Dave Eggers - You Shall Know Our Velocity

"Sure," I said.

"But these people want to carry around everything and everyone. They walk with thousands in each step, speaking with thousands with every word. They forget nothing, you know – they recognize the weight of these mountains, everyone walking around with these mountains, or trying to walk around. Man, these guys were amazing."

"I believe you. So is this a God-based religion? Did they have a main mountain-god entity guiding the rest, the mini-mountains?"

"No, no. That wouldn't fit. Why would you need a central overseeing god when everyone has the wisdom of thousands inside? The accumulation makes all people have the wisdom of gods, the experience of immortals. Potentially at least."

"They worship themselves."

"No. No worship at all. It's just these people carrying around their mountains, knowing the weight of their souls."

"This is where the helium fits in?"

"Let's go find the ladies."

We braced ourselves and pushed through the door again and the cold punched us everywhere.

"So apparently," Hand continued, "ages ago these people, a thousand years ago or whatever, were bird-worshippers."

"Oh come on."

"They were totally fascinated by flight, more than most ancient tribes, and of course they wanted to fly themselves -"

"But there's a catch: they're mountains."

"Right, right. They were mountains, and so heavy. They knew this. So this was the primary problem of their civilization after a while. How to fly? How to fly with this weight? They would jump from small cliffs and try to fly, but would fall. Hundreds died that way, and they assumed it was because their souls were too heavy."

"Jesus."

"Yeah, they would just jump and fall. It was horrible. They lost about a third of every generation. So many died. So they started studying what the birds ate and did, and sort of applied what they could to emulate the birds."

"They made wings of feathers."

"No. They weren't allowed to harm the birds, their faith wouldn't allow it, so they couldn't get enough feathers. The main thing they figured out, I guess, was the concept of -"

He stopped.

"Didn't we see that cheese shop before?"

"Can't remember."

He checked the map. He chose a way.

"So what did they say about the birds? They studied them for about a hundred years and came up with something. Something about air. Sucking in air."

"I'm surprised you've remembered this much."

"Oh I remember everything. But I can't believe I'm not remembering their name. There was an Indian name and an English nickname – Oh!"

"What?"

"I remember the air thing. So they watched and studied the birds, and came to the conclusion that the birds ate air to stay afloat. They see the birds fly with their mouths open, like I guess whales eating plankton or whatever, and because their village was so high on this ridge, the birds they saw, hawks and falcons I guess, were gliding, using upward currents. So to these people the wings weren't seen as crucial."

"The wings weren't crucial."

"To them it was about air intake. They figured – you know, come to think of it, their science was pretty naive, but it was ambitious in a way. They were really trying to figure things out. So they theorized that the birds were taking something from the air that they weren't, or processing it differently, or something. They saw these birds as vessels for gases, like balloons, with the wings just guidance tools. So they figured that they could be vessels for gas, too. Lighter than air. So they started jumping."

"They're lunatics."

"Well, they see the birds gliding around their valley, and gliding down and then up again, and they start thinking it has something to do with the angle of intake. They're really just experimenting, and they've already been jumping off the cliffs to their death, so now they just jump from lower levels, trying to get themselves full of this special air. They're jumping like crazy. They're jumping, and they're running, and it becomes just part of their daily routine, leaping around and darting from place to place."

"They're trying to what? Build up their helium content?"

"Something like that. They start mythologizing it all, claiming that some day their tribe will fly. They figure with enough jumping and the proper special air intake, maybe three generations away, there'll be enough helium in their mountains to fly."

"Jesus."

"Yeah, but of course it doesn't really work, and they start realizing, deep down, like Christians have with the Second Coming, that maybe it's not going to happen after all. But that doesn't mean the lessons aren't valuable. The one goal has all these nice by-products. In this case they started liking all the jumping around, I guess. It was part of their culture. They saw a hill, they started leaping down. They saw a green valley, they'd run like mad to the other side. And they had sex like mad, but I take it that was just some clever cleric's idea. Anyway, I guess it all looked pretty goofy to the Spaniards, all these people running and hopping around with their mouths wide open, like they were completely surprised or in awe all the time, so these people were always considered a little flaky."

"So they would just -"

"The Jumping People!"

"What?"

"That's what they called them. The Spanish found these people and they were jumping around all the time, going up hills and crests and jumping all the time, so they called them the Jumping People."

"The Jumping People."

"The Jumping People, yeah. They really liked to jump. It became a rite of passage, a big jump from the ridge; and they incorporated the whole custom with their mountains. They held onto the helium notion, or maybe it was hydrogen, but instead of flying they saw it as a way to lighten one's load, to leaven one's mountain. So they'd do all this leaping and running and swimming and stuff, just running and running around sometimes, to lighten the weight of their mountains. It became essential to their functioning at all. They figured in the need for not only food kind of nourishment, but also a helium kind of nourishment."

"And so they still live there?"

"In Chile? No. They were chased around by the Spaniards, I think. They were dispersed all over the place. But they were relatively nomadic in the first place, so it wasn't a huge deal. I think most ended up assimilating, though. Raymond thinks he's descended from them but there's almost no way to prove it."

"Oh."

"But get this. This is the best part. Or one of the best things. The conquistadors at some point are mounting a siege on their main village, high on a jagged ridge. It's Masada, basically. There's about three-thousand Jumping People there, and maybe fifteen-hundred Spanish, but the Spanish have the artillery, so the Jumping People know it's a lost cause."

"So they killed themselves."

"No! No, no. They don't do that. Never."

"Oh."

"Never!"

"So?"

"So they ran!"

"They ran."

"These guys think they're the fastest people on Earth! They think they can outrun anyone, barefoot. So they're going to wait for a while, see if the Spanish go away, and then they're gonna haul ass. They're going to fly, basically. Take their mountains and go."

"So they just left?"

"There wasn't anything there worth fighting about, from their perspective. I mean, they're just sitting there one day, and the next second there're these people who want to kill them or whatever. They just had no way of processing that."

"So they ran."

"The other thing they believed, which goes way back into their history and philosophy, is the impermanence of place. They didn't ever stay anywhere all that long. They weren't constantly nomadic, like moving every other week or whatever like Indian buffalo hunters or anything, but they had a curiosity about place, knew there were other places to go, and so when these guys are after their land, they're not thrilled about it, but they also don't feel like they own it or anything either, so -"