My Library

among the green like a gigantic bouquet were clusters of fields each of a different color, one a mass of bright orange, another deep blue, whites, reds—fields of blooming flowers, bushes, and evidently hybrids of the two, because no flower could be that large. It was a pattern that could be seen only from high overhead, yet there were no aircraft—and that began to give me another faint percept. As we moved west, I became aware of other missing signs. There were no roads, not so much as a lane to service the fields. Also, no buildings, no houses, no barns, no sheds—I scanned in all directions and there were none. No cities, no towns, no villages, no power lines, no cars and trucks, no bicycles—all gone. The air was clear and clean, no smoke or smog. Then I had a flashing percept. There were no people. That was what I actually was looking for—men, women, children. What terrible catastrophe took them all away! (They are there. They are fewer in number, but it was not an event that made it so. What you perceive is by design.) We began to move more rapidly, westward, across the unending array of colored bouquets set in green, some so large they appeared to be many miles in width, and soon we were again over water, the Sea of Japan, as I remembered it, and still no ships on what once was such an important transportation route. Back over land again—the Korean peninsula?—and the pattern was different. In every direction were tall and stately trees with close upward-turned branches, of a species unfamiliar to me … but again no sign of human artifact to indicate Kilroy had been anywhere near the place. (Your percept is—how do you call it?—obsolete.) Before I had a chance to turn inward on that one, we were over water again, moving even faster, and back over land. This would have to be China. Surely with its teeming millions, some had to be visible. Evidently they didn’t have to be at all. We swept over mile after mile of deep green forests broken only by occasional grassy clearings and wide rivers and streams. Where are the rice paddies so vital to human sustenance? (There are a few, but for a different purpose. Bird sanctuaries.)