The rain had returned the following weeks, forcing every living creature to take shelter where they may, and hope that this rare occurrence in the desert would pass over them sooner, rather than later, so they could go back to their regular lives in the dust. The cows, fortunately, had a tall, dilapidated awning that they could be found huddled under, staying dry and warm, body to body. Though, some like to stand out in the rain and eat grass; the droplets didn’t seem to bother them much. And it probably made the sunshine feel that much sweeter when it did pour into their basin.
These cows, this morning, were silently basking in the heat as the drippings were heard dropping from the boughs. Water gradually evaporating, returning to the sky, as the sun made its presence known.
The other cows still remained huddled together, still uncertain about the weather, content to hide themselves away until later in the day.
Not only the large animals began to stir, but the birds of the sky, like hawks and crows, began to be seen soaring over. Fallen leaves and blades of grass began teeming with insectile life. Rabbits and squirrels were scurrying in the bush.
Down below the ridge that contained the herd of cows was a large oak tree with towering wintery limbs that hung over, rid of life, except for the sizeable, buzzing beehive that’s suspended by the strength of a long branch. The bees too, were beginning to exit their domain and go about their work of gathering pollen, that is, until their whole entire world was toppled upside down.
Unexpectedly, a hefty rock was thrown through the air and knocked the hive from where it been for some months as the climate creepingly got cooler. Now, the shelter that had contained the swarm had fallen to the ground and cracked open, exposing all their hard work to the elements.
The bees, forced to abandon their home, gathered together in the air, regrouped, and coordinated to find the perpetrator, but, by then, he was gone.
As soon as the rock left Philo’s hand, he had turned and bolted, with book on head, as fast as he could back into the large building, into another room, and crouched down. He felt bad about the whole ordeal, but he also coveted that honey even more so. Beehives like this were a rare luxury in the canyon, and even if there was one, somebody else most likely had already knocked it down and horded it for themselves. He had tasted honey only once when he was much younger, when somebody kindly decided to share some with him and his mom.
Thoughts of his mother began drowning his conscience and a new chronic sadness was making itself known.
Philo stood up and began looking at the room he was hiding in. The sunlight just barely was able to penetrate, and he was able to make out large, white contraptions mounted on the walls and some that were hidden behind doors. Opposite was a huge, reflective surface that immediately startled Philo as he walked in. He had almost jumped when he saw himself in the corner of his eye, thinking it was someone else. After a few seconds though, he was able to recognize that he was looking into his own eyes.
Is this what the adults see when they look into their stones, he thought to himself. Everything else fell away, and Philo stared at his reflection for some time, standing up straight, firmly carrying the book on his head. When he got bored of examining his body, he looked at the features of his face, which he found very strange. To think, this is what everybody else saw when they looked at him his entire life, but this was the first time he was ever able to get a look at himself.
He stuck out his tongue.
“N’ah!”
Then, he pulled it back in and made a pouty face by bringing the corners of his mouth dramatically down and brought together his brow. Holding this expression for a few seconds, he broke it, and began laughing at such a ridiculous experience.
Next, he filled his cheeks with air and pushed out his lips, and this too made him break out into laughter.
He did a few more funny faces and had a good chuckle before he started to remember what had just occurred outside and became bored.
Outside the mirror room, Philo cautiously approached the entrance to the building, looked for any sudden movement, and then exited.
From a throwing distance, he could see the cracked hive cradled in the long green grass below the oak tree oozing with honey. With there being no sign of the swarm, he sprinted to the tree and quickly scooped up the precious object in his arms. A few bees had lingered, and were most likely stunned by the rude awakening, and did not sting Philo, but instead buzzed around lazily.
The way that the swarm worked together, like they were one body, in order to produce one thing, one objective, reminded Philo of the crops, his village, and the drones they offer their harvests to. But this time, Philo was the drones, and the bees, though they resembled the drones, were the villagers.
Back within the safety of the big, shiny building, with hive in hand, he headed towards the backroom where the toys were, and tried not to drip honey along the way. In the room, he placed the beehive on a low table next to the rusted bucket that he had found in the pasture. Philo then stuck his fingers in his mouth and finally tasted the sweet reward to his endeavors.
He then took one half of the cracked hive and commenced in dripping it into the bucket that was more than hallway full of milk.
