Betterment

Betterment

I woke early this day, for my father was coming home. Father is often away for many days at the Council of Villages, and is respected by the others of the Council, for his words are clear, his thoughts strong and uplifting. This is valued at the Councils¯more valued, I am sure Father feels, than by his son Zharkand, who is twelve years old, and should be more serious about life.
Nevertheless, before leaving for the Council Father said to me that when he returns we—Father, Grandfather and I—might begin our journey to the Old City, far to the north. It is a journey I have awaited for years. But first, Father will ask Mother whether I have been doing well.
He will say, "Denita, how has Zharkand been faring?" And if Mother says, "Zharkand has been faring well, and has satisfied me with his betterment," then Father will say, "Good. Tomorrow, then, we will begin our journey." But if Mother replies, "Zharkand has fared less well than I wished, and his betterment is lacking," then Father will frown, and the journey will likely be delayed yet another year. For Father has said that if I am not ready, the journey would be for nothing. Even last year we might have gone, yet my betterment did not satisfy Father and Mother, and so the journey was cancelled for that year.
I do not always please my father. It is not that I do not do my part. I help with all the work as best I can, and I grow stronger as I grow older. At twelve, I do many things to help the family and the village, as all must do. What bothers Father is that I am not as concerned for betterment as he feels I should be. I like to go my own way, for life is good, and there does not seem to be anything to be concerned about. Father, though, seems sometimes to feel that my disconcern endangers us all somehow. Father has done everything he can for my education in life and for my betterment. But I am young. My life lies ahead of me. What could it be that Father finds so urgent and serious?
Nonetheless, I was glad when I saw my father back from the Council of Villages, and I hoped that my improvement had satisfied my mother and that we would therefore be making the journey. I was thrilled about the journey and had tried to show improvement, that it not be delayed again.
Ten days we would walk, to the Old City far to the north, where long ago the Old Ones lived. There we would remain for a few days before making the journey back home. Grandfather's first journey to the Old City was when he was a boy, near my age. He traveled with his own father and grandfather, for Grandfather's own grandfather lived in the very time of the great Change and knew how the Old Ones lived Before. Grandfather's stories have told me much, yet it is necessary that I see and understand for myself. It is now one hundred and fourteen years since the Change, and we no longer use the counting of years that was used Before. It is better so. Yet Father says that our memory of Before must never die, so that we will guard always against becoming again like the Old Ones.

But to my gladness, very early the next morning, while still it was dark, Father woke me and spoke, saying, "We will go now." And so we started—Father, Grandfather and I. We followed the river—the same river that runs through the Old City. Before the Change there were many great cities as large as the Old City. This Grandfather learned from the books. Besides the Old City, he himself had seen one other as large, far to the south. Years ago, Grandfather used to travel long distances, to learn where other people might be living, and how they were faring, and to speak for Betterment with all he met. No longer does he travel much.
Father, though, attends the Village Councils, which sometimes require many days' journey. One time that I remember, the Council came to our village, meeting for three days. Then the members went home to their own villages. When I asked what these Council meetings were for, Father replied, "They are to keep our future alive."
It seems there is grave danger to our future, and it requires much effort of thought to prevent it from destroying us. I did not well understand what could be so dangerous to us as to require the Council meetings. But our people's teaching of Betterment, I knew, was related to this danger.
Bright and warm was the first day of our journey, and we walked well. Even Father was not as serious as usual as we followed the river trail, large packs on our backs. Grandfather was eighty-two years old, but able still to walk farther than I in a day when he wished. We said little through the day, but were cheerful with the journey, and as the lowering sun made red the western sky, we reached a small town—one of the old towns, now an empty ruin. With Father I had been this far before, but no farther.
Those of our village could all have lived in the old buildings of this town, but our people preferred to build their own homes from logs. They did not like to come to the old towns unless there was need. We still use some things from the old places: axes, knives, and other metal tools. But we use no machines. We will use no machines for a long time, Grandfather says.

We made camp near the river, and we had fish from the river for our meal. As we sat together by the fire, I was thinking of the stories I had heard of my grandfather's own grandfather. I never tired of the stories, yet I had never learned his name, as Grandfather had always said only "my grandfather." So now, as we sat by our fire and ate, I asked,
"Grandfather, what was the name given to your grandfather?"
Grandfather nodded, approving my question.
"He was called Edward Martin," said Grandfather.
"Ed-ward-mar-tin." I repeated. It was a strange old name and it gave me a strange feeling to say it. I knew that after the Change people began using names different from those of the old culture, and now the old names are strange to us. It is better so, to have ways different from the Old, says Father.
"He grew up in the Old City?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"Yes, there he was born, in a large place called a house-bittle. In the house-bittle were many physicians. People came there when they were ill, hoping the physicians could help. And they came there also to die. After they died, their bodies were buried in the ground. They did not vaporize as we do now."
