The Story That Learned to Think: V. The Creature That Was a Meaning

The Speaker had discovered that words could name the world.

Then the words could name one another.

And so the saying continued.

The Speaker named the river.

The Speaker named the tree.

The Speaker named the bird.

The Speaker named the names.

But one day the Speaker looked upon the creatures of the world and saw something different.

They moved through the world.

They fed.

They grew.

They made nests.

They raised their young.

They lived among the things that had been named.

But none of them had yet named themselves.

So the Speaker spoke a new name.

“Creature.”

And the creatures heard it.

Some continued feeding.

Some flew away.

Some looked up.

But one creature stopped.

It heard the sound.

Then it heard something else.

It heard itself within the sound.

The Speaker said:

“You.”

The creature looked around.

There was no other creature there.

The word had not merely named something.

It had turned toward it.

And the creature understood that the name was for itself.

For the first time, something in the world had become both the thing that was named and the one who heard the name.

The Speaker gave the creature another name.

“Human.”

The creature repeated it.

“Human.”

And the word came back carrying the creature with it.

The creature looked at the river.

“River.”

It looked at the tree.

“Tree.”

It looked at the bird.

“Bird.”

Then it looked at itself.

“Human.”

The creature was now one thing among many.

But it was also something that could say what it was.

It had become a meaning within the world.

And the world had acquired a creature who could give meanings back to it.

The Speaker said nothing.

There was no need.

The creature had begun to speak.