There are numerous natural wonders in America.

One of them, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, had given me this sensation of being in a place that is mythical, out of this world.

Don't worry. I am not going to try to describe the place in lengthy prose. It would be silly on my part to try to compete with the many books, movies on this subject using my modest descriptive writing skills. I simply want to tell you a few personal experiences.

One morning, on our way back to San Diego from Bloomington, my family and I decided to visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, having been to the South Rim several times before.

We reached the desert around noon, having slept in late and having greedily thrown in a visit to the meteor impact crater. It was very sunny. The road we took, pulsating with mirages from the hot asphalt, was virtually deserted, winding through sandy, rocky areas with mountains spreading far into the horizon. Late afternoon, we arrived at Vermilion Cliffs, where rocks and sand have a rusty red color. Huge boulders lie here and there on the flat ground, some so big that they were once carved into dwellings by primitive denizens.

Intrigued, we stopped for a look. As soon as we got out of the car, we realized the temperature was about 100 degrees. We walked about for a short time, hurriedly took a few pictures and jumped back into the air conditioned car to continue on.

To me, it seemed that all the discomfort of a hot Summer day in the desert helped enhance the charm and beauty of the Grand Canyon area.

Reaching the pine forest, our eyes were soothed by the peaceful green foliage, after aching so much from the blazing sun and the desolation of the desert. We then drove along a green meadow stretching for miles, with the forest edges about a mile away from the road. The vastness of the meadow induced a feeling of being in an enchanted world.

The North Rim is less frequented with visitors. From one scenic point to another, it took hours of driving on roads winding through forests, creating the impression that one is slowly distancing oneself from this world, approaching a nether world.

As I had told you in a previous letter, the majesty of the Grand Canyon entrances me always.

That afternoon at the North Rim, however, more than entranced me; it turned me into an amateurish philosopher with thoughts of dissatisfaction with the Creator criss-crossing my mind.

It happened one moment while I was standing on a jutting rock facing an arch through which one can see a distant mountain.

I was at first mesmerized. Then, my body and my mind became literally frozen. My feet felt like glued to the ground, my eyes went unblinking for fear of loosing that spectacular moment of an afternoon at the Grand Canyon.

I felt the urge to just stand there to absorb in the great vista; to stay there to watch the sunlight moving on each cliff, each tree; to catch the moonlit view as night falls and the sunrise as a new day dawns; to see the same scenery in Autumn, Winter and Spring...I felt I ought to remain there for a thousand, a million years with unwavering adulation.

At first, I thought my own infatuation with nature had immobilized me, in a sense, I was voluntarily standing there because I did not want to take my eyes off the spectacular view.

Then I realized things were not that simple. It was difficult to step away when I thought of leaving. It was the Canyon itself that was keeping me tightly in its grip, as if it was afraid to let go of one element that was an integral part of its perfect whole. What exactly is that part? It wasn't another rock, another tree that made up the landscape, but rather my wide eyed admiration of that landscape. The Grand Canyon needed me like a theater needs an audience. I was to be one of those consummate connoisseurs who knew how to extract the most enjoyment out of a work of art, thus contributing to the perfection of a performance and bringing fame to the artist.

I felt gleeful playing a childish game of attempting to analyze the Creator by humble human foibles.

I was at first exhilarated, like a jealous fan who found out, on his first encounter with his idol, that the person was no taller, no more handsome than he was. I had spotted the Creator's weakness. Like mere mortals, the Creator likes to be flattered, to be idolized. He definitely needs admirers. I was immobilized on that rock, not by any mysterious force of the Grand Canyon but by the Creator himself, to admire his masterpiece.

Perhaps the end purpose of my existence for the last half century, after wandering from North Vietnam to South Vietnam and subsequently to America, was to be here at the Grand Canyon at this moment to be dumbfounded by nature. Perhaps I was allowed to survive the many calamities during my fifty some years because I was a special connoisseur that the Creator hates to let go to waste. I was as necessary as the audience that comedy show producers need to provide applause and laughter.