This was strange to me, for ever since the Change, we people always vaporize at death. Animals do not, for their bodies are needed for food for the other animals, and also for people. But since the Change, people have always vaporized at death. It is natural and good. This way the spirit cannot cling to the body, but must go on to further learning.
"Why did they bury their dead bodies that did not vaporize? Why not eat them, or leave them to the animals for food, as the animals do?"
"They thought that the body was the person. They felt it would defile the person¯to be eaten¯by human or by animal."
Again I puzzled over why they believed so, for we know well that the spirit is the person and the spirit has the body only as a temporary home. When the spirit leaves, at death, the body is just a body. But I am glad that we vaporize, so as not to have the problem of what to do with our bodies when we decide to end our lifetime. I could not understand a people who did not know that we are spirits, but instead believed that the body was the whole person.
My father saw my puzzlement, and he said: "I think you may understand this, Zharkand, when you see the Old City." We rolled up in our blankets and rested the night by the river at the edge of the old town.

By the third day of our journey we had come to an old roadway next to the river, and we walked the roadway. It was a wide, smoothstone path, made for vehicles to travel, though it was now rent and riddled with trees, bushes and grass. Several of the old vehicles I had seen in the town, and there were more standing here and there on the roadway.
Grandfather said, "When I was very young, some of these vehicles still worked. They made a noise that caused me fright, and smoke flew from little chimneys on the vehicles. But none of us wanted to use the vehicles for anything. In the buildings of the cities there may still be machines and vehicles that work."
"What were the machines for?" I asked.
"For many things. When so many lived so closely, machines were required to provide for the needs of all. Vehicles carried food into the city to feed the people. And in the city, they lived very close together, and built high buildings where people lived atop each other in the different many levels of these buildings. Fires were not allowed in such buildings, so special machines were needed to provide heat in winter. Water was pressed through ducts to all levels. Energy was carried through other conveyors to provide light. Special machines within large ducts carried people to and from the upper levels, so they would not have to climb. Vehicles carried people throughout the city people on tracks and roadways to build even more buildings, to prepare food, and to build and work the machines of the city."
"Why? Why did people do all these things?"
Father answered this time, saying, "Zharkand, it is good that you ask why, and we are glad to speak of these things. But you must come to understand for yourself, and according to your own wisdom. That is why we go to the Old City—so that you may see and understand why. For when you see, you will then have many more questions as to why they thought and lived as they did. But as we question why, of the things that seem strange and wrong to us, we must also question deeply into ourselves, to see whether we carry still some of the same flaws, though not shown in the same way.
Father had a way of saying such things. It was true I supposed, yet it made me uncomfortable with myself. What flaws did I carry that were like the Old Ones? Father says that we may all still carry seed of the Old Ways within us, and if we do not find Betterment daily, we will be but a detriment to our people, and to ourselves. Father seemed often severe, yet I knew well that he cared deeply for me, for Mother, for all of our people. And sometimes¯sometimes his eyes would sparkle with warmth, uplift and humor.
Father went on, "Knowledge of all these strange workings is in old books in the libraries of the cities. Someday, Zharkand, you will learn to read the books. But we must always take caution with the old books, for many of those who wrote them believed that all was well with their world. They believed in the machines and the great buildings. They believed that it was good to have the many things that made their lives easier. They thought always that easier was better. That was what the machines were for¯to make lives easier. But Zharkand, you must be wise enough to know your own thoughts when you read, or you will become less wise for the reading. That is why I have not yet taught you of reading the books."

On the fourth day, continuing on the old roadway we passed through another town, much larger than the first one. Here there was a factory, with large round ducts that lifted high above the buildings, pointing to the sky. Grandfather said they were chimneys. The factory had great furnaces for heat, and for the workings of the factory. In the Old Days smoke would billow into the sky through the chimney ducts. We did not stop, but walked past the factory and away from the town, continuing north along the river. That evening we again fished for our meal and had a copse of low, thick trees by the riverbank for shelter.
In the following days we passed the ruins of more towns. I could not imagine such numbers of people as must once have lived here, and I asked,
"Why were there so many people, Before?"
"There were many who came from other planets, who should not have come," Father replied. "They saw that knowledge without wisdom was growing, and they wanted to be part of it. They wanted the power, the comfort, the talk-and-picture boxes, the fast vehicles; above all the power. So they came and were born here. They filled the earth, these unwise ones from other places. A planet, not far away, had been destroyed through the foolishness and evil of the people. Many came from that planet after it was destroyed, seeking a new place to be born. But they had not learned betterment from their mistakes on the planet they destroyed, and so, when they came here and were born, they lived the same evil and foolishness as before. It made the culture, the planet even worse.
"Yet if those already here had resisted; had refused to allow the foolish ones to be born here, there would not have been so many people, nor such foolish and empty lives. Memory and wisdom might still have awakened. But those who were here did not desire wisdom enough. They were too caught up in the power themselves; too interested in machine toys, comfort, arrogance, and greed. A few understood that all this was wrong, that it could only lead away from good. They were too few to stop the evil, but those few were spared, to start over. That is why the Change did not bring death to all."
