sky to heaven - the invisible life.

I was standing in a courtyard with a rhinoceros. It was after the Great Waste, and there only two animals left in all the world: the rhinoceros, and an elephant, which was resting outside the courtyard. Both were very old, and very scarred. Both had been among the strongest animals in the savanna. But now there were no other animals left. All the lions, snakes, foxes, vultures, and zebras had all disappeared during the Great Waste, vanished as if they had never before existed. Now there was only the rhinoceros and the elephant, and all their families were gone. And I, I was the last man in the world. All I could feel was a sense of desolation and sadness.

Once upon a time, Man was just like the other animals, too, but in his greed and drive for power, Man eventually became King of the World, and for reasons unknown it was he who caused the Great Waste. Although I myself had not started the Great Waste, I felt a deep regret - and regret only comes from the feeling that we could have affected the course of events. For the first time I felt a vague itching sense of responsibility. I no longer thought of the world as “the world”, but as “our world” and that we had all created this outcome for it. And now the rhinoceros wanted to be the King of the Savannah, for the lion, which had once been King, was now gone. The rhinoceros said to me, “Now it is time for the rhinoceros to be King of the Savannah. I must fight the elephant.”

I tried to persuade the rhinoceros not to fight the elephant, for the elephant was a gentle creature, and there was no point in fighting now that all the animals had died in the Great Waste. But the rhinoceros would not listen; he said it was very important that he uphold the honor of his species. I tried to tell him that the honor of his species no longer mattered, since he was the last one left. But he was thick headed and stubborn, and he refused to listen. He said, “It is my duty.”

And with that he rambled out of the courtyard to seek out the elephant, and I helplessly watched him depart. And I was left to stand there within the ruins of the courtyard, under the pale blue sky. Then I heard the sounds, the large, fierce calls of the wild, and the earth shaking underneath…. The elephant and the rhinoceros were dueling to the end, the one struggling for honor, and the other for life. After a short while, the rhinoceros came rumbling back into the courtyard, limping only a little more slightly than before. One of his eyes was slightly damaged, and he did have a few bleeding cuts on his body, but nothing serious. His horn was completely bloody though, soaked with the life of the last elephant in the world. The rhinoceros said to me, with neither pride nor arrogance, but simply as a matter of fact, “Now I am King of the Savannah.” And so he was, for he was the only animal in the savannah left. There had been three of us, and now there were only two. I felt a sense of terrible loss and hopelessness. And then he looked at me directly with his one good eye, and with a determined gleam he said, “Now I want to be King of the World.”