After realizing this, I also discovered another weakness of the Creator: He prefers perpetual change to boring familiarity.

Until now, I had visualized the Grand Canyon, like all other great natural wonders, to be forever unchanging for millions of years.

But that isn't so. The Creator is constantly altering, renewing his works, second by second. I became intensely aware of a permanent, general transformation that bears the markings of a divine mechanism.

The flowers that bloomed that day at the Canyon were not the same as those that did years ago. The pine seedling that had sprouted on the cliff this afternoon, differed from what it was yesterday: it had grown in size. The clump of pine trees down below and the vast pine forests behind me all grew and aged a little, differing from what they were themselves an hour, a day ago. The permutations, though imperceptible, are constant and absolute. A bird zigzagging across the precipice, even if it were by chance identical to another bird of thousands of years ago, followed totally different flight paths. A few lowly blades of grass under my feet, unimportant, grew by minuscule steps to contribute their part to the variety of plants and trees all over the planet. A dew drop on the rock this morning and those clouds in the sky were preparing for new clouds, new condensations of tomorrow.

The grains of sand, without internal permutations, also go through changes. Those under my feet would be moved about by my steps. Those of other inaccessible areas would be blown by breezes and windstorms. Those in deep crevices would be slowly altered by drops of water, by erosion. None would be able to evade the reach of nature.

From the rapid transformations in the cells of a flower to the slow, grinding erosion of mountains; the picture of nature is relentlessly updated in lockstep with the march of time.

The Creator, like an artist with a slightly skewered mentality, goes on reworking his painting, not toward perfection but to satisfy his irrational desire for changes.

I respected those lovable down to Earth qualities and I felt closer to the Creator. I was also thrilled for having partially lifted this veil that shrouded nature's secret.

Then I noticed this dead tree and a massive cloud gathering in the evening sky.

The dead pine tree on the cliff, not far from where I stood, would be in the foreground of a photograph my wife was trying to compose. It had two dead branches, one was about to fall off, the other was tangled with other branches. By itself, the tree looked unsightly. Combined into the surroundings, it became an appealing foreground element of a magnificent picture.

I found myself wondering how the image would be affected if the tree was different. I visualized the tree without its two dead branches, or still alive and full of leaves, or totally absent. Would the picture be any less perfect?

No, not really. No change would alter it by much. Even that arch, were its hollow center to be of a different shape or even solid, would remain picturesque.

Were man to remove a few mountains or fill up the area in front of me, it wouldn't change a thing. The Grand Canyon is so immense man's alterations would be as insignificant as the shifting of a few pebbles by squirrels.

Apparently, the Creator loves to overwhelm man. He created his masterpieces on his largest canvasses so man, with his machinations, cannot diminish the quality of his works.

Some may say man's capability has moved well beyond moving mountains or changing rivers' courses. In fact, by that afternoon, man has had an arsenal of weapons that could obliterate the Grand Canyon and more. What if we were crazy enough to do just that, transforming the area into a giant desert? No problem at all. A few cacti here and there, a bright moon among countless twinkling stars and my humble self, His loyal spectator, would be dumbfounded again by the scenery, just like I was at Anza-Borrego desert some Spring night.

I wondered about this perfect quality of these landscapes. Pondering on how these masterpieces are always perfect, I became aware of another weakness of the Creator. He is also a dictatorial artist, and absolutely so.

Asides from crafting masterpieces, He also programmed the viewers to be satisfied with his works. I am no more than a computer with programmed praise in its memory, no more than a robot programmed to cheer when He sings, applaud when He dances.

Thinking back to that night in the desert, I realized that maybe it wasn't that perfect. A few stars could be rearranged for a more pleasing view. Yet I never felt as critical as I would be when studying my fellow human artists' works.

So I was really programmed to admire the Creator's works.

Having lived for twenty years in the more democratic part of Vietnam and then another twenty years in most democratic nation on Earth, I hate this sense of lack of freedom, especially this lack of freedom of thought.