It was much to think on, and I thought long in the days that we walked and talked, always following the river, toward the north. I began to better understand why the Councils met—the Councils of Villages, which my father attended. The Councils were to share ideas for Betterment—not for making our lives easier, but for the betterment of our selves. We must, above all, value wisdom and goodness, and seek always to grow better, or we may forget, and gradually go back to the old foolish and evil ways, the ways that led people away from wisdom, away from the path of Betterment.
Father spoke often of Betterment. He said that in the Old Days, people spoke too of betterment, but they meant not betterment of person, of goodness, of wisdom, but rather betterment of situation¯more comfort; more power. That is why they allowed the worse ones to be born here. That is why they sought ease, comfort and power. That is why they did not know of the spirit, but thought the life of the body was the life of the person. These things Father spoke to me, yet I did not fully understand. Too much they were just words. The idea, the living truth behind the words I did not fully grasp through my own wisdom and experience.
These things and many more did Father and Grandfather speak of as we walked. And while I did not fully understand, I believe I became a little more like Father in those days, as we traveled. I was thankful that Father and Mother and Grandfather felt I was finally ready for this journey to the Old City. One day I might take part in the Councils, and add my own thoughts to the sharing of ideas for Betterment. It would be best to learn well so that my thoughts might be of value.
On the sixth day of walking we passed a strange place near the roadway. There was a shallow pool with foul-looking water. Plants grew but poorly near this place. They were of bad color, and the earth itself looked ill. I did not like it there.
"What is this place?" I asked.
Father answered, "It is a place where poisons were brought, to get rid of them. The poisons are still foul, and the water and earth here are not good for plants. We will drink no water near this place, nor eat of any plants."
"Where did the poisons come from?" I asked.
"The Old Ones made many substances to suit needs they thought were good. Many of these substances were harmful, but they made them anyway, to suit the purpose of making life easier. Then when their use was done, they had to get rid of them somewhere. They were brought here."
"But this place is not rid of the poisons," I said.
"No it is not, but they felt it better to put much poison in one place than to put smaller amounts in many places," Father said.
As we walked away from the place of poisons, Father went on,
"There were some who wanted to stop the culture from doing things that hurt the natural life of the planet: the rivers, the trees, the earth and the animals, even the seas. But they thought the way to do this was to make many laws that gave some people power over the workings of others, and to build larger and stronger governments to control what the people did. Perhaps it helped the natural life of the planet, but it did not help the wisdom of the people, for the governments and the laws left no room for the people to live by their own experience. If people do not live and learn by their own experience, then wisdom dies.
"The culture developed too fast, and left wisdom behind, for they sought knowledge and skills, forgetting goodness. No culture can survive that gains so fast in powers and skills. New ideas must be tested slowly, over long periods of time, before making them part of the culture. Everything new must be shown to help the goodness and wisdom of the people, not just their well-being and comfort.
"Experience teaches well only if people struggle well, always wanting only what is truly good. It is when people fall to wanting more control over their world, and more convenience and power for themselves that experience begins to teach wrong lessons. Then the culture moves very fast in wrong directions."
I did not understand Father's words well, yet they had the ring of truth, and I listened carefully. That evening as we sat by our fire near the river, I asked Grandfather if he would again tell the story of Edward Martin, his grandfather, who lived Before, in the Old City.

"Martin was a strange boy," Grandfather began. "He was strange to his family, for he was different. He did not look at things as they did. He was unhappy, and they could not understand why. He would question his father, saying, why do we do this, or that? And his father would answer him saying,
'We do it because it brings progress.'
'What is progress?'
'It is our lives becoming better.'
'How are we better people because of this?'
'I did not say we are better people, I said our lives are better.'
'How can our lives be better if we are not better?'
"But his father would become annoyed and say, 'Stop asking these foolish questions. Learn to live as we all live, and do not question so foolishly.'
"Martin though, knew his questions were not foolish, and was sad that he could not discuss such things as goodness, and how to build it, with his father, mother and brother. He asked what the learning in school was for.
'It is so you can become useful and knowledgeable in the ways of our culture. That way you can contribute to the well-being of all.' But as he studied the use of numbers, the history of the culture, the way society worked, and the science of the universe, he had more questions. Always he would ask, 'In what way are we becoming better people?'
"And his father and mother would say, 'Look around you. You have more than we had when we were your age. You are more comfortable. You can push buttons and see on a screen what is going on in your world. If your heart should fail, our doctors can give you another, so you may keep living. You can travel widely and see more of your world than we could, for we have better planes, more reliable vehicles, more highways. You will not have to work as hard as we, and you will have more pleasures. How can you ask if things are better? Of course things are better.'
