 As a test to determine if a grown-up is enlightened and like a child, he shows them a picture that he drew at the age of 6 depicting a snake which has eaten an elephant.The grown-ups always reply that the picture depicts a hat, and so he knows to talk of "reasonable" things to them, rather than fanciful.The narrator becomes a pilot, and, one day, his plane crashes in the Sahara, far from civilization.