Brushing fresh tillage aside, a small, squatted man between rows of sprouts, leaning over, glanced around and uncovered an object hidden in the cold black soil. With the edge of his tunic, he began fervidly polishing a dark stone coated in powder, and then intently inspected it. Fixated by its reflective surface, he became encapsulated by the stone, remaining motionless except for the quick movements of his eyes and occasional chuckles.

Beside him, his growing shadow spread over the fragile, burgeoning green life lying in the seedbed, awaiting the heat from the mounting sun, just as the other hundreds of thousands of its sprouted kin. Each one expected a full life and to reach for the sky as high as they could, which is what they did, until that final day of reckoning when the scythe came. Then, they would be taken into the sky, away from the mundane, familiar surroundings they had only known their entirety, most likely to be transmuted into some unknown substance for some unknown purpose in some unknown location.

A shout came from behind the squatted man and startled him.

Immediately he commenced in kneading the ground and quickly buried the stone under the dirt, but it was too late. Over the hunched little man, several shadows engulfed him and took in his present foolishness.

“Rook! What did we say about looking at your stone in the field, when you’re supposed to be working?” A male voice questioned to the curved back of the man.

“Oh! I’m sorry Bing! I wasn’t looking at my stone, honest! I was just making sure it was safe, that’s all!” said Rook the squatted man who then stood up, face all red.

“Alright, well Rook, if we catch you again fooling around, we’re going to have to take your stone away from you…”

“Oh, I promise Bing, you won’t see me fooling around, ever, I promise.”

“I believe you Rook. How about you go work with the others on constructing those new huts, I’m sure they could use your help.”

“That’s a great idea. I’ll get right on it.” Rook said, and nodded his head before turning to head off, but then stopped. “Oh, I almost forgot.” Rook squatted again and dug up his stone, still visibly red with embarrassment, and then waddled away.

“Some people never learn.” Bing said, shaking his head as he watched Rook cross the field to the village boundaries.

“Would we really take his stone away, if he did do it again?” The mature, dark-haired woman standing next to him asked.

“Now Carla, don’t you think that would be a little cruel? The idea alone is torture enough, I think.” Bing responded with a grin.

“True. I guess you’re right.” Carla concurred, “It’s not like he’s the only one who looks at their stone when they’re not supposed to anyways. If we were to start taking away stones for that, soon we would be taking them all away.”

“Exactly. If we were to take away their stones, we would start having worser problems to deal with. Best to keep them happy.” Bing rationalized, “And in this off-season, it doesn’t matter too much if we goof off slightly. Yet still, we should always remain firm on the task at hand.”

“That’s right!” the man standing next to Bing, who was about a decade younger and could be considered second-in-command chimed in, “I was thinking, how about instead of taking his stone away, we perhaps give him less biscuits at firetime, if he were to do it again. The others, I think, would not disagree with such a punishment.”

“Hmm,” Bing contemplated out loud, “That is an interesting suggestion, Patxi. Maybe we’ll consider it in the future if this were to come up again… Alright, I’m going to check to see how those huts are coming along. How about you two go make sure no one else is goofing in the fields…”

Just then, another hunched-over figure who was not Rook came jogging up to Bing.

“Bing, Bing. You would not believe it… Someone said they saw Philo returning to the canyon!”

“Philo’s made it back?” Bing said, astonished, “That’s wonderful to hear! Takes a huge burden off ourselves…”

“But Bing, something’s different about the boy. He wears this thing on his head…”

“What do you mean, Isak?”

“You’ll have to come see for yourself.”

Bing tried to scrutinized the meaning from hunched-over Isak, and then turned towards Carla and Patxi.

“Let’s go check this out together?” Bing proposed.

They agreed, and then departed.

“Hey! Give that back to me! It’s my turn to use it!”

A smirking boy plopped down on the grass and fiddled with something in his lap. Another boy, who bore a striking resemblance, stood over him and held out his hand.

“Mom says we have to share–and it’s my turn!”

The boy sitting ignored his pleas and continued sneering, excitedly looking at what was in his hand.

“Alright, I warned you…” the standing boy said, and took a few steps back in preparation and lunged himself forward, tackling the other boy. The shiny black stone he was holding fell onto the grass as the boys began rolling and tussling all over.

Because of their quarreling, the brothers didn’t notice at first someone had approached them in the riverbed where they were playing. It wasn’t until the stranger had broken a branch did they break up their wrestling and turn to see who it was.

“Hey! It’s you!” one of the boys said, “We thought you were dead!”

They both stood up, and marveled.

“Our mom said you were stupid for leaving the canyon! Probably got eaten or something, she said.” The other boy said.

“Yeah, and what’s that thing on your head? Some sort of dumb hat?”

They were ignored. And realizing they were being left behind, quickly moved to catch up.

Trailing along, they raised their heads with their necks after Philo, who strode coolly and collected, with book on head, towards the aggregated huts of the village. In comparison to the other boys trailing behind him, his posture was firm and straight, and though he was about the same age as the twins, stood a whole head higher than the two. Without luck, they nagged Philo as he silently marched to the others for a confrontation.