"But Martin would say, 'Perhaps things are better, but are we better? Are we better and wiser people for all these things which give us power to do this or that?' Yet his parents would only shake their heads at his foolishness. Of course life was better. Wisdom is the process of gaining more knowledge, more control over our lives.
“For those things which did not go well in the culture, the others blamed the government, or overpopulation, or drugs, or poverty, or broken families.
"Martin saw those things, but knew they were not the real causes. He saw greed. He saw tyranny: personal as well as government tyranny. He saw arrogance: the arrogance that kept people from looking into themselves and others for what needed to be changed. Many times he tried to speak of what he saw with anyone who would listen. ‘It is people, not situations, that must change,’ he said. ‘Laws cannot change people, and therefore cannot save the culture from the flaws of its people.’ But no one heard him, and he saw no hope.' "
As I listened to Grandfather's story, it was hard for me to imagine a family where father, mother and brother would not listen to the deepest thoughts and questions of one of their own; where only one of a family thought of what was good or wise or true, and that one had the hatred of the others. Edward Martin must have anguished for his family, for the culture, for all of Earth.

"Then Martin began to have dreams," Grandfather went on. "In his dream he cried out to his parents and his brother that they must get to high ground, for a tidal wave was coming. But they did not hear him, did not see him. He went out into the street and cried out ‘Get to the mountain! Leave your things and go!’ But no one saw him; no one heard him. And then the wave came. It roared and thundered over all. Buildings and people were rolled and trampled by the towering water. But he, Edward Martin, stood still and was untouched, although the dark waters crashed over him. Cars, trucks and factories crumbled around him; all was crushed and hurled in deep torrent, but he stood calm. Then he walked. Though under one hundred feet of churning water, he walked. He walked out of the torrent and away from the devastated city, and he was spared. This dream he had night after night, and he knew that something terrible was to happen.
"So one day, he left his home and his family, knowing only that he must get away from the seething city. To the west there were mountains, and orchards in the foothills near the mountains. It was in that direction that that he walked, passing as one seeking work in the orchards. Several stopped and offered him rides in vehicles, and soon he was near the orchards, but he walked on, into the mountains. And there in the mountains he came upon an old cabin, empty for years. There he stayed and learned to live in the mountains—to trap, to raise a few foods, to survive. Sometimes he ventured down to the nearby town, for supplies, using what little money he had.
"And then, the vapors came. A thin, gray, musty vapor rose from the direction of the town, and in the distance a heavy, gray cloud rose over the city. Martin did not know what the vapor was, but from his place on the mountain he watched as it lifted from below. Three days the vapor rose from the city, and on the night of the third day, Martin again had the dream of the tidal wave crashing over the city. But this time, as he walked out of the tumult, an old man at the edge of the city met him. And the man said to him, ‘It is over.’ When he woke from this last dream of the tidal wave, he knew there was a change in the land. When he stepped outside he saw that the vapor had ceased and the air was clear above the nearby town, and above the city in the distance. That day he came down off the mountain again to the town near the orchards. The roads had grown quiet. Vehicles stood empty. There were no people in the town. The stores and the schools were empty. The homes were empty. The people were gone. And then Martin knew what the vapor had been.
"Of course now we know well what the vapor was, for our own bodies vaporize when we die. Animals and plants do not, but people do. It was not always so. Before the Change, people’s bodies did not vaporize. They buried or burned their dead. But Edward Martin found no bodies, no fresh graves, and from that he knew. He was then nineteen years of age.
"So when death swept the city, the nation, the planet, Martin was spared. He was spared because he was one who struggled honestly. He was spared because he saw deeper than the superficial problems and was no longer part of what was wrong on earth. Though we cannot travel the whole Earth, we suppose now that a few hundreds of thousands were spared of all the teaming billions once on Earth. But Martin did not know this. He was alone, and for a time, he wondered if he was the only survivor on Earth, doomed to live and die alone. Yet his senses told him there must be others who were spared.
"Martin thought long in the following days on what had happened. He had known something must happen, but he did not know what it would be. The people had been rushing headlong toward they knew not what. Clear thinking on what was good for people had been left far behind in the rush for more and better ways of doing. When doing is put ahead of thinking, wisdom dies, and the people forget their Long Journey of learning.
"Martin waited a full month before he ventured again to the Old City, to see what fared there. This time there were only empty vehicles on the roads. There was no one to ride with, so he walked. When he reached the great city, he found that there, too, the streets were empty; no shouting masses, no vehicles crowding along streets, no lights. No bodies did he find, or bones. He visited a burial field, to see if there had been an increase in burials at the end, but there had not been. The wave of death must have been very fast."
Grandfather’s story of Edward Martin stirred much feeling in me that I could not explain, and I nearly wept when I heard it. I could almost see Edward Martin’s life; his struggles and anguish. That night, as we slept beside the river, I dreamed of Martin, and of the city in turmoil.

It was on the ninth day, early in our day’s walk, that we caught sight, in the distant north, a curious straight, gray shape, which rose beyond the farthest hill.
