They told me a story. The girl and the boy stood upon a rock, surveying a gap. The girl, standing on the right, and looking to her left, saw a rock, across an expanse. The boy, standing on the left, and looking to his right, saw an expanse across which lay an inviting rock.

“We have the word jump. The word jump allows us to cross expanses. Let us jump to the inviting rock.”

The girl was startled. Suddenly, the rather vast distance to the rock seemed tiny, almost insulting. As if the only possible option was to leap. But something was wrong. She knew it. She wanted to simply jump, but she hesitated, and looked again, carefully.

“Uh, I don’t know. I have a funny feeling about this. I sorta think you are right, but let’s go down there first and look around. I can see things from here we should have a look at.”

So they did. And they discovered that the gap added to the drop was about 45ft. They might have been killed. But the words made it seem so close, so utterly do-able, so right. Almost as if because you could speak them, you had to do them. See? That’s how it’s been now, for a long time.

Except we cannot hear the girl any more. She stopped talking after the 40th leap or so. That was thousands of years ago now. See?