Through the world, an intelligence rides over the stagnant lands, regularly rustling up the dead leaves and seeds and scattering them with its fierce precession onto novel planes of existence. Sometimes they grow; and if not, they perish and feed the necessities of the next generation, as it’s always been. Those who live and thrive off the culture of their ancestors, rooted firmly inground, not only bear the hidden image of their maker, impressing upon their form and nature, but will also, from time to time, feel the force that rotates the seasons and pushes the body in directions where it chooses to go, and hopefully the body will withstand.

When Philo came to the foot of the hills, the grass was singing with the current of the wind and armies of dandelion spores encroached upwards to the glistening peaks above–the very same peaks that were heavily imprinted in the boy’s mind and had become all too familiar with. Finally, he had made it, and was about to intrude onto spaces he could only dream of. He thought about that night only a few days prior when he decided he would make it his mission to see what was on the other side of these hills. How, at the time, he believed it was near to impossible to reach those distance summits, oh-so far away. And yet, here he was now. How much he had changed in such a short span of time. Already Philo felt vastly more experienced than that boy who had a bad dream one night, standing under the moon, watching it descend behind these ridges.

In all his journeying though, he didn’t take much time to stop and think about what exactly he would find on the other side. What if it was just more land? How far would he go to find that edge he was in search of? Or, would he just find a giant hole, a big open darkness that the moon and other heavenly bodies went to rest and hide away, way down below–he thought about all these possibilities as he began to scale the incline.

The sun was past the midpoint of the sky and already had begun to descend, when suddenly the wind picked up and large, heavy gusts of cold fury cascaded down from the summits and pushed against his body, seemingly trying to drive the boy away. He persisted though, holding his book down on his head and squinting up towards the sun. Some mustard plant and sage growing all over the side of the hill detached from their fibers and flew furiously into his face and mouth, forcing him to spit and wipe his eyes. The onslaught lasted for what felt like forever to Philo, until he finally got near to the top. Then, suddenly, it died almost completely. A strange new smell entered Philo’s nose through the air and gave him a respiratory sensation he had never experienced before. Cool, tangy, openness coursing through his lungs–the taste of tears and sweat. After noticing this, he then heard the building up of an overwhelming sound of ‘whooshing’ and ‘awing’ that was continuous and grew even louder as he reached the top.

Taking slow steps, he attempted to anticipate his final moments of his long journey and brace for whatever he was about to find, but instead his legs carried him forward without hesitation. Over the top, he stood there speechless, out of breath, taking in a whole new world of sense datum.

Blue, endless blue, that spread out as far as he could see and led up to the sky, and became the sky. All that water. And the edge of it, so near, meeting at the shining white ground down below, washing up, back and forth. He knew exactly what this place was–this was the ocean! Never would he have thought to find it here, though. He really couldn’t believe it at first. The same place he had obsessed over the last few days was the same place in his books and in his dreams.

The way down was much shorter than the way up, and within minutes Philo had already scaled down most of the entirety of the hillside. He threw himself off the final rock onto the crystal sand and felt his feet thoroughly sink. He remained in that spot for some time, trying to become familiar with the beach. The sound of white water washing over the white sand roared in his ears and took up most of his attention, until he could sublimate the dronish noise to the background his perception. Then he heard the loud screeching of what he came to find out were a group of white birds who had flown away. These were the ‘seagulls’ he had heard his books describe on multiple occasions, though their ‘squawking’ sounded much more mysterious than Philo could’ve imagined. Like something from another world. Yet, he could’ve sworn he had heard the noise once before, back in the canyon when he was much younger, but he wasn’t exactly sure.

With the scenery settling inside himself, he finally felt able enough to move and attempted an approach, but just as got to the edge of the ocean, which was retreating into itself, the water suddenly reversed its direction and rapidly drew nearer to the boy. The oncoming tide startled Philo, and quickly, he ran backwards to evade its potential danger. His feet, however, did get wet. No harm done though, I guess, he thought to himself. Still, he didn’t want to mess with it. He knew what sort of monsters there could be hiding, deep down below.

