Perhaps
Arthur Lawson
 
An old man shuffled over the face of a dry, dusty plain. There had once been vegetation here, but after a series of deadly rains had burned it to the roots, the hot wind had carried it away. On the vast tracts of exposed earth had beaten many days of scathing sunlight and this had turned a once-green valley into a flat, shimmering oven, broken occasionally by sharp-edged hillocks of grey sand. As the man walked along, frequent blasts of hot air fired into his face minute grains of stinging sand, and he raised one arm slowly and with apparent pain to ward off these attacks. His face was as burnt and dry as the wilderness he walked through and his tattered clothes hung on him like an ancient parchment.
He now approached a pile of long, jagged rocks, and falling on all fours, crawled into a wide fissure between two of the largest of them. In this shelter, and protected from the flaming sun, lay the body of a man.
"Hello, James", he greeted. "How are you getting on?"
"Better, sir. My heads clearer now; at least I can think straight."
The reply came from the figure that lay on the cool sand. Although his young face portrayed life and movement, the rest of his body was strangely deformed and stiff.
"I wish I didn't have to leave you for so long", said the older man, "but I feel I should see some of the others, too."
The visitor swept a few grains of sand from a hollow stone that lay beside the young man's head. Into this natural bowl he poured water from a small rusted bucket he had been carrying. The paralyzed man nodded and, twisting his head into the water, drank. He held the water in his mouth for a while and swallowed it with difficulty. Then he spoke.
"Sir, lying here for so long, I've had lots of time to think - something I can't ever remember doing before. What caused all this? Why this awful waste?"
The old man sat down beside the still form.
"You know all about the war, so I suppose you know the immediate cause."
"Yes, I've spent five years of my useful life learning all about the 'immediate cause', said the young man bitterly. "But there had been wars before. Why should six months make chaos of a world that has been building and growing for millions of years?"
"Oh, but this was not like the other wars. Since the beginning of time, man has been killing man with the deadliest weapons he could find - clubs, swords, arrows, cannons, gas - everything he could lay his hands on when his interests were threatened. It seems that the best of his resources and his brain-power was dedicated to slaughter."
"And that process finally reached a climax before the war? Ah yes, how clever we thought we were! We held in our hands the power of destroying everything - how mighty we were! We built up our power, and smiled with satisfaction, and said 'They won't use it, because they're afraid we'll use it'. We were like two great rocks leaning one against the other, and when one moved, the whole system came crashing down on humanity. We refused to recognize the danger and remove it, preferring to make useless plans for action when it did come."
The old man touched his companion's lifeless arm.
"Don't be bitter," he said. "After all, this was inevitable . Disaster had to overtake a world that could not keep up with what it created. It made wonderful things, good things, things that opened up a new world to its people. The universe and its possibilities grew as the physical world grew, but at the same time our imagination , our morals, our intellect were shrivelling up. We knew too much, really, because we didn't have the mental power to know how to use our knowledge. There was an Industrial Revolution, but no moral revolution, only weak and temporary revivals. We came to divorce morals from the world we were creating. The more we produced, the more powerful we felt, and the less and less we remembered the real presence - the real presence - of a Greater Power."
The young man beside the speaker opened his mouth to make a scornful reply. But then a new look of awe replaced the bitterness in his eyes.
"It was the Great Flood, all over again," he murmured after a long silence. "With such a people thriving in the world, a catastrophe that would destroy the whole worthless lot would be inevitable. I wonder if there will be any Noahs this time."
"Of course!" cried the old man, his eyes glowing. "Would God allow this world that He alone has created to be destroyed for ever by such insignificant, foolish beings as we? I am old and you are crippled, and neither of us will see the new earth. But there must be other people alive, younger and stronger than we are, who will. It will be many years until the rain is pure again, but then it will be a blessing to the thirsty earth, as it once was. Then the grass will grow, and perhaps even some birds will have survived to fly again. And man will begin a new life and a new struggle to improve himself."
"Perhaps he will" said the youth soberly. "And perhaps hate will survive along with love, and perhaps man will again learn to hate his neighbour, and perhaps wars will break out again..."
"And perhaps men will take our experience as a lesson, and will learn to live in love, instead of fear, and will make real peace a reality on the new earth. "
"Perhaps," said the young man. "Perhaps."