“Look Albert, I found a beehive this morning!”
The boy turned his head and looked over at the blue bear, who was standing upright, though remained motionless and mute.
“Oh yeah, I forget.”
He placed the halved hive on the table and then stood in front of lifeless Albert, took the book off his head, and put it back on. This seemed to awaken the bear.
“Wonderful! Let’s begin!” Albert said, body glowing. “Do you know your ABCs?”
“Yes! But I want to sing it again.” Philo requested, returning to the table.
“Alright, let’s begin!–A, B, C, D…”
They both sang in unison as Philo continued trickling honey into his bucket. When they finished singing, Philo put down the hive, and with both hands, lifted the heavy bucket and steadily brought the rim to his lips and an indulged on a large gulp of refreshing sweetness. Carefully placing it down, he wiped the cream from his mouth with the sleeve of his tunic and proceeded to the middle of the room where he sat down on the floor, legs crossed.
At his side, was a thin, wide book with a vivid cover featuring a little boy standing in some bushes who looked about the same age as Philo. This book had images on the inside, instead of the lines of letters that filled most of the inner leaves of the books around the building he was in. He liked this kind of book much better because at least he could understand it’s purpose, and he found the whole experience very interesting. Captivated, Philo studied each leaf with complete concentration and enjoyed himself.
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There were images of the little boy in the book walking on the grass, picking berries, and sharing them with his mother, just like Philo had done himself many times. Then on the following leaves, the boy becomes separated from his mother and wonders off, and eventually meets a creature that kind of looked like Albert, but much larger. The boy becomes friends with the huge animal, and eventually is reunited with his mother, and everyone is happy.
Philo closed the book with a smile on his face; being reminded of his mom and nature always made him immensely happy. That is, until the memory of his mother lingered too long, and sadness soon became known.
Setting that image-book aside, Philo picked up another, though this one was much more complicated than the other. On the cover was a very old man with a long beard, wearing yellow clothes, head to toe. He was on what looked like a hut floating on a huge body of water, more water than Philo had ever seen. The old man floats on his home around on the water, until he meets what Philo could only guess was an animal, a creature so huge and strange that the only thing he could compare it to were the odd shapes gigantic clouds take in the sky.
He couldn’t believe an animal could get that big. The more Philo learned about the world, the more he realized there was so much in the world to learn. Though, he got the impression that this ginormous creature wasn’t a particularly nice animal, because it ended up eating the old man and spitting him back out.
Philo always liked to look at this book because of how much it thrilled him to think of a place where there could be so much water, and it made him wonder if such a place actually existed.
“Hey Albert, do you know what this is?” Philo asked aloud.
The boy didn’t really expect an answer from Albert because, by then, he realized he wouldn’t respond to anything besides putting the book on his head, yet he still crawled up to the bear and showed him the opened book.
“…out onto the shore, the whale vomited the old man…”
Startled by Albert’s reaction, Philo was taken back.
“…What did you say?”
He held the book out again.
“…tail splashing in the water, the whale dove back to its home in the ocean…”
“Home in the ocean? The whale?” Philo questioned aloud these unknown words.
Albert returned to his silence, still glowing.
The boy looked over the opened picture book at the image of what Philo guessed was ‘the whale’ submerging back into the water. Above the depiction were letters like the ones near the ceiling in the room, except these letters were grouped together randomly. An idea then made itself known to him, and Philo put the picture book down, and scampered off out of the room. He returned shortly after, carrying one of the larger thicker books that were scattered all over.
Going near the small bear, he crouched down and peeled the leaves apart, and made the exposed content legible to Albert.
“…Hear me, O Lord; for thy loving kindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender…”
Philo slightly tilted the book in front of the bear’s face.
“…I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s…”
He shut the book and stood up, looking at both the front and back side.
All these letters in here, are words?, the boy thought.
Again, he let the book fall onto a random leaf.
“…And the Lord spoke unto the whale, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land…”
“Hey, that sounds like the old man!” Philo excitedly told the toy bear. Except, this time, there were no pictures, yet somehow Albert was able to still see the old man in yellow and the whale just from the letters alone and tell Philo, and then he too saw. He wondered what ‘Lord’ meant and why it told the whale to vomit 'Jonah' onto the land.