Philo kept his eyes on the ocean during his retreat and without noticing, had sprinted backwards into the clutches of a large formation of white arches jutting out from beneath the sand, forming the bare minimum of what looked like was once some sort of structure. It was only after he tripped on one of the big white sticks and fell onto the sand did he realize what was around him. He stood up, and after fixing the book onto his head, went up and felt the durable smoothness of one of the arches, and then moved away to get a closer look at the whole thing. It was larger than he expected, and yet, it reminded him of something that he couldn’t quite recall.

He looked out onto the sea, still trying to take in all of its glory, and noticed the sun had sunken quite a bit and was beginning to be doubled on the surface of the undulating water. The reflection stretched out over time and reached all the way to the shore in front of Philo–as if the sun had made a pathway for the boy to follow over the waves. Instead, he decided to plop down in the sand and watch from a distance the fiery ball descend under the ocean. One of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. That’s where the sun goes at night. Now he knew. But what about the moon?

When the stars came out, his eyelids were sinking with the sun and the exhaustion from a long day’s journey made itself known. With the heat of daylight gone, and to escape the persistent winds growing evermore chilly, Philo burrowed his limbs into the still-warm sand, and eventually had his entire body covered. There he was, comfortably planted on the beach like a seed, or rather, like a little sprout, with just his head sticking up, awaiting the sun to come out again.

That night, Philo dreamt up a strange dream where he was back in the canyon and beheld the villagers tilling the fields, working hard as usual, and everything was pretty much normal, except, he witnessed this whole scene from high above and found himself effortlessly flying over the people. His flight took him out of the canyon and then followed the path he had taken to get to the library. Looking in his periphery, he found a whole flock of the white birds he had seen that day mutely soaring at his side. They passed over the pastured basin flecked with dream-cows, over the library and foothills and cactuses, into the greyish wasteland until they made it to the edge of the land where it opened up onto the sea. He followed his flock–or perhaps they followed him–over the endless blue water that crashed and churned and concealed the unknown beneath them, when suddenly, emerging from the ocean, a huge, gaping mouth surfaced and flew into the sky, closing over him and the birds. He then followed this fish under, diving deep below, swimming further and further down, yet never reaching a bottom, until finally giving up, it swam to the surface, instantly appearing shoreside. The big fish spat Philo out onto the land and then quickly started submerging itself as he began to wake up.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

At first he noticed he was quite cold and had almost forgotten he had slept on the beach, but became surprised when he realized he wasn’t where he was when he originally fell asleep. Above him, through the darkness, tall white arches protruded into Philo’s waking vision as he lifted himself from the sandy floor. He was lying on a big stick, which had made his back sore and began to rub it. Once he realized where exactly he was, Philo became startled and franticly patted the ground nearest to him, until, letting out a sigh, lifted his book from out of the sand.

He stood up and wiped the layer of sand that had caked his tunic and tried to understand how exactly he had gotten there, looking to the spot where he knew he had buried himself. Through the darkness, he could observe there didn’t seem to be anything out of place, but walked over to make sure. If someone had pulled him out from the ground, surely he would have been alerted to it. Maybe he did what some of the villagers have been known to do, and walk in his sleep without any recollection. Somehow though, he ended up within the white arches while he was preoccupied with his dreams.

Staring at the large, bony perturbance, Philo began to think he might actually know what this curving structure could be, when suddenly, something caught his attention in the corner of his eye and made him lose his thought. Hovering over the now silent and gentle sea, a waning moon emanated its faint, gibbous glow down into Philo’s corpuscles, sending shivers down his spine and spirit. Tears came to his eyes from the pleasureful melancholy of seeing something so familiar in all his long, hard days of journeying, and he howled through the black night his shouts of admiration and glee.

Settling down, he sat between the arches and gave as much attention to the moon as he did the sun, remaining in a state of continuous joy through his connection to the heavenly body’s alluring beauty against the darkness that surrounded. It drifted ever so slightly in the sky, and after some time, perceivably was beginning to dive back into the sea. But before Philo could witness this, sleep again had taken ahold of him, and he was off into a dreamless sleep, black and formless as the point where the night sky met the water.

