Earth Abides

Ish was thinking to himself that George had been asked that question a great many times in the course of this argument before. He really should have had his answer ready, but George was not a quick thinker and was not a man to be hurried. He shifted his tongue in his mouth, shaping words before he actually set out to reply, and in the pause Ish again watched Joey. The little boy’s glance moved quickly from the hesitant George to Ezra and to Jack, as if to see how those others were taking the pause; then Joey’s eyes sought his father’s again. All at once there was a quick comradeship and sense of understanding in the glance. Joey seemed to be saying that either his father or he would find an answer quickly and not hesitate as George was doing.

Then something exploded inside Ish’s brain. He did not hear the words that at last began to unroll slowly from George’s mouth.

“Joey!” Ish was thinking-and the name seemed to reverberate all through his consciousness. “Joey! He is the one!

”

“Thou knowest not,” Koheleth wrote in his wisdom, “how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child.” And though the centuries have passed since Koheleth looked upon all things and found them fickle as wind, yet still we know little of what goes to the making of a man—least surely of all, why usually there issue forth only those who see what is, and why rarely, now and then, there comes forth among them the chosen one, Child of the Blessing, who sees not what is, but sees what is not, and seeing thus what is not, imagines also what may be. Yet without this rare one all men are as beasts.

First in the dark depths and the flooding, those unlike halves must meet that carry within them each the perfect half of genius. But that is not all! Also the child must be born to the world in fitting time and place, fulfilling its need. But even that is not all. Also the child must live, in a world where death walks daily.

When each year children are born in millions, now and then the infinitesimal chance will happen, and there will be greatness and vision. But how will it be, if the people are broken and scattered, and the children only a few?

Then, almost without knowing what had happened, Ish found himself on his feet. He was talking. In fact, he was making a speech. “Look here,” he was saying, “we’ve got to do something about all this. We’ve waited long enough!”

As he stood there, he was only in his own living-room, and he was talking only to the few people who were there. He knew that they were only a few, and yet it seemed to him not so much as if he were talking just to these few in this little room, but rather that he was in some great amphitheater and talking to a whole nation or to all the people of the world.

“This has got to stop!” he said. “We mustn’t go on living forever just in this happy way, scavenging among all the supplies that the Old Times left here for us, not creating or doing anything for ourselves. These things will an give out some day-if not in our years, in our children’s, or grandchildren’s. What will happen then? What will they do when they won’t know how to produce more things? Food, they can get, I suppose-there will still be cattle and rabbits. But what about all the more complicated things we enjoy? What, even, about building fires after the matches have all been used, or spoiled?”

He paused, and looked around again. They all seemed pleased, and seemed to be agreeing with him. Joey’s face was transcendent with excitement.