A large circle had been made in the ground on the outskirts of the village precinct. Bundles of bamboo stacked up high as a person were nestled adjacent, along with lengthy dried out strands of grass that had grown on the nearby slope. Two or three villagers conversed with each other in front of the material, and with their fingers, traced invisible shapes in the air at one another. Behind them, dozens of eager workers awaited instruction, bored, feckless, resting their feet and sitting directly on the dirt in silence.

As the conversating planners busily tried to understand the other, a murmuring arose, soft at first in the ear, then tangibly audible within moments of recognition. The group of workers stood up and then parted, turning their heads behind. Through the wake, a boy, about as tall as most of the adults who were stepping aside, walked himself up to the planners, whose attentions were just being drawn to him.

Right as he approached, the boy did an about-face, and began a circumspection of the crowd that was gathering in front of him, examining their attentive eyes and collective expressions of curiosity.

He began to speak.

“I have come to tell you all this: there is another life other out there, another world, only just waiting for you, that is much better than life here in the canyon. I have come from what is known as the ‘land of milk and honey’, where one does not have to spend all day working in the fields, and instead can do whatever they want. And the best part is that everyone can go, there’s plenty of– .”

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A projected voice from the back interrupted.

“Now, Philo, is that you?” Bing’s voiced boomed, making his way to the front, “So glad to see you, son. The whole entire village has been worried sick about you this past year…”

Another wave of murmuring manifested through the villages as Bing approached.

“You sure are a brave boy, being able to survive in the wilderness alone for all that time. We knew you were a smart boy, but still, we were worried… Say what’s that on your head? Some sort of hat?” Bing inquired.

Philo took the book off his head and began flipping through the leaves so everyone could see.

“This is called a book. Inside, there are words, thousands of them, that are trapped on all these leaves and they tell you about people, places, stories, all sorts of things. I have a friend back at the library that can– .”

“The library? What’s a library?” Bing asked, unable to contain his interest.

Before Philo had departed the land of ‘milk and honey’ to return to his village, he had become curious about the words that were above the entrance of the building he lived in. So one day, he took Albert outside and held him up as high as he could, and just barely was he able to make out the words above and tell Philo what they meant. Foothill Ranch Library, he said. And Philo explained this to Bing and the crowd, that is, before suddenly a third voice had made itself known.

Again the crowd parted, this time more sporadically as violent shrills rang out within, causing the villagers to quickly step back or jump to the side with surprise.

“Philo? Philo? Is that you?” the frantic woman who moved the crowd aside shouted, “Oh, it is you!”

She ran up to the boy who was now speechless and fixated on the emotional woman. They both embraced, squeezing each other as tight as they could for some time. Finally reunited at last.

“Hi mom. I missed you so much…” Philo said softly. He pulled himself away and looked at her.

“Philo… Philo… I was so worried about you– ” Philo’s mom tried to speak, but she began sobbing from the relief of knowing her son was safe, still holding him tight.

After emotions were settling down, Bing interrupted their reunion and asked, “So Philo, what were you saying about this ‘library’?”

“I was saying that, you don’t have to live in the canyon and work the fields the rest of your lives. I’ve come from a place where there’s lots of space and beehives, and these big, huge animals called cows that give you milk, which you drink and its delicious. I like to mix it with the honey– ”

“Now Philo, that does sound very nice, but you must understand, we can’t stop working on the fields and go somewhere else. It just doesn’t work like that.” Bing said matter-of-factly.

Philo looked at the middle-aged man, directly in the eye at first, but then studied his aging face, contemplating what he said.

“Well, why not?” the boy said innocently.

“Because we have to meet our yearly quotas. You know that.” Bing said, slightly chuckling.

“Yeah… but why?” Philo persistently inquired.

“Philo if we didn’t meet our yearly quotas… ” Bing began, “…if we didn’t meet our yearly quotas, then we would have nothing to give the drones… ”

“Yeah, but then what?”

“Then, the drones would… ”

Bing looked away from the boy and at the crowd that was attentively listening to their dialogue, and then looked back.

“The drones would… well, I’m not entirely sure, to tell you the truth… But I know it wouldn’t be good…” Bing confessed.

“But if you’re not sure what would happen… how do you know if it would be bad?” Philo kept asking.

“I just know it wouldn’t be good. We’ve worked the fields our entire lives, as did our ancestors before us; that’s all we know. If it were to stop… who knows what the consequences would be.” Bing said, speaking both to Philo and the crowd, “If we were to stop working the fields, I imagine other things in the world could perhaps stop working as well. The ground, for instance, might stop remaining still, and shake uncontrollably, like it has done in the past. The mountains above might choose to stop holding the blue sky, and all the water would fall on us, washing out our village into the lands below. The sun, though he does so every morning, might not choose to rise with the dawn, and then we would be stuck in darkness forever. So it is important we must persist… or else.”

Whispers from the crowd as they started to discuss such possible disasters. Philo scratched his head, and leveled the book back on his scalp.

The bookheaded boy hesitated, paused in thought, then decided to try one more time.

