Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Back Richard

Author:Back, Richard [Back, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Jonathan kept at it, fiercely, day after day, from before sunrise

till past midnight. And for all his effort he moved not a feather width

from his spot.

"Forget about faith!" Chiang said it time and again. "You didn't need

faith to fly, you needed to understand flying.This is jast the same. Now

try again ..."

Then one day Jonathan, standing on the shore, closing his eyes,

concentrating, all in a flash knew what Chiang had been telling him. "Why,

that's true! I am a perfect, unlimited gull!" He felt a great shock of

joy.

"Good!" said Chiang and there was victory in his voice.

Jonathan opened his eyes. He stood alone with the Elder on a totally

different seashore - trees down to the water's edge, twin yellow suns

turning overhead.

"At last you've got the idea," Chiang said, "but your control needs a

little work... "

Jonathan was stunned. "Where are we?"

Utterly unimpressed with the strange surroundings, the Elder brushed

the question aside. "We're on some planet, obviously, with a green sky and

a double star for a sun."

Jonathan made a scree of delight, the first sound he had made since

he had left Earth. "IT WORKS!"

"Well, of course, it works, Jon." said Chiang. "It always works, when

you know what you're doing. Now about your control..."

By the time they returned, it was dark. The other gulls looked at

Jonathan with awe in their golden eyes, for they had seen him disappear

from where he had been rooted for so long.

He stood their congratulations for less than a minute. "I'm the

newcomer here! I'm just beginning! It is I who must learn from you!"

"I wonder about that, Jon," said Sullivan standing near. "You have

less fear of learning than any gull I've seen in ten thousand years. "The

Flock fell silent, and Jonathan fidgeted in embarrassment.

"We can start working with time if you wish," Chiang said, "till you

can fly the past and the future. And then you will be ready to begin the

most difficult, the most powerful, the most fun of all. You will be ready

to begin to fly up and know the meaning of kindness and of love."

A month went by, or something that felt about like a month, and

Jonathan learned at a tremendous rate. He always had learned quickly from

ordinary experience, and now, the special student of the Elder Himself, he

took in new ideas like a streamlined feathered computer.

But then the day came that Chiang vanished. He had been talking

quietly with them all, exhorting them never to stop their learning and

their practicing and their striving to understand more of the perfect

invisible principle of all life. Then, as he spoke, his feathers went

brighter and brighter and at last turned so brilliant that no gull could

look upon him.

"Jonathan," he said, and these were the last words that he spoke,

"keep working on love."

When they could see again, Chiang was gone.

As the days went past, Jonathan found himself thinking time and again

of the Earth from which he had come. If he had known there just a tenth,

just a hundredth, of what he knew here, how much more life would have

meant! He stood on the sand

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