USA. A national park. A crowd had gathered on wooden benches to watch a hole in the ground, and every one of them was checking a watch. A geyser. Named. Scheduled. Faithful. I asked a man what we were waiting for. He said the water would come at 4:42. Not "soon." Not "when the spirits allow." 4:42. In my land, a waterfall falls because the mountain wills it, and you are grateful to witness it at all. Here, the earth had been handed a timetable, and the people had come to hold it to its word. I did not believe it. A mountain answers to no man's clock. At 4:41 the crowd went still. Phones rose like a volley of arrows. At 4:42, the ground tore open and threw a tower of boiling water at the sky — exactly as promised, like a soldier reporting one breath before the bell. They applauded. They applauded water, for doing the single thing it had agreed to do. "Does it ever miss?" I asked. "Eh. Maybe by ten minutes." Maybe by ten minutes. He forgave it the way you forgive an old dog. Ten thousand years of keeping its word had earned it that. A man does not ask the geyser to wait for him. He comes early, and he waits for the geyser. I removed my hat. I did not clap — clapping was too small. So I bowed to the hole in the ground. The man beside me bowed too, unsure why, then deeper, because it felt correct. I will come back at 4:42 on some far gray morning, and it will be there, on time, unchanged. And I will finally understand what it means to be faithful.