No one lives in Extinction the size of a small aquarium apparently filled with gray sand and pebbles. No one visits this absence.
The denizens of Extinction are long dead.
The Hermit Historian of Extinction carries about the aquarium full of dead sand.
He knew the names of all the extinct plants and creatures and everything about them.
He tells everyone he meets about Extinction and shows them the empty aquarium.
He wanders from land to land as a warning.
The hermit looks mild and innocuous or large and looming depending upon the perspective of those he meets.
Some look into the aquarium and peer at the sand unconcernedly.
Others see void and hear howling winds. It fills them with a terror from which they never recover. They spend the rest of their lives pleading — “Protect! Preserve!”
“Look at The Hermit Who Carries Extinction,” they say. “That could be us one day.”
The capitol Small, located outside of the aquarium, is the Hermits Home, where he rests when he is not wandering and warning others of the danger of Extinction. Around his home live animals on the brink of Extinction. When the hermit returns home, those animals wander into his aquarium or — those lucky enough take flight or form herds and leave the Small Forest Near Extinction.
In the pond beside the hermit's home, swim the fishes becoming extinct. When their numbers grow they disappear, when their numbers shrink too small they enter the Aquarium of Extinction.
The dour, usually expressionless, Hermit Historian of Extinction smiles suddenly when a flock of cranes take flight. He leaps with joy as a young man, whoops and watches them fly away to other lands where they belong.
Miss Emeline Traveler alone was invited to the hermit's Small home. They spoke together in whispered voices. She stayed in Small for several days to meditate on the edge of Extinction.
"It’s a place of solace and deep sadness," says Miss Emeline Traveler. "But from here we wake up the worlds."
“It happens rarely,” says the hermit. “But it happens. Usually, at first, one or two listeners at a time.”
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