Nihilistic lies: a large smooth lake lined with pocket-sized rocks, then boulders, and mountains. Visitors attempt to swim to the island in the middle of Nihilistic. With stones in their pockets, they sink to the bottom before they ever arrive. At the bottom of Nihilistic creatures walk with rocks in their pockets. They can breathe underwater, but lose their ability to speak.
"If they could speak they’d say, ‘We have nothing more to say to one another.'” the Guide says.
Sharp-toothed fish swim in between the visitors who feed them treats. The fish are the happiest of anyone.
Travelers to Nihilistic never leave the lake bottom. It’s covered in tourists. They eat algae and wear gowns of dead leaves that sink into the lake from the surrounding maple trees.
In fall, yellow, red, and green spatulate shapes top placid Nihilistic.
Birds fly far overhead and usually pass Nihilistic by.
On rare occasion, a crane dives into the lake and returns with a fish or stands silently on one leg before the Temple Hope in the center of the Island of Nihilism, creating such a picturesque moment such as the visitors at the bottom of the lake have never seen and will never capture.
Long-legged black, white, red, and yellow cranes stride through the water around the Temple Hope. Long-lived orange, blue, and green koi swim in circles and waves around it.
The Temple Hope is made of thin wood covered in gold flake. The floor is polished balsa wood and the roof red shellac shingles. The temple keepers of Hope are artists who carve soap wood statutes in the shape of their gods. Every year a new statue is imagined and made.
At night, the moon shines into Hope. In the day, the sun streams through the open walls. Birds fly through the temple on their way to other lands. The Temple accommodates visitors, but not guests.
Visitors send Postcards of Hope via Hope Cranes to their friends and relatives which every one displays proudly in their home.
"I could dream of one day becoming an Artist of Hope, a Keeper of Hope myself," says Miss Doe Friend.
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