02.06

The Hero had a dream. He was on the deck of the ship, a short distance from the island where they would land, as dark, rocky waves guided them towards it. He could not make out where the sea ended and the island begun, if not for the crashing of the waves against the reefs. Behind the island he could not see any other land, only the endless horizon. Behind the horizon, however, the clouds represented something important. He quickly took a pencil and a piece of paper from a drawer and drew what he saw, despite the rocking of the boat.

Then the hero awoke, went on the deck and stood looking out to sea. It had the color of the earth, with dark, sharp waves. After a few hours they came in sight of an island very similar to the island he had dreamed, rocky and barren. He looked up at the sky and saw that the clouds resembled islands, just as he had dreamed. He took a pencil and some paper and drew what he saw as he could. He marked the peaks and the passages, as the clouds indicated, he marked the coasts and the inlets, he marked other islands, represented by smaller clouds. He recognized the island that was before them as the only cloud that was hanging over it. The signs in the sky represented the reef and the easiest point for docking. None of the companions asked the hero how he knew every detail of the place, as they all believed that the hero had already been to every place on earth, which is impossible, and that he drew maps from memory. On the island they found easy shelter, met no man for nobody lived there, but avoided the wolves and the bears, returning to sleep on the boat and doing guard duty, with torches marking the beach were they disembarked. After a few days, when they had filled the water tanks and collected enough food for navigation, the hero pointed in the direction shown by the clouds. Using the drawings of the Hero, which they called maps, they came to the land of Jumble, where they met men who talked singing, but that is another story.