"What is that?" I asked, pointing.
Gazing northward, Father answered, "It is a tower building of the Old City. Likely we will reach the city’s edge this evening."
"But it is just over the far hill, surely only half a morning’s walk," I said.
Father smiled, and said, "It is far taller than it seems, and farther away, as a mountain may be seen at great distance. We will see more such tower buildings soon, but it is indeed a day’s walk still to the edge of the city. And the tower you see now is in the center of the city."
I could not understand what a tower building could be. How could a building be so large, so tall that it could be seen from such distance? We walked on, and the tower building seemed to move away from us, always beyond another hill, and it loomed slowly larger and taller through the day. And as Father had said, we began to see other such towers to the north, gray and straight. It gave me a curious feeling, for I could not imagine men building such large structures. I asked why it was they did this.
"There were so many people and so little space that they built many-layered buildings, very high," Father said. "Perhaps they built also to glory in the power to build."
As the sun descended, we reached the city’s edge, as Father had said. There we passed by a vast field filled with tangled ducts of all sizes, many strange towers and tanks and conveyances, and vast round vats. It seemed we could have built our entire village inside one of these immense vats.
"What was kept in these vats?" I asked.
"It was the energy liquid that fed the engines of vehicles," said Grandfather. "I have seen it work, when I was young. It was poured into a small tank built into the vehicle. It had a terrible odor, and would annoy the skin if spilled on it. It required these vats and many more such to feed the engines for all the vehicles. These ducts and towers of apparatus produced the energy liquid, by means that we no longer understand."
I did not want to go among the vats and tower ducts, for they gave me an eerie feeling. We planned to camp in a place Grandfather knew, not far ahead. Factories surrounded us now, there was no open land to be seen. Grandfather said that before the Change, little grew among the factories and roadways. Now, trees and bushes had broken through the roadway and grown tall, and trees grew also within the tumbled buildings. Rabbits we saw, and deer, and a lion rested in a tree near a stone building. Stone buildings, those of natural stone, stood fast, while many of the buildings made of red kiln stones were crumbling. There were several bridges across the river, one of stone, many of metalwork. The metal ones were degrading, as was much of the old metalwork.
Grandfather explained about the making of the smooth roadway stone and the shaped stonework of the bridges, for it was not natural stone. It was first ground to powder by machines, and then mixed with water much as bread dough is made from ground grain and water. Then it was poured into wooden structures built to the shape that was wanted. As the water dried out of the mixture, the stone was left, solid and strong. That is the way many structures were built, yet the made stonework did not last as well as natural stone. Grandfather said that there were in some places, ancient buildings and roadways built long ago, even before the time of machines and before the made stone, but which still stood, while those of the made stone were crumbling. But with made stone, buildings could be done faster and with less expense than building with real stone. Always the Old Ones wanted to build fast, it seemed.
We passed on. The sun was lowering, and though we tired much, we walked at good pace to reach the place Grandfather knew about. We passed out of the factory area and were soon among very large homes, now broken and crumbled. Several families lived in each home, though separately, and they were two, sometimes three, levels high. Always there were many vehicles on the roadways. The larger building had fields near them, which were filled with vehicles in rows. We still could see the tower buildings from time to time, when their sight was not blocked by nearby structures. They were very tall indeed, to be seen from more than a day’s walk away.
At last, as it was darkening, we came to a place by the river where there were no buildings, and we made camp among the trees. Grandfather said it was a place for people to come when they wearied of the city¯a place to sit quietly among trees and grass. There was no open land among the homes, so in a few places throughout the city, small spaces of land were kept free of buildings, so that people might remember what open land was like. I was very tired, and glad of the place, for buildings and factories now surrounded us. As I lay there by the river in the open place within the Old City, I felt sad; sad for the people who lived here Before.
Leaving our camp early the next morning we trekked up a long hill, passing homes and other buildings. Some of the larger, kilnstone buildings were schools, Grandfather said. We crested the hill and looked northward. And there, spread wide and far before us, lay the ruins of the Old City. I could hardly grasp what I saw, for none of Grandfather’s stories had made a big enough picture in my mind. There were ruins as far north as we could see, and they stretched also to the east and the west, as far as we could see. Buildings of all sizes, we saw. Most stone buildings still stood firm, while wooden ones hung slack on their frames, or were collapsed entirely. Some sturdy roofs of tile or shiny metal had held fast. Others of poorer materials were slumped and broken. Roadways called streets were laid out in straight squares among the buildings. The river¯our river¯snaked among the ruins toward the tower buildings. Several bridges spanned the river; some of shaped stone, some of metal. And always the great tower buildings rose above all, at the center of the ruins. Near us, as we started down the long slope into the city, lay another vast factory place, with many ducts, conveyances and tanks of all sizes.
