Six people stood in an open field. They each watched at their feet a dead rat.
The first person said that the rat had four feet to walk with, though they perhaps weren’t of much use now.
The second person wondered at the whiskers and told a story about his childhood with guitars, kites, and cactus.
The third claimed that the rat was gray and therefore wise. Once, said the first person. And what is wisdom to the dead?
The fourth reached down and plucked the rat’s eyes out with a small silver spoon and claimed that the rat must be a relation to fish.
The fifth person said he saw no rat at all, that the four companions lived in delusion, that at their feet was a great hole through which he saw a million and more human beings moving toward a great opening into yet another space where five people stood wondering at a hole in the earth in a field where the wind blew softly and the birds had all but stopped singing.
The sixth person listened and wrote a story.
