon which he laboriously placed tons of rock, sufficient quantity to destroy the mass of dinosaurs. The whole was delicately balanced and controlled by rope running through a wooden pipe under the path to the beach.

His effort lent tangible meaning to his life and he resolved finally to escape. Toward that end, he built a raft which lay ready on the beach.

On the 160th day of the eighteenth year, they gathered again. He heard their screams and watched from the jungle while the first few arrived and began to stomp about impatiently.

Realizing he could not leave his son alone on the island, he set out in frantic search. Everywhere, in the jungle, the meadow, and the fault, was silence and stillness. Through the night he sought the boy in vain. At dawn, he returned to the inlet.

The rumble of stalking weight was incessant now as the beasts converged on the path from all parts of the island. He sat patiently on the beach beside the raft, listening, unable to see the path itself because of the jungle. He toyed idly with the rope. As evening drew near, the deep noise became louder.

One world's sun vanished. Another's appeared.

The old man spoke first. "You shouldn't have come. This is between them and me, You have no part."

"You are, as usual, Father, both right and wrong. I did not come to take part but to say farewell."

The old man shifted restlessly. "I had hoped you would come. I wanted to see you once more." He looked at his son and saw the mother. It was as if she had been living a second in this boy and he had failed to know her through him. Wistful, he said, "Come with me, boy. I'll find us a new world."

The boy kicked at the sand. "Answers are not to be sought in microcosm or macrocosm, Father. They are here and now. Elusive, oh they are elusive, and you have to grab at the least indication, the slightest hint, and store it and digest it. You have believed you were consciously seeking answers in all your activities, whether science or art. Aside from temporary material comfort and mental relief, both have been useful only in so far as they have provided more hints and indications of how wrong the path was that you were on. For all their dissimilarity, both are fodderers of the imagination which alone, in the ends harbors genuinely productive and reproductive thought. But you let your research become shackles, chains, holding you to a jungle past."

The old man almost laughed, from pride, from embarrassment, from sadness, from joy. He smiled and said, "Watch your moralizing, boy."

Unhearing, the boy went on, "That is the answer to the question you were afraid to ask. If there is only vesmaning, then why do anything, why work, why love, why play, why write, why think? Because the word implies a dynamic stratification, through which the paths are as diverse and manifold as the patterns of minds."

The old man was sad. "Take this, boy." He handed him the smeared papyrus with the unintelligible poem of the night of his birth. "You must go now. Everything here will be destroyed." The boy looked up from reading with tears in his eyes.

The old man pulled hard at the rope. There came a slow crescendo of awful amplitude as the years of effort crumbled onto the teeming horde, then screams of anguish and the load snapping of over-sized bones. The jungle was visibly flattening as if laid smooth by some gigantic hand.

"Run, boy, run!" The old man jumped onto the raft and pushed off.

The roar of falling rock was deafening. "Run, run!" The boy stood rooted on the shore, the papyrus in his hand.

The old man saw the line of destruction accelerating downward and shouted, "What have you been doing these years?"