Shoving the book in front of Albert’s eye again, he continued listening to the bear tell what happened to 'Jonah' after he was spat out onto the land and how he went off to something that was called a 'city'. More unanswered questions filled the boy’s mind and soon enough he closed the book and idly began to wander away, out into the main room.
All these books, they all had hidden images in them, concepts and things Philo couldn’t even imagine, nor comprehend, yet still the boy scanned the huge room and marveled at the thousands of books scattered everywhere. Though, deep down he knew he probably couldn’t, he decided he wanted to make it a goal to see what was inside each and every one of these books and figure out why the words were there, even if it took him his entire life.
He took the book he had been wearing on his head the past few weeks and flipped it open, shuffling back and forth through the thick stack of pale leaves in contemplation. After a minute, he straightened his posture and placed the book back on his head, and then returned to the room.
Picking up the original thick book Albert had looked through, Philo scrutinized the cover and began wondering what the words meant on the front. He held it out so Albert could see.
“…The Holy Bible…” Albert announced.
Bringing the book closer, Philo started examining it from all angles. No holes that he could see, so it must mean something else, he thought.
Well, if Philo was going to dedicate himself to all these books in the building, he might as well start going through this one, he decided.
Seating himself on the floor cross-legged, he placed Albert on his lap, and again, randomly opened the Holy Bible to a leaf somewhere near the beginning.
“…And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey…”
“A land flowing with milk and honey…” Philo echoed, looking at his bucket, wondering if the book was talking about the building and the surrounding land he called home the past few weeks. He had only known this place and the canyon, so he could never be sure, but still, he didn’t not believe it to be true.
What was it about bringing them out of the hand of the… divisions? And into the land with milk and honey, he wondered. Was the book talking about how the village divided their food and gave most of it to the flying-things? He glanced over the opened book for the slight chance he could pick something out he could grasp. Nothing.
Memories of the villagers began filling his head and he contemplated their lots in life, and how they spent most of their time, if not working, then just staring at their black stones and whispering gossip. It had just occurred to Philo how much he didn’t like working in the fields, especially if it meant that most of their hard work was going to some unknown thing that had no concern for him or his people. He much preferred to live in a place like where he presently was at the rest of his life and spend time with his books, the cows, and Albert. But he also didn’t want to be alone.
Maybe there would be some people back in the canyon who might be interested in living with him, he hoped. There was so much extra space and milk from the cows, more than enough for Philo. Could he convince the people back home to leave the fields and come join him and enjoy the abundances he had discovered? Regardless, Philo knew, sooner or later, he was going to have to return to his village and see his mother again. He couldn’t stand how much he was probably torturing her, and torturing himself. At the very least, he hoped his mom would come back with him. Philo just knew she would love the cows, and she would be impressed by how much he learned and had taken care of himself.
He wasn’t sure when he would be ready for that sort of ordeal. Being out on his own this long, the idea of seeing other people, especially back in the canyon did not seem as appealing as it once did a few weeks ago when he first started his adventure.
Lifting the book off on top of his head, he pensively scratched his scalp.
In the meantime, Philo decided he would get back to his listening of the book and see what else it had to say through Albert’s lips.
Again, he randomly thumbed open a section of the book, somewhere near towards the back, and presented the exposed leaf to the toy bear nestled in Philo’s lap.
“…In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.. All things were made by him; and without…” Albert continued as Philo thought.
God? The Word? The Lord? Could they be the same? They sounded similar.
As Philo contemplated the text, Albert continued reciting.
I guess, when you think about it, everything is a word, the boy realized. Even he was a word, a word called ‘Philo’, given to him by his mom. He thought about the word ‘mom’ and how it instantly made him think of his own mother, even though everyone had their own unique ‘mom’. What if, he suddenly thought, the whole entire world was a book, and he and his mom were just another word along side the rest? The real question then would be, how did words appear in books in the first place? He resolved that, hopefully, he would be able to figure out the answer to this and his many other questions eventually, as he made his way through the entire collection of books in the huge building.
Cutting Albert off mid-sentence, Philo slammed the book shut, placing it down and leaving Albert on the floor, he walked to other side of the toy room. He picked up the picture book with the boy in the bush on the cover, and sitting back down, began mulling over the images of the boy and his mom picking berries.