Individuality -- Fiction; Love stories; Men -- Psychology -- Fiction; Psychological fiction; Science fiction; Time travel -- Fiction
"Dare not choose in your minds the work you would like to do
when you leave the Home of the Students. You shall do
[-that which-] {+what+} the
Council of [-Vocations-] {+Vocation+} shall prescribe for you. For the Council of
Vocations knows in its great wisdom where you are needed by your
brother men, better than you can know it in your unworthy little
minds. And if you are not needed by your brother [-man,-] {+men,+} there is no
reason for you to burden the earth with your bodies."
We knew this well, in the years of our childhood, but our curse
broke our will. We were guilty and we confess it here: we were
guilty of the great Transgression of Preference. We preferred
some work and some lessons to the others. We did not listen well
to the history of all the Councils elected since the Great
Rebirth. But we [-love-] {+loved+} the Science of Things. We wished to know.
We wished to know about all the things which [-make-] {+makes+} the earth
around us. We asked so many questions that the Teachers forbade it.
We think that there are mysteries in the
[-sky,-] {+sky+} and [-under-] the water and in
the plants which grow. But the Council of Scholars has said that
there are no mysteries, and the Council of Scholars knows all
things. And we learned much from our Teachers. We learned that
the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around it, which
causes the day and [-the-] night. We learned the names of all the winds
which blow over the seas and push the sails of our great ships.
We learned how to bleed men to cure them of all ailments.
We [-love-] {+loved+} the Science of Things. And in the darkness, in the
secret hour, when we awoke in the night and there were no brothers
around us, but only their shapes in the beds and their snores,
we closed our eyes, and we held our lips shut, and we
stopped our breath, that no shudder might let our brothers see or
hear or guess, and we thought that we wished to be sent to the
Home of the Scholars when our time would come.
All {+of+} the great modern inventions come from the Home of the
Scholars, such as the newest one, which was found only a hundred
years ago, of how to make candles from wax and string; also, how
to make glass, which is put in our windows to protect us from the
rain. To find these things, the Scholars must study the earth and
learn from the rivers, from the sands, from the winds and the
rocks. And if we went to the Home of the Scholars, we could learn
from these also. We could ask questions of these, for they do not
forbid questions.
And questions give us no rest. We know not why our curse makes us
seek we know not what, ever and ever. But we cannot resist it. It
whispers to us that there are great things on this earth of ours,
and that we [-can know them
if we try, and that we-] must know them. We ask, why must we know, but it has
no answer to give us. We must know that we may know.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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