The fascination of the light for the grey cub increased from day to
day. He was perpetually departing on yard-long adventures toward the
cave’s entrance, and as perpetually being driven back. Only he did not
know it for an entrance. He did not know anything about
entrances—passages whereby one goes from one place to another place. He
did not know any other place, much less of a way to get there. So to
him the entrance of the cave was a wall—a wall of light. As the sun was
to the outside dweller, this wall was to him the sun of his world. It
attracted him as a candle attracts a moth. He was always striving to
attain it. The life that was so swiftly expanding within him, urged him
continually toward the wall of light. The life that was within him knew
that it was the one way out, the way he was predestined to tread. But
he himself did not know anything about it. He did not know there was
any outside at all.
There was one strange thing about this wall of light. His father (he
had already come to recognise his father as the one other dweller in
the world, a creature like his mother, who slept near the light and was
a bringer of meat)—his father had a way of walking right into the white
far wall and disappearing. The grey cub could not understand this.
Though never permitted by his mother to approach that wall, he had
approached the other walls, and encountered hard obstruction on the end
of his tender nose. This hurt. And after several such adventures, he
left the walls alone. Without thinking about it, he accepted this
disappearing into the wall as a peculiarity of his father, as milk and
half-digested meat were peculiarities of his mother.
In fact, the grey cub was not given to thinking—at least, to the kind
of thinking customary of men. His brain worked in dim ways. Yet his
conclusions were as sharp and distinct as those achieved by men. He had
a method of accepting things, without questioning the why and
wherefore. In reality, this was the act of classification. He was never
disturbed over why a thing happened. How it happened was sufficient for
him. Thus, when he had bumped his nose on the back-wall a few times, he
accepted that he would not disappear into walls. In the same way he
accepted that his father could disappear into walls. But he was not in
the least disturbed by desire to find out the reason for the difference
between his father and himself. Logic and physics were no part of his
mental make-up.
Like most creatures of the Wild, he early experienced famine. There
came a time when not only did the meat-supply cease, but the milk no
longer came from his mother’s breast. At first, the cubs whimpered and
cried, but for the most part they slept. It was not long before they
were reduced to a coma of hunger. There were no more spats and
squabbles, no more tiny rages nor attempts at growling; while the
adventures toward the far white wall ceased altogether. The cubs slept,
while the life that was in them flickered and died down.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account