It took all the rest of that day, as Father had said it would, to reach the center of the city. The empty tower buildings loomed higher and higher overhead as we approached. When finally we walked among them, they seemed to fill the sky. From below, so deep in the streets below, it was difficult to see their tops, so far above did they rise. By the river near the city's center was another place of no buildings, and it was there we set up our little camp for the night. It was an eerie place, the Old City. This same river flowed by our little village far to the south, and I thought of my mother there, singing as she liked to do while she worked. Our village was long and far from this place, and of a different way of life.

It was strange, awaking the next day in the center of the Old City. Birds flitted and sang, just as at home; yet all seemed lifeless and cold among the tall, gray towers and the streets. The animals and birds seemed not to notice the cold, though. We watched a black bear amble out of a stone building and lumber off. Rabbits were plentiful, and we surprised a young deer, which snorted and bobbed away on the roadway, dodging among the vehicles.
All that day we walked the roadways and bridges among the tall towers. And though the day was warm and bright, I felt sick and cold inside with the empty lives of those who had lived here Before. What did they live for? For what goals? For the comforts of their cluttered lives? For the power to bring talk and pictures into their homes from afar? For money and fine things? For the pretense that all was good, and that they were happy with themselves? It was as though they died a thousand deaths each day, playing out life as on a stage, all the while persuading themselves in every way they could that all was good.
The city pressed around us, and I wished to be far to the south, at home among our own people; where the sun warmed our broad and green valley, and tall trees whispered by the river. But here among these gray towers had lived countless thousands. I could feel their cold, heartless grabbing for power. I could feel how good they thought themselves to be as they pursued goals that were empty. They seemed to clutch at me from the past, to clamor in my ear that I should follow their path.
But their path was not the path of Betterment that my father had taught me. Nor did they glimpse the depth of life; the great path of learning and growing that gives us meaning. What did they want that was good? I could sense nothing. They wanted only power, self-importance, comfort, entertainment. They did little or nothing for self-betterment, which is so important to us now, but instead thought only of gaining more things, more power. As we walked, I felt more and more the dull, grasping desires of these people. I saw them in thousands, teaming along the roadways and walkways, filling the tall buildings, working the many machines of the city. Their cold, arrogant presence gripped at my stomach, and I nearly cried aloud to them: "Why? Why do you live this way, without questions, without meaning, without caring?"
Across the river in the heart of the city the great tower buildings rose so that the lowest clouds almost played among the tops. My mind reached back, and brought me pictures, even knowledge of how it had been. I seemed to remember the masses, hurrying along walkways among the towers; vehicles in constant, urgent purpose moving along the roadways, machines grinding and clattering while people hovered near, keeping the machines working and carrying materials about.
In the schools, young people learned of counting, of buying and selling, of the building of machines, of organizing and planning work for others to do, of running such a city, such a country, such a world. They learned how to help people to be comfortable, happy and entertained; how to help them believe that their lives were good and that they themselves were good. It was no wonder people had to be taught that all was well, for they could not have believed so had they thought for themselves.
The government gave special honor to the weakest of the culture: those who did no useful work, but only produced more children to live in the buildings, watch the talk-and-picture machines, and eat. The government provided for these, and gave them places to live in and food to eat and honor. Counselors explained to them that all was well, and that they deserved even more than was given them.
Whoever wished to do the running of the city would make fine promises to the people as to what would be done for them in exchange for the winning of the positions of running the city. Ballots among all the people selected whomever was most persuasive with the promises, to run the city.
Lives were spent in buying and selling, or working for those who bought and sold, using machines that allowed one to speak to another across the miles, finding more and finer things to have, more ways to say life was good. What could they think life was for, to do all these things in the name of a good life?
And then it came to me that I had been a part of this, Before. I had been such a person, who lived among such buildings, who needed such machines to live by, who needed a city, a country to care for me, to make me comfortable and happy. I had been such a person at one time, perhaps many times.
I saw all these things, and I asked my father, "Why? Why did they do all this?"
And my father said, "There are many answers, Zharkand. To them, betterment meant more machines, bigger structures, finer vehicles, more entertainment, more power. Since they did not know of the spirit, nor remember its journey, they thought that what they accomplished with their bodies were the real achievements of life. They wanted to achieve, and to be comfortable in their achievements, and to feel that they had done great things. These were the things they did in the name of betterment. But they had lost the desire to better the spirit, to learn and grow in the spirit."
I stood by the river and felt the grabbing masses around me, heard their voices raised in demanding, greedy tones. And vile was their callused, greedy hunger for more and more—as if gorging on power would fill their souls. Father had said it: They did not know of the spirit and its long journey of betterment. Instead, they sought betterment in things, pursuing goals without purpose, building satisfaction without meaning. And when the meaning they built rang hollow, they sought entertainment for their empty hours. They wanted to do, rather than to be.

We were near the river where it curled among the tower buildings, when I suddenly stopped still, and cried out,
"I know this place!"