The following morning, as the sun appeared again and fulfilled its daily duties to the world, Philo could visibly be seen sprawled out on the beach, snugly sleeping on his side betwixt the long, skeletal archway buried in the sand. He was so enthralled with his sleep that he had no problem burning the morning light away and staying comfy, and would have, if it wasn’t for one thing. As Philo rested so peaceably in the oblivion of his body, from out of nowhere, the sudden wet sensation of some sort of soggy device streaked across the boy’s face several times, startling him out of slumber.

On opening his lids, a vision of a furry, almost alien face greeted his eyes, causing Philo to scream and squirm away. It remained still, observing his actions as Philo did it. Once the shock of the moment subsided, he began to become aware of what had just accosted him and took in its features. After studying it for a few seconds, he realized he might actually recognize this animal from the assortment of oddities and novelties back at the library.

“Hey… you’re a dog, aren’t you?” Philo questioned the silent beast, whose attention was fixated on him as well.

The boy didn’t sense any trouble whatsoever from the creature, beyond the initial jolt, and could tell within seconds that it was a fellow friendly animal. A mutual agreement arose between them as their senses adjusted to one another, and, as if the dog had lost interest in the boy, irrupted in an abrupt sprint down the beach. But right as the swift creature got the edge of the raising white water, it pivoted and ran straight back towards Philo and looked into his eyes, as if trying to say something. The dog then dug through the sand and brought out a white stick, bringing it to Philo and dropping it at his feet. He looked down, stared at it for a second, and crouched to pick it up. However, before he could rise completely, the dog clamped onto one side of the stick and began tugging it away, though not very forcibly. It then released its hold, and sprinted again towards the tide, still trying to maintain some sort of eye contact with the boy. Philo contemplated the situation and tried to understand, until finally, an idea came to him on an instinctual level.

With a mighty thrust, he raised the thick, white stick behind his head and sent it hurtling forward over towards where the dog eagerly observed his actions, until finally it realized what had happened. Then, instantly it reacted with a proud determination that met the twirling stick in air, catching it in its mouth, and immediately brought it back to Philo. This was repeated several times afterwards until suddenly the dog seemed to have gotten distracted by something and began scouring the beach, sniffing and digging at the sand. Philo admired the animal’s playful nature and took as much joy in the throwing-of-the-stick activity as did the dog. As he watched his new friend at work, his attention drifted to the sea and thoughts of his dream seeped into his waking perception. Images of the big, wide mouth of the whale haunted his mind and he tried to understand what it meant. He looked way out onto the water and tried to imagine the gigantic fish shooting out from the water and swallowing a flock of birds, and then an idea came to him. What if there was a creature so big, and had mouth so large, that it could actually speak things into existence, just by saying the word? You speak, and there it was. When Albert spoke the words out loud from his books, if he recognized the word, instantly the image of the thing came to his mind and he could see it without it really being there. If the world is one giant book, filled with words that make up the thing and are the thing, then that must mean there should be some sort of person or animal that provides the word and speaks things into existence, right? It can’t come from nothing? So the young Philo thought as he contemplated the sea, until from out of nowhere, the dog rushed over and dropped something at his feet.

Reaching down, Philo picked up a sand-covered and weather worn old book that the dog had presented to him. He thumbed through the wilted pages and tried to discern the substance of the thing. How did the dog know he liked books, he thought to himself, looking for the dog to express his gratitude, but realized it had disappeared from his sight. Looking down the beach, he saw it off in the distance, running up towards the hill.

“Hey…! Wait up! Don’t leave without me!”

Luckily Philo caught up with the dog just as it sprinted up a slope and again disappeared. When he followed and reached the top to see where it went, instead of the dog, he found something else he was not expecting: a large wooden hut which had smoke coming from out the top, overlooking the ocean. For a split second, he saw the furry creature’s tail right before vanishing into the doorway, and he was about to follow it, when suddenly someone spoke to him from around the corner.

“Hey, what you doing here? Who are you?”

By what looked like a small garden, an old man with a long beard stepped out and began slowly approaching Philo. The boy took a step back, and quickly searched his brain for what his next move was going to be.