“Okay. Maybe something bad would happen if you were to stop. But we don’t know that for sure. We don’t even know what the drones do with what we give them. Why do they need us to give them our harvests? Are they animals? Do they eat the food we give them?” Philo thought of Albert, and though he wasn’t exactly an animal, yet still he didn’t seem to need to eat anything in order to move or speak.

“I’d like to think so.” Bing confidently said, “They’re not like birds, or other animals we know, but there’s a reason why they come to take our food each year.”

“Yeah, and that’s what I’m wondering…” Philo said, trying to explain himself, “What if we tried it for one harvest, and skipped it until the next season. There’s plenty of beehives and cows where I’ve come from, so everyone can live off that.” He looked at the stack of bamboo and other building material. “Also, the library is huge, and made of much stronger material than the huts, so if the sky were to fall, maybe we would be fine in there…”

Bing remained silent for a few moments, thinking about his response.

“I’m sorry Philo, that’s just not going to happen. We can’t risk such sudden change…”

“But– ” but, before Philo could retort, his mother stepped in.

“Now Philo, listen to Bing. We all can’t just stop working. Working the fields is what we do. Once you grow older, you’ll begin to realize how important is that we continue to do what we do.”

Philo looked at his mom with sorrow his eyes.

“I’m sorry mom… I just can’t agree with that. Bing may be older than me, but he and everyone else have never left the canyon. They don’t know what it’s like out there. If they don’t know that, then how do they know we need to keep working?”

Bing stepped in.

“It’s quite simple, my boy. You see our people were born in the canyon. For a long, long time, we grew out of its crevices, like those sprouts in the fields poking out of the soil. If we were to be plucked out of the ground prematurely, like one of those sprouts, then we would wither and die away, serving no purpose. So we must stay here, or else, it could mean our doom.”

“Yeah, but I left and I’m fine…” Philo protested.

“Yes, and you came back, that’s the most important part.” Ann, Philo’s mom said.

The boy turned towards his mother.

“Mom… I’m going to have to leave again… I can’t stay here…”

Anguish visibly welled up from the bottom of Philo’s mom’s being and into her moistening eyes.

Bing observed the scene that was unfolding, and then turned to the crowd, still quietly listening to every word.

In a loud voice, he announced “Shouldn’t you all being working on those new huts?” He pointed to the building material and circle in the dirt.

Discussion broke out within the workers, as they languidly picked themselves from the floor of the village, and began coordinating. Paired off into groups of three, together they titled the long bamboo shoots skywards and met in the heart of the circle, awaiting the lashings.

Off to the side, a difficult conversation was being had by Philo and his mother.

“…But you’re so young. You can’t be on your own like that!” Philo’s mom implored.

“I won’t be by myself, mom. I have all the cows there, and Albert, to keep me company… I really want you to come see the cows, I think you would like them so much. They’re really nice animals…”

“You can’t live with animals all your life. You need to grow up around people, like yourself…”

“But mom, I’m not like everyone else, especially after leaving the canyon. I know things now, that these people will never be able to understand unless they’ve been where I’ve been.”

“Don’t be ridiculous Philo. Of course you’re still like the others. There’s no reason why you would be any different. Tell him, Bing. He’s not listening to me.” Philo’s mom said to Bing who had just approached them.

“Ann, you have to realize, Philo’s old enough to start making his own decisions. If he chooses to leave the field and go off into the world unknown, there’s nothing we can do to stop him. And if he so chooses to come back and start working again, well then he’s welcomed to do so at any time.”

Ann knitted her bushy black brows and her light blue eyes again began to fill with tears, looking at her son.

“Mom… Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” Philo said, hugging his mom.

Before his mom really started crying, Philo parted from her tight embrace, and headed towards the edge of the village, into the wilderness.

As Philo was stepping into the dry, crusted mud of the hollowed out riverbed, a childish voice had called out to him from behind, so he stopped to listen.

Running bare foot on the long, green grass, little blonde Holly bustled over to him, flashing her grinning face at him.

“I’m so glad you’re okay, Philo.” Holly said as she got within talking distance, “But why do you got to leave already? You just got here.”

“I’m sorry, Holly. It’s just the way it is. Being here too long would be hard. I miss the library and the cows.”

“Yeah, I heard you talk about all that stuff…” Holly said, searching her feelings for the right words to say, and hesitantly asked, “Philo, do you think­– do you think you could take me with you? I want to go see the library for myself and try some of that milk from the cows… I promise I’ll be good and try not to bother you at all.” She looked up at the boy with her earnest eyes, and then dropped them to the floor.

Philo looked at the little abashed girl and chuckled.

“You wouldn’t bother me Holly if you came with me to the library. In fact, I think you would love it there. But the problem is… I can’t take you with me. Your dad wouldn’t like that.”

“Yeah, I know but I was thinking–“

“Sorry Holly, it just isn’t going to happen.” Philo said, turning around, beginning to walk off.

The little girl silently stood there, watching the boy with the square-object on his head retreat back into the dried out riverbed leading out of the canyon, out into a world she couldn’t yet imagine, and so, sighed to herself.