Father and Grandfather looked at each other, then at me. The thousands disappeared from my memory’s eye, and once again the city was empty save for Father, Grandfather and me. But still I remembered, feeling an emotion I could not name.
I came back, back to the city, after the Change. I came back, and I found the city empty. But then . . . but then I saw . . . I turned toward the river as if dreaming; my feet carrying me to the edge of the walkway, and I gazed across the water, something rising strong within me.
"There!" I cried, pointing across the river. "There I saw her! When I came back, I saw her across the river!"
Father and Grandfather looked at each other. They knew. It was Grandfather who spoke. "When Edward Martin, my grandfather, came back to the city, he walked the roadways, as we have done, but he came from the west."
"Yes," I said, "From the mountain!" My heart pounded. I was near to tears.
"On the second day of his return, he was near this place when he saw someone." Grandfather spoke almost gravely.
"Across the river! Across the river I saw her!" I pointed. "There!"
"Yes," answered Grandfather. "My grandfather brought me to this very place when I was young, and here he told his story. It was the first person he had seen since he had left the city. He was not afraid when he saw the person, but still he approached cautiously." I could not move, listening to Grandfather.
"He came to the riverbank where now we stand, and he called out across the river, for it was the first person he had seen in a year's time. The one across the river heard him and stood still, watching. Martin called out again, but there came no answer. He called again, but no response came. They stood many minutes, staring at each other across the river."
My memory's eye was open, and I saw the one standing across the river. "And then," I said slowly, "I turned, and walked upriver along the bank. We both walked upriver, each on his own side, until we came to a bridge across the river. There." And I pointed. "That bridge."
I could not keep back tears as I went on: "We stood at our two ends of the bridge. And then we began walking toward each other, across the bridge. And when we stood face to face, at the center of the bridge, I saw that it was a young girl who had walked from the other end of the bridge to meet me. And I said to her, ‘I am Edward Martin.’ "
But her reply was not clear in my memory, and I looked again to Grandfather. “She replied in a language you could not understand,” Grandfather said, “and you knew she must be from a foreign land. And so you stood face to face for many minutes, unable to talk with each other."
"That is why I could not understand her! Yes, I remember! She had to learn English!"
"Yes," said Grandfather, "When you left the bridge, you walked together. And you took her to a library."
"That is a place of books!" I cried.
"Yes, and maps. And when you found a great book of maps, she tore it from your hands and turned sheet after sheet until she finally pointed on the map to a little country across the sea. Then she pointed to herself and again to the little country on the map. It was the place of her birth, across the sea."
I looked at my grandfather, and my father. "You have always known this!"
"Yes, Zharkand." It was my father who answered. "We have always known that you were Edward Martin. But it was better that you find the memory yourself."
My father was smiling, and tears were on his face. But I knew his thought, and it was that he felt sure now. I had found the memory of Edward Martin, who had lived here in the times Before, and had known how empty, how wrongly grown the times. Now my father finally felt sure that I understood the need for Betterment, and that I would hold fast to wisdom. For I knew from my own memory how wrong had grown the times, Before. I would hold fast to the great path of Betterment, for I saw how empty the lives of those who had forgotten that path.
Grandfather went on to tell of Edward Martin and the young woman he met on the bridge, and I remembered flashes of it as he spoke. Miranda was her name, and her country was called Bavaria. In the dim corridors of many books, Edward Martin and Miranda found a book of the two languages, her language and his. It showed English words and Bavarian words of the same meaning, side by side. They took the two-language book, musty with the dampness of the library, and for days they talked, using the two-language book.
She had come from Bavaria just before the Change, to visit her cousin, perhaps to stay in America. But when the Change came, she did not die as the others, for she too, saw how wrongly grown were the times. But neither did she flee the city, for she knew not where to go. She hid in empty buildings when the wave of death came, and the vapor. And when the death wave was past, she was alone. There was ample food in the stores, in cans, and water in bottles. She lived on, but Martin was the first person she had seen since the Change.
"And so," Grandfather said, "When Martin left the Old City and returned to the mountains, Miranda walked with him. And together they lived, in the mountains. And Miranda bore him two sons and one daughter. It was they, in our family, who decided not to use the old names, but devised names to their liking for their children. I never knew Miranda, who was my grandmother, for she died a few years after giving birth to their last child. But they called their youngest child Vershoy. And it was he, Vershoy, who was my father."


We are more people now. The village has grown, for now it is one hundred and eighty-three years After, and I, Zharkand, am eighty-one years of age. Both my father and grandfather have gone on. Far I have been in my travels, always speaking for Betterment, and hearing the thoughts of others. It is our own thoughts and desires that build us into us what we become, be it for good or for ill. In that way, we must be our own Maker. We can always learn of wisdom and goodness from those around us, and from on High. Yet we alone build ourselves, little by little and day by day; and many the choices we make in the building. For deep and wide is life on the great path of the spirit's journey, and filled with much experience. And many are the others whose journeys we touch, and some whose journeys closely we share. And much we can learn by the sharing of what is good from our journeys.
