The world

The river is five miles wide. It stretches through the continent, from the mountains in the east, which no man has climbed, to the great ocean in the west, which, as far as we know, has no end. It divides the continent in two. What could have been an uninterrupted desert, stretching for miles on end, red earth as far as the eye can see, rocks shaped like gods and men, and clear skies, is broken by the river. The river intrudes, the river disrupts, the river divides. North of the river and south of the river. That is what we understand.

The river has united us, it has become the centre of all our beliefs, the only hope, the only chance. We all know the river, we have all heard the story of how it came to be, we all know that it is as old as the desert and that it will remain in its place long after time ends and the rocks turn to sand, and the sky falls.

The river is powerful. It has taken many of us. Some decide to travel to the mountains where it is born, trying to find the source, but who knows where a god is born? They never return. Others follow it to its end, to the great ocean, and they lose their sanity. They return with stories of salty water and fish bigger than men. The river claims all these lives to make us understand that it is the centre, the only way to survive, the source of life. When we die we all go to the river, to be one with it.

The desert is where we live. The rocks are our home and they protect us and understand us. The desert is where we are safe. The desert is life. Every child learns to read the desert, understand it as it understands us so that we may grow old and return to the river when we die. Those claimed by the desert when they are young never get to return to the river and rest with the Ancestors. They turn into the rocks and become warnings for our children and our grandchildren, so they may never be claimed by the desert. The desert is the graveyard of the false gods. All false gods die in the desert, forgotten by men. The river can never be forgotten, and so it is the only true god.

The river and the desert are the world. The old stories say that the desert and the river are two gods, the parents of all of us. They were here before time begun and will be here after time ends.