In the late part of the twenty-fifth century, in lands that had once been part of America, a nameless people wandered the ashen, desiccated earth, searching for a better place, a place they still called “America,” which most believed existed though seemingly no one had seen. On many of the bodies of the failed pilgrims that littered the plains, one could find the following text, crudely printed, author unknown:
ADVICE TO THE TRAVELER LOOKING FOR AMERICA
If you start to feel like you’ll never make it to America, you have to find a way to hope. A way to believe. Your faith in America and your distance from its lands are one and the same. To find America is like so much else: faith and its realization are conjoined twins, one’s heart pumping the other’s blood. To find America, you must only believe that you will find America.
But if, when you are an old man or woman, you stop believing; if you decide that you’ve looked long enough; if you start to number your burdens; if, defeated, you return home; if, at the end of your life, you should count yourself among the cynics, promise me that you won’t be so selfish as to believe the idea of America belongs to you alone.
Instead, you should tell others, tell your children, how close you came, that if only had carried another canteen of water or another sack of food, maybe you could have made it all the way.
The truth is that the idea of America has always been as important as America itself. The idea of America is the light coming through our window. Without it, the darkness of night would blacken all rooms, all corners, leaving us blind to fumble and crash about our things.
And so, in the last moments of your life, when your child presses his ear to your lips, both of you straining for a final word, promise me that you’ll whisper America’s name. Promise me that you’ll say, “America,” as if it’s laid out before you.
adapted from The Story of Forgetting
