The Day the Gods Abandoned Us

The gods left in the night. They did not say goodbye. Or provide the slightest explanation. No speeches. No festivals. They just left. The question welled from within: what had we done? I felt that I would die if no answer came. I doubted my sanity. More than once, I turned at the echo of their voices in the halls. Each time, the chambers were empty. I couldn’t reconcile the daily numinosity of the life I had known since childhood, with the unmagical world I was suddenly thrust into.

I stared at the clay tablet. Its cryptic command was all that Enki had left me. When the boats are unmoored and returned to the heavens, