Young, slim, and very beautiful, she came to the old man's hut with small, hesitant steps. The old man watched her approach. He was sitting on the large, hollowed out stone some villagers had placed before his hut as a kind of chair. The old man found the stone very comfortable indeed. Especially on days like this when the sun shone down upon his makeshift seat, equally warming the smooth surface of the rock and the old bones that never seemed to lose the winter's chill.

"Are you the one they call Dreamwalker?"

"I am sometimes called that, yes. And what is your name child?"

"I am called Hasu. My friend says that you remember the time before, is that true?"

"The time before what, Hasu?"

"The time before the villages, when people lived in shining cities of glass and stone."

"I remember, but it is a thing better forgotten. Surely you have not come here to learn of cities and worlds we have long since left behind."

"No," she smiled, her cheeks dimpled and flushed. "Shika, my friend? She says that you are a giver of dreams, although I would not want one like hers."

"Dreams come from within you, Hasu. Shika got exactly the dream she wanted, but tell me, why do you want a dream?"

"I want to see beyond this world of work, pleasure and pain. I want to see eternity and to know if there is a god."

"Do you want there to be a god? If you want a god you must dream one up on your own. I have seen many gods come and go in my time, Hasu, and all of them have one thing in common, they demand your complete devotion, above and beyond any other thing in your life. A god, whether wood, silver, gold, stone or spirit, will ask everything of you and return only promises. Dreams cannot give you a god, Hasu."

The young woman frowned deeply. He could see that for all her naivete, she had a sincere desire to know the how and why of the world around her. Perhaps, after all this time, here was someone he could teach. Perhaps, with time, some knowledge could be saved beyond the planting of crops and the raising of children.

"If dreams cannot give me a god, does that mean there is no god?"

The old man smiled. "If you dream true dreams, then you will not need a god. But here, let us cast the sands of time and see what they reveal."

From a pouch at his waist the old man brought forth a handful of sand and tossed it over her. It landed upon her head and shoulders as soft as a summer rain, and then...

She was a lotus. Rooted deep in the muck and mire at the bottom of a stagnant pond, she rose up through the muddy depths toward a light she could barely see, finally breaking free of the surface and opening her petals to worship the sun. She marveled at the contrasts that weren't, differences that were really similarities. Sticky and slimy against her roots, mire at the bottom nourished her growth and sustained her life. The water, heavy with suspended dirt, moss, and algae, protected and strengthened the tall stem that lifted her finally above the surface to shine in radiance. Even so, frogs hunted for insects among her leaves while spiders spun their webs from one stem to the next. Flies, gnats, bees, and other insects came hunting nectar, bringing with them pollen to fertilize her blossoms and produce the seeds that kept her life going.

She was laying on the ground and wondering if she had fallen.

"Did you find your god, Hasu?"

"There is no god," she said, the memory of her dream blossoming inside her like a lotus opening to the sun. "And there is no need for one. Unless..."

"Unless what, Hasu?"

"Unless life itself is a kind of god?"

"Life is not god, and god is not life, but the realization of that is the first step down a long path that very few can follow. If you would like to learn more, then in the evenings when your chores are done, come here and prepare a small meal. We will break bread together and I will teach you the things I know. When I am gone, then you will be the Dreamwalker for the village so that our people may carry on. Do you want to learn, Hasu?" "Yes, Dreamwalker, I very much want to learn."