So never stayed near the village, which worried his mother
no end.
He would walk through the forest, hour upon hour, not
hunting, not gathering, just walking.
“What do you do, all those hours?” she asked him, one day.
“I think,” he said.
So’s mother reported that to the elders: “He thinks.”
The elders discussed this amongst themselves, quietly, in
order that So’s mother (who had, impertinently, remained in their view during
the talk) might not hear. Then, the
youngest of the elders turned to her with the results of the debate.
“What,” the youngest elder asked, “Does he think about?”
So’s mother was not allowed to follow him into the woods.
Instead, another villager was dispatched to determine what So was thinking
about, and the next morning, as the other villagers began preparing to fish or hunt
or gather plaintains, So walked out into the woods, followed by the spy, whose
name was Tinioc.
Tinioc reported back that evening. “I could not determine
what he was thinking about,” he told the elders, who told this to So’s mother,
who asked “Where did he go?”
“The river,” said Tinioc, and told how So had climbed out
onto a long branch of a tree that hung far out over the water, and there had
lain on his belly, occasionally trailing his hand in the water.
This mystified the elders, and the next day several of them, the stronger ones who could still walk far, went with
Tinioc and followed So themselves. That day, So did not go to the river tree,
but instead tracked through the jungle, pushing aside broad leaves, until he
reached an ant hill. There, he spent
several hours crouching on various sides of the hill, every now and then
putting down leaves, or twigs, or flower petals he would gather from around the
ant hill’s clearing.
The elders debated that, too, that night, with Tinioc
reporting back to So’s mother that they had not yet come to a decision of what
to do about this.
“They have not,” Tinioc told her, “Even decided if they need
to decide anything about this.”
Day after day, more and more villagers followed So, always
trying to remain hidden, until on the fifth day there were more than twenty
villagers trailing through the jungle, a long line of silent hunters and
tillers and women creeping after him.
They watched So that day, and every day, as he climbed up trees and came
down with bird’s nests, or as he walked behind waterfalls, or peered at spider’s
webs.
On the seventh day, the elders met, as they had every night,
and determined that following So was getting them nowhere. They instead decided to have various members
of the village go and do the things they had observed So doing.
Tinioc, they ordered, would continue to follow So, and each day would report
back what So had done that day.
Meanwhile, other villagers would go climb the long tree branch, or wade
through the shallow marshes with a stick, poking at some of the harder to see
places, or scatter a nest of birds and watch them fly off in different
patterns, or even make their way to the sandy shores of the sea where sometimes
large boats could be seen sailing by, far off on the horizon. There, the elders told those villagers, you
will watch the boats but not wave, just as So does.
These men and sometimes women reported back each day, too,
on what they had done and whether they had determined what it was So had thought about while he did those. Each time, the conclusion was the same:
“I do not know what So
was thinking,” the villager would report.
For over a month this continued, until finally the elders
decided that it was time to ask So, himself, even though they had felt this was
a dangerous thing to do. Who knows what such a strange boy would say, when
asked such a question!
The elders feared So’s answer. There was
a story in the village about the question that had begun the universe. It went like this:
Before
the universe had begun, the creator, who at that time was called nothing as
there was nothing to name, looked around and saw nothing but darkness all
around him, or her – there was no way to say whether the creator was a man or
woman at the time because there was nobody or nothing else to observe the
creator – and the creator, seeing the absence of everything but him, or her,
self, had asked:
“Where
is everything?”
That
simple question, the villagers knew, had brought about the entire universe, in
response to the creator’s question, and thus the power of questions, and their
answers, had been established at the same time as everything else that was.
From that story, the elders had always taught the villagers this
message: Be careful what questions you
ask, as one day there may be an answer that destroys everything. And so the
villagers rarely asked any questions, at all.
Thus, it was with no small degree of fear that the elders, sitting
in front of the central fire, faced So.
Around the edges of the clearing, the villagers gathered to watch the
questioning.
So came forward.
“What is it you want to know, elders?” he asked. His face glowed red in the night, his eyes
calm.
The youngest elder leaned forward, and said:
“We want to know what it is you think about, all day, every
day, as you do these things you do.”
So cocked his head at them.
“Then ask,” he said, “the question.” For So had noticed that the elder had not in
fact phrased it as a question, at all.
The youngest elder took a deep breath, and said “What do you
think about, all day, every day, So?”
“I ask questions,” So told them. At their frightened looks, he went on: “I ask
why the river never runs out of water, and how the ants know which leaves to
eat and which will poison their young, why the birds go to sea to find food
when there is so much behind them in the forest, how the bugs learned to make
themselves look like flowers. I ask
where the large boats come from and where they go to, and who rides on
them. I wonder how the caves behind the
waterfall grew, and why the rocks in them shine so even though they have never
seen the sun.”
The list of So’s questions went on and on, until the moon
had set and the fire had nearly died out.
When So was finally silent, the elders – stunned by the sheer number of
questions, and possible answers – were speechless.
It was up to So’s mother to ask the question everyone wanted
to know:
“Have you,” she asked,
“Gotten any answers?”
Answers! The villagers could not help but look to the sky to
see if perhaps the stars were winking out, even then.
“No,” said So, and every villager relaxed and let go of her,
or his, fear, until So went on:
“Not yet.”
