On a weathered, sunbleached hill by a sparkling sea, there is an ancient town.  The wall around the town is immense, and appears equally ancient.  It is impressive.  The blocks are huge, each one bigger than a man.  And the blocks are fitted so closely together there is no mortar or gap.

The walls appear old.  And they are.  But only 50 or 60 years.

50 or 60 years ago,  the aging king–it is now his great-grandnephew who reigns–put his last burst of energy and the fruits of his long and prosperous reign into building the wall.  He engaged a young architect who was also full of energy and vision.  And the people round about were summoned as if for war.  Every man that could be spared at all worked night and day to cut the blocks and drag them from many miles away.

There was a peasant who was a young farmer then, newly married.  His young wife kept the farm by herself–ceaseless toil and heroic effort.  And he worked on the wall night and day.  Stripped to the waist, muscled, laboring in the cool morning and the hot day and the cool evening and into the torchlit night, he was a hero.  Once a block was teetering and he was the first to rush and strain to hold it up, saving the block and the unsuspecting men below it would have crushed.  Once the architect himself complimented the young farmer.

Now many, many years have passed.  The wall has stood there and weathered for 6 decades until it looks to be part of the landscape and of an age with the city.  The old man–he is very old but he is still a farmer, still working–comes to the town on some business and gapes, like he always does, at the immensity of the walls.

Now, to understand the next part, you must understand  the passage of time.  The very old farmer has had a lifetime of events and cares and worries and projects and concerns since he was a young farmer.  He has raised children and granchildren, his wife has died, old trees have died and new ones have replanted, and the seasons have piled up with their sameness and change like the length of the path that separates his little plot from the town.

A couple of nearby townsmen see him gaping and they tell him, yes, countryman, those are incredible walls.  They were built by the gods many years ago.

And the old man no longer remembers clearly that he built the walls.  He only remembers something, a feeling, a feeling of something sacred about the walls.

So he believes them.  He accepts what they tell him.  Yes, the walls were built by gods, many years ago.

And he and they are right.