If the earth were only a few feet in diameter, floating a few feet above a field somewhere, people would come from everywhere to
marvel at it. People would walk around it, marveling
at its big pools of water, its little pools and and the
water flowing between the pools. People would marvel at the
bumps on it, and the holes in it, and they would marvel at the very
thin layer of gas surrounding it and the water suspended in the gas.
The people would marvel at all the creatures walking around the surface
of the ball, and at the creatures in the water. The people would declare it
precious because it was the only one, and they would protect it so that it
would not be hurt. The ball would be the greatest wonder known, and people
would come to behold it, to be healed, to gain knowledge, to know beauty
and to wonder how it could be. People would love it, and defend
it with their lives, because they would somehow know that their lives,
their own roundness, could be nothing without it.
If the earth were only a few feet in diameter.