That is the value of people struggling together: the sharing of experience and thought, and the flow of doing what is truly good toward each other. No two journeys are identical, yet the truth, the nature and purpose of life are the same for all. So when our thoughts differ from those of another, it is well to struggle until we understand why, and this brings us closer to the truth. Those who touch journeys, and even more those who share journeys closely, may mean much to each other in the never-ending struggle to learn to live by what truly works.
There is a machine at our village now: a mill, which we built, by the river. Yet we must be very wise with machines. We must never become too interested in them. Never must we desire comforts for ourselves above self-betterment. We must watch our own hearts. Each little desire must be weighed with all the wisdom we can muster. What is the consequence of this desire or that, we must ask. And changes in the ways of our people must come slowly, tested and questioned over and over, through long experience. For only what is good for our true Betterment must be used, all else left behind. We must never build too fast, for we might leave wisdom behind, as the Old Ones did. And it is always the betterment of our spirit, rather than more power to do things, that we must seek.
Tomorrow, another journey begins. Kamayson, who is my son, and Neyshosen, who is Kamayson's son, will journey to the Old City, and I too will go. Many things have we have told to Neyshosen. But to be told of the Old Times is not enough. Now he must see and remember for himself. Then his own long experience will speak to him. It is not for us to tell him what he must think. For he must know his own heart, his own memories, his own wisdom. He is ready.
We must each live by the experience and wisdom of our own Long Journey. These are the great learnings, which the Old Ones forgot. They forgot the spirit, and lived instead for what they could do in the physical world, for what they could acquire in one life. And in forgetting the spirit, they no longer knew of the Long Journey of growth, learning, and Betterment.
It can be said that our heritage is the Old Ways, the foolish ways, for indeed; we were a part of those ways at one time. Yet we have an even older heritage¯a heritage of lives we lived long before the Old Ways. And we must remember our wisdom from those times, long before Earth fell to foolishness and evil. By wakening our own wisdom, learned in the long struggle of many lives, we find again the spirit's path of learning.
The spirit does many more deeds than the body. And we are accountable for all that our spirit does, both near and far, for far the spirit can reach across the miles, for good or for ill. We are accountable for our desires, our thoughts. We do not say that we will never again build machines, nor tall buildings. For it was not the tall buildings and the machines that were so terribly wrong. Rather it was what was in men's hearts. That is why we must know our own hearts so well. We must never again build greed and arrogance in our hearts. We must never again put comfort, power and entertainment ahead of our own true Betterment. It was those poor desires that led men to build too fast, to devise things without weighing whether they were truly for betterment in spirit.
Tomorrow then, we journey to the Old City, now a bit more crumbled than I first visited there with Father and Grandfather, near sixty years ago. There Neyshosen will see, and perhaps remember. But one day there will not be ruins to remind us. The ruins will crumble to rubble, and finally, to dust. And then, memory alone must be a living window to the past.

There is a place I like to go, high on the cliff above the river. There I sit and watch the river, and there I can speak with my father and grandfather. And I speak also with Edward Martin, my grandfather’s grandfather, whom I was. It is indeed much like looking through a window to the past, where Martin lived at the end of the Dark Times. Through him I remember the great confused peoples of Earth, pressing this way and that, without personal wisdom, their experience deadened by the hurrying confusion, their wisdom buried under foolish wants and false ideas, meaning and fulfillment lost. And as Edward Martin, I was part of it, until something awoke within me and I saw.
My life will one day end, as did Martin’s before me, and as did many, many others of my own journey, before that. But again will I be born, and another name will I be given, perhaps one that would be strange to me now. It is my hope that Zharkand’s betterment and wisdom will serve well as a part of my heritage then, as Edward Martin’s has for me. For it is not the path of the culture in which we now live that is our deepest heritage, but rather it is our own personal long path where we grew, through many choices and learnings, to what we now find ourselves to be.
For some, there is much wisdom to remember from the path we traveled, the choices we made, the person we have become. And for some, the path was built with many mistakes, many false learnings, many wrongs done. So there is much to correct. And no one's wisdom has been good enough, or Earth could not have fallen so very far.
We build now what will be our heritage in yet another life. Often when we think of the heritage we would build, we think of our children, and of their children yet to come. Yet it is not only for our children and grandchildren that we build this heritage. We build for ourselves as well, for we must be born again in another time. And what growth, what wisdom, what clarity of desires will we bring forward to that new life? The Long Journey goes on, and each choice forms part of a pattern of meaning in the journey. This is the heritage of learnings and choices that we carry forward. For we build.
We must seek constantly the path of Betterment for ourselves. We must glean wisdom through question and struggle. For we build. Always, we build. We may build for the Betterment of our spirit, or we may build for its fall, but we build.

Struggle well, Neyshosen. Grow in wisdom, my grandson.