She ran into the house and called, "Mother, come see! The creatures are climbing the sunbeams!"

"What?" called her mother, from the kitchen. She came into the living room and said to her daughter, "Did you say --"

"Yes, Mama. Really, the creatures are climbing sunbeams into the sky."

Mother and daughter ran outdoors. Now the farm animals had each claimed a sunbeam. The cow daintily stepped upward. A whole line of chickens marched toward the sun. The goats frisked about, as goats will do, as they trotted upward into the sky.

Mother and daughter stared at each other. They could see neighbors coming out of houses down the road, and gaping as their creatures, too, walked steadily, purposefully upward. Dogs. Cats. Sheep. Squirrels. Deer. Foxes. Even Tippy, the dear, old, shaggy brown dog, hopped onto a sunbeam and strode away.

"Tippy!" the mother called. "You come back here! Now!"

Tippy looked back, wagged his tail, then looked ahead and kept going.

"Tippy!" cried the little girl. "Please come back. I love you!"

But Tippy was too far away now to hear.

"Where are they going, Mama?" said the little girl.

"God only knows," whispered the woman.

As if in answer to her words, a voice spoke. Later there was much talk about whether a voice really spoke aloud, or whether people a simple roll of thunder. But for those who believed they heard words, there was no debate. All around the world, each person heard the same words, in his or her own language.

"I gave you dominion over My creatures. But you abused it. You hurt them. You starved them. You beat them. You tortured them. Some of them you loved, yes. And those you loved, you will see again, one day."

Meantime, as the words rang around the world, zoo cages sprang open. Laboratory and animal pound cages fell apart and windows opened to the sunbeams as newly-freed animals quickly leaped onto them.

Stable doors unlocked. Slaughter house cattle pens fell into dust, and great herds quickly trod the amazing golden strands that led upward, upward into the sun.

People who lived near water saw stream, river, lake and sea creatures navigate the sunbeams as easily as they swam in the waters or crawled on the watery bottoms. Fish, crabs, even the slow-moving oysters and clams joined sharks, whales, alligators and crocodiles in an upward tide. Sea-birds, land birds, every kind of bird flew along the golden strands.

Again the voice came. "The pain of what I see has become too great for Me. I am taking my beloved creatures home." All over the world, in every language, humans cried out, "But what will do without them? What will we eat? What will we use for leather? How will we carry out our experiments? What will we hunt for fun? What will we give our children for pets?"

Now the sky was filled with shining creatures moving every higher, higher, into the golden light on the shining sunbeams.

The voice came again. "Good questions. You'll think of something...probably."

And the voice said not another word, as every non-human creature on Earth mounted into a blue sky and became invisible to the eyes of man staring into the glare of the sun.

So my grandmother told me, and so it must have been, because all the books and papers agree, this was what happened. And the great voice was right. We thought of things. Tofu, vegetables and fruit to eat. Mechanical and electronic toys. Nobody died for lack of a leather belt, or vest, or shoes.

But when I look at the books or the films and see the pictures of the animals as the Earth once knew them, it makes my eyes feel good to see their beauty, their color, their movement. Imagine seeing such a creature with one's own eyes. Imagine having such a creature for a friend. Indeed, it is more than I can imagine. Such beauty all around humankind. How could they....? If only the creatures would come back. It would all be so different now.