There was once a traveller who came to the edge of a country no map had named.
Before him stood a wooden gate.
Beyond it ran a path between low hills.
The traveller looked at the gate and smiled.
“Come in,” it seemed to say.
So he opened it and passed through.
The path continued before him.
“Follow me,” it seemed to say.
So he followed.
For many days the traveller moved through the country, and everywhere he found instructions.
A fallen tree seemed to tell him where to cross a stream.
A broad stone seemed to invite him to rest.
A narrow gap between two rocks seemed to offer a way through the hills.
When rain came, an overhanging ledge seemed to offer shelter.
The traveller began to think the country unusually hospitable.
Then, one morning, he came upon a great cliff.
He stopped at its edge.
Below him was nothing but distance.
“Do not come this way,” the cliff seemed to say.
The traveller stepped back.
By evening he had become convinced that the country was full of voices.
It told him where to go.
It showed him where to rest.
It warned him where not to step.
He began to wonder who had made it.
On the following day he met a fox.
The fox was standing beside a fallen tree.
“A fine bridge,” said the traveller.
The fox looked at him.
“A bridge?”
“Yes,” said the traveller. “It leads across the stream.”
The fox glanced at the water and then disappeared into the undergrowth.
The traveller watched it go.
“How strange,” he thought. “It does not understand the country's instructions.”
Later he came upon a bird resting on the branch of a tree.
“There,” said the traveller, “the branch has invited you to perch.”
The bird flew away.
The traveller stood beneath the tree.
The branch remained.
It did not repeat the invitation.
That evening he met an old woman gathering roots.
“The country is very generous here,” said the traveller. “It is always telling me what I may do.”
The woman looked around.
At the trees.
The stones.
The stream.
The distant cliff.
“Is it?” she said.
“Of course,” said the traveller. “That gate invited me to enter. The path invited me to follow. The cliff warned me away.”
The old woman said nothing.
The traveller waited.
At last she pointed to the path.
“Can you follow it?”
“Yes.”
She pointed to the stream.
“Can you cross it?”
“In places.”
She pointed to a narrow hole beneath a rock.
“Can you enter there?”
“No.”
The old woman nodded.
“Then perhaps the country has not been speaking.”
The traveller frowned.
“But these things make things possible.”
“Yes.”
“And some things impossible.”
“Yes.”
“Then what is the difference?”
The old woman picked up a stone and placed it in his hand.
“This,” she said, “will not carry you across the river.”
She pointed to the fallen tree.
“That may.”
She looked towards the bird now circling above them.
“For the bird, the branch carries something else.”
“And for the fox?”
“The stream has no bridge.”
The traveller looked again at the country.
Nothing had changed.
The gate stood where it had stood.
The path ran between the hills.
The branch reached over the water.
The cliff fell away into the distance.
Yet the voices had gone.
The gate was no longer saying enter.
The path was no longer saying follow.
The cliff was no longer saying beware.
There was only wood.
Earth.
Stone.
Water.
And the different things that different beings could do among them.
The traveller felt suddenly less certain that he understood the country.
“Then nothing here is meant for me?”
The old woman smiled.
“I did not say that.”
She placed the basket of roots upon her shoulder.
“You asked the wrong question.”
And she walked away.
The traveller remained beside the path until nightfall.
For the first time, he listened carefully.
The country said nothing.
But the gate could be opened.
The path could be followed.
The branch could bear weight.
The cliff could be fallen from.
And as the darkness gathered, the traveller began to understand why this silence was more difficult than speech.
For if the country gave no instructions, then he would have to discover what was possible.
And if what was possible depended partly upon what he was—
then another creature might inhabit the same country differently.
The traveller looked down the path.
It did not ask him to follow.
Nevertheless, he went.
And the country remained silent.
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