I was upset and frustrated.

The massing cloud I saw, on the other hand, made me think of another more unlikable manifestation of a tyrannical Creator: the wheel of reincarnation.

To protect His creations, time was made to flow in one direction, space to be infinite and the maximum speed to be that of light. Everything is trapped in its own role, time and space. The human soul, something that I used to think to be able to journey all over-to heaven, to hell, to some nirvana...-probably could do no more than twiddling about in this vicinity of Earth, maybe traveling no further than that cloud.

There may be a few exceptions. Perhaps the souls of those who were the most religious, the most faithful may be guided to Heaven, Nirvana via special routes at some special speeds. The remaining majority, earthly like my own, probably would not escape the wheel of reincarnation and would stay tethered to the ups and downs of this world.

The lowly soul, even if blessed with the ability to travel at the speed of light, may need a few eons to reach the outer edge of the universe, where Heaven may not necessarily be located. It may encounter a sign that says "Gate of Heaven ahead. Ten billion time past distance." The poor soul, saddened with this news, would probably rather turn back.

The Creator probably had made his decision when He set the velocity of light and the limitless expanse of the universe. Mankind would forever hover in the immediate confines of the Earth.

Leaving its useless physical remains, the immortal yet unblessed soul would rise with water vapor to coalesce into clouds, integrating itself into the Creator's scheme of nature to serve His will, His desire for changes. The wind will come, blowing the clouds up and away and, one day, the soul unites with a rain drop and falls back to Earth. There, it may take a path different from all previous ones. It may drift along in a stream and end up swallowed by a thirsty deer. It may seep into the ground and eventually find itself trapped in the resin of a juniper, a blossoming rose. It may not go anywhere else but stay with a dew drop on a rock, floating back up with evaporation.

Would the pristine soul, completely apart from man's world and thrown into the recycling apparatus, forever be wandering in this universe? Probably not. If even birds instinctively fly South in Winter, may be souls could find their way back to man's world. I was not too optimistic about my own soul's fate, though, for my persistent lack of faith and lack of "sponsorship" by either Christ or Buddha.

I was hardly optimistic as I thought of this complex recycling apparatus, as I had realized the Creator's affinity to alter things. By relying on violent storms to whisk puny souls about, by scattering them back to man's world haphazardly through raindrops, snowflakes...the Creator clearly designs each new born child to be an entirely brand new being.

Even more disheartening is the fact that though the Creator has unlimited time on His hands, He squanders an eternity just...killing time, not worrying the least about countless wandering lost souls.

I began to doubt the moral qualities attributed to Nature by my people. It was often said that heavy rainstorms after a fierce battle or dreary days long drizzles after certain icon's death were Heaven's sorrow manifest. Rain drops were equivalent to tear drops.

It's doubtful that Nature could be so "human."

Maybe, just maybe, the departure of the great soul of an icon or the mass departure of souls of many combatants upset certain balance in nature, setting off some predetermined mechanism for Nature to regain equilibrium. Rain poured down to replace the sudden, extreme losses suffered by mankind.

I know I am too pessimistic, too doubtful of the goodwill of the Creator. But that afternoon, at the Grand Canyon, I had discovered but many unpleasant things.

I was enabled to notice many things for the first time from the serenity and majesty of the Grand Canyon. I was amused to be aware of the simultaneous growth or changes among plants and rocks. I was disappointed to realize I was manipulated by the big Programmer in the sky. And I was saddened and resentful when I took a peek at the Creator's recycling scheme.

Life begun on Earth 700 millions years ago during the Precambrian era. It evolved slowly in hundreds of million years through the Cambrian, Ordovician, Late Devonian etc...and only two million years ago did life forms with capability for reasoning, thinking, emerged. The workings of the universe had been set at the beginning of time. Is there really any hope that its mechanism could be improved to save the souls of those who began to see life 2 million years ago?

Creation is ruthless toward human souls. Nature probably regards the souls as no more than a drop of chemical to be relentlessly recycled like the physical part. And so, the departing souls keep on wandering on an aimless odyssey just to serve the needs of a whimsical Creator.

There were other "discoveries" that I hesitate to write down for fear that life would be less enchanting.

How can I feel other than disillusioned? Dear James Keeran,

You are probably questioning my mental health by now. A lot of mental illness cases arise from dissatisfaction with society. I am dissatisfied with something bigger than society - the Creator himself. Am I therefore probably heading for worse?

Don't worry. I am still quite lucid and level headed. While unhappy with the Creator, I feel a lot of compassion for my fellow man, probably a lot more than I ever had.

And I deeply revere, deeply appreciate the first writer among man. I revere him as much as I would revere the greatest revolutionary of the universe. The Creator had finally met his match, because the greatest invention by man is the written word.

The first writer, probably also some kind of artist, by inscribing on the ground or some rock a few rudimentary symbols had started the liberation of man from the control of the Creator. He began a revolution, an uprising of man to create his own destiny or usurp creation at times.

The endowed ability to speak and hear serves humanity adequately in close quarter communication, within a few hundred feet. That ability has not been improved much in nature since the days of our primitive ancestors. The moment the first symbols were created, the whole situation changed instantly. Distance in space and time no longer hindered communications.

Those first crude symbols had the supernatural power of a miracle, rivaling the works of the Creator. Human communication could now transcend time and space to be passed on to later generations.

Even God had to employ this invention. Sent to disseminate his teachings, God's emissaries were equipped with no more than one mouth and two ears each. Imagine how difficult and fleeting it would be to spread his words without written language. In open fields, the Golden Rules, even if shouted out, would barely reach the few believers in the vicinity.

How much could missionaries remember asides from how far could they travel? How would villagers who never roamed far from their homes come into contact with the thousands year old teachings of Christ or Buddha without written words?

God's teachings, through the invention of the first writer, became immortal, or at least will last as long as mankind.

Human knowledge also began to accumulate. Scientists could now build upon the wisdom of the ages. This retention and expansion of knowledge has given mankind abilities that far exceed the Creator's design.

One example is our locomotion. The legs we once used to travel far and wide are now mostly practical for...riding exercycles, or relegated to the role of beauty on ladies. These days, we travel across continents with our legs comfortably crossed, thousands of feet in the air. The Creator never intended for us to travel that high in the sky, or even one day hopping around on the moon.

Personally, I have also benefited from many creations resulting from the invention of the first writer. Even my afternoon at the Grand Canyon was part of a parallel fate created by written language.

Without that parallel fate, had the Creator intended for me to have an experience at the North Rim, He would have to create me with a Boeing attached to my feet, ears with incredible auditory power, half a dozen pair of eyes to see from microscopic things to deep space.

Nowadays, an infant born into a world already full of technological inventions would have its divine destiny if not replaced then greatly altered.

The majority, if not all, of the victims of the two atomic bombs would not have suffered their fate had their destiny been solely controlled by God. The majority, if not all, of passengers whose airplanes crashed had their lives cut short probably outside divine intention.

On the other hand, people who are badly wounded or gravely ill may often recover and live on for a long time. Left to nature, those similarly afflicted would certainly die, as would all other animals. Man, by way of written language and subsequent developments, now has medical experts to help him fight off Death.

Life and death, for mankind, are now in the hands of a new man-made destiny, the result of continuous inventions started by the first writer.

When I realized all this, I was quite thrilled. I was as thrilled as I would be to see some tyrant with absolute power having to yield to his citizenry, giving his people a little room to wiggle and improve their lives.

And from those crude primitive scribbles in the sand, man had launched the greatest revolution in the universe; a revolution that is here to stay and will only gets faster as time goes on.

Recently, scientists have predicted that the universe should last at least hundreds of billions of years. Wouldn't the Creator be in trouble with us now! As much as His Excellency may have an eternity toy with us, we are gonna have the same amount of time to deal with his blows, destroy his chains, and wreck his governing apparatus.

In no more than another thousand years, I believe man will be able to quantify and locate the human soul. We will know when it leaves the body. We will secure and store it in an ornate little box. Afterwards, all we will have to do is to find out from the will of the deceased where he or she wanted to go in his or her next life. Should we come across a will such as poet Nguyen Cong Tru's two verses:

Let me be a pine tree, next life, instead of a being,

So I can stand amid nature and chant with the wind.

The descendants would simply take the box to the Grand Canyon, find a sapling and release the soul.

Wouldn't that be a big dent on the wheel of reincarnation!

And, in a far, far away future, one day, while floating around with a cloud, the soul of this ordinary self may "hear" a call from below, "Mr. Le! Mr. Le!"

Initially, because of its cleansed memory, it would not recognize the call. A short moment later, with a stream of signals sent up, it regains a memory and remembers it once was a Mr. Le in a previous life, a long, long time ago.

"Mr. Le! Have you received all the memory we sent? Do you remember your once past life as Mr. Le?"

"I have. I do, faintly. Some passages are quite unclear."

"Do you remember the afternoon you stood at the Grand Canyon pondering things?"

"Ah! Yes! Yes! I remember that very well."

"Great! That's the important part. We would like to invite you back to Earth to be the emcee of the first anniversary commemorating the invention of the soul finder and retriever device."

"A 'soul finder and retriever'?"

"Yes. Please allow us to explain...We have implemented the proposals you mentioned in your book titled Letters to Bloomington. The chapter you wrote on the boxes to store souls was an inspiration for our invention."

"You mean my literature legacy last that long?"

"Actually, not really. Please, don't be sad. The English edition didn't do too well. The Vietnamese edition did better originally but later on was rejected by many Vietnamese readers because your ramblings on Heaven and Earth were giving them big headaches. After some five years, the book vanished from the literary scene."

"Then how do you know about it?"

"Maybe the Creator, out of fear of being seen as a ...dirty fighter, did not delete your ideas. He fortuitously allow a scientist, also a distant descendant of Mr. Phan, to run across your book in the Bui's library. It was in tatters but because of your hand written dedication of the book to Mr. Bui and your signature, his descendants didn't dare throw it out."

"Mr. Phan, the scientist, studied your idea with his two distinguished colleagues, Mr. Doan and Mr. Bo. The three of them immediately abandoned their research on an elixir for immortality and concentrated on the soul box project.

"The box was made but regretfully too late to get your soul in. We were also bothered by not being able to inform you of the event so we decided to make further efforts to invent this device to find and invite you back. We did not succeed until last year, and it took another year to perfect the prototype. Now that it is working, we would like to invite you back to celebrate. Would you.."

"I am flattered to! While you are at it, will you also invite my old friends, Mr. Bui, Mr. Doan, Mr. Phan, Mr. Bo, Mr. Keeran, Dr. Wainscott...Ah! And Mr. Duyen Anh, also! I remember Mr. Duyen Anh died an untimely death at the time that I was writing the chapter on the Grand Canyon and dreaming up those soul boxes."

"Yes, we will fulfill your request."

"I have another question. Is the Creator upset at me for inciting you to invent a machine that wrecks his wheel of reincarnation?"

"Well, his official and unofficial spokesmen all denounced us, but the Creator himself remains silent, just like in Confucius' time. The Supreme Being is always tight-lipped." Dear James Keeran,

Since that afternoon, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon has been for me the most wonderful place in America, if not on the planet.

It was there that I, an infinitesimal dot in the universe, sidestepped the destiny as a programmed cheerleader, to examine every nuts and bolts of the scheme of the universe. Not just examining, mind you, but also critiquing and ridiculing.

It was there that, facing an almighty, bullying Creator, this insignificant dot remained undaunted and went on mocking and tweaking his power.

• Chapter 11

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