Summary

“What Is A Volcano?” is a parable told in the style of a myth. Its characters are immortal gods who began their lives deep in the ancient past. The conflict of this story begins when the goddess of rivers, River, “divided one of her streams” (201), which inadvertently knocked over an anthill, angering the god of ants, Ant. In retaliation, Ant began sending ants to the “mightiest river, from which all rivers flowed” (203), placing one small stone at a time at the bottom of the river. Over centuries, this turned into a mighty dam that disrupted the flow of the river. The goddess River, distracted by the birth of her new twin daughters, finally notices the problem, and uses her power to push the water past the dam, an action that “flooded half the world” (204).

Because this flood destroyed “the largest any...