Signs of Intelligence

I walk briskly down the trail. To my left the dense undergrowth and trees separate me from the railroad tracks that run parallel. To my right I catch glimpses of the setting sun reflecting from the ocean's surface through the trees scattered about the steep embankment that leads down to the the shore. High tide has forced the calm water of the inlet as far as it can, right up to the bottom of this natural wall. The overgrown underbrush passively scratches my bare legs as I duck under the giant trunk of an arbutus tree as it reaches horizontally across the path towards the sunlight. Then, to my right, down at the water's edge below I hear it.

It's a gentle and steady striking noise, almost like a drum being hit in time. It's deliberate, the sound of something or someone working purposefully towards some goal or end. I crane my neck, looking down the slope to find the source. There is a path down through the trees to the beach. I imagine a gull or a crow below, repeatedly striking a clam against a rock or piece of driftwood, trying to get at the meat within. Maybe it's geese, I've seen them here before, a whole family in fact, though I think the little ones would be almost fully gown by now. I imagine it might be a person, doing God knows what.

I make my way carefully down toward the water, careful not to frighten off the mysterious percussionist. I stop partway down, and try to see if I can see from there what I seek to see. I hesitate; should I turn back and continue on my way down the path? I'm nervous it might be a person. Nervous that I might stumble out of the trees onto the little remaining beach only to be face to face with him, staring stupidly, possibly disrupting him in his bout for peace and sanctuary. I like to avoid such human contact, it's awkward. But the rhythmic call of the sound beckons me onward.

I make my way onto the small patch of grass that lines very edge of the beach. I look over to my right. I see nothing. Yet the sound continues. I look around desperately. Maybe it's farther down the beach than I thought?

Then I see it. The water gently laps against a small log, no more than three or four feet long and about five inches in diameter. Repeatedly, consistently, the water forces the log up against the sand and rocks.

Thump... Thump... Thump...

The waves beat the log in time with my sinking heart as disappointment settles in. All this time seeking the truth, hoping to find something, someone, and I have come up short. There is nothing there. No creative drummer, no persistent intelligent labourer, nothing, only the mindless, repetitive surge of the ocean. I'd read to much into what I heard. I'd taken what little information had been ascertained by my senses and extrapolated it into things, creatures, or people that were never there. I'd clambered down the narrow path through the trees, stepping out into the open, only to find I'll never discover what I've been searching, waiting, hoping for, because it never existed, save for in my mind.


Then again... maybe not... Do things cease to exist simply because I can not see them? Surely this creature never existed, but does that mean there is nothing there in the methodical movement of the ocean as it beats its drum along with the rest of the Creation Symphony? I heard the song, and while I sought to find a musician on the sands below, instead I found an instrument, diligently playing its part. I came looking for the workings of something of this world, but now come away reminded of the work of something out of this world.