The Night Shepherd
- So far as I know, there was only ever the woods. I knew about the road and not to go near it. I knew about the tracks and the late night train. I knew about the beasts in the field and the men who worked among them. Mostly I knew about nuts and berries, good grasses. It seemed like I was always eating, growing bigger and bigger, taller and taller. It seemed a long and wonderful while before I came into my urges and had to leave home.
- Where was I to go? Should I go live among the men? I thought I might do some service to endear myself. I knew how to bend the tree branches till they sang. I knew how to make the forest music. I watched the man come paint the clouds with light. It gave me a good deal of courage to think there were such cool things in the world.
- A sensation came over me while I watched him make his light. I can only call it a particularization. All those things that had seemed for all time were suddenly of the now, this moment here. Details blossomed in my eyes. I saw how the bark chipped in my hand. I heard the wind as if for the first time, so full of information. I felt it through my hair.
- It was no different than it had always been, but somehow I noticed how things were organized on a greater scale than I had previously assumed. I had millions of assumptions that guided me through the world, but recently I had had doubts as well.
- I heard the train rolling past as a whole thunderous rain storm of sounds, lights and sensations. I stood, dumb with awe, as things grew more localized and precise. I grew sure of what I saw: the wheel, the working of metal, the boiling of water, the nature of electricity, weather, the purpose of the gates and the field and the beasts upon it.
- I could even begin to understand this man and the train and the reasons the light grew from his hand as if he held a fragment of the sun (electricity!) The whole electromagnetic spectrum lay down before me and gave expression to all things.
- I stood there caught up in a gigantic shrug I could not shake off. The world seemed to collapse and rise again at the same time. New realms of insight revealed ever deeper truths to me about the nature of these strange beings who guarded the field from the advance of the machines and yet make a sort of sacrifice to the rail in homage to some greater intent. I came night after night to learn more from these sights.
- The strange worshipfulness of men. I never believed that before. I never saw such a thing from them. Mainly the men I saw were working at something to enrich themselves. They were great encroachers is all, to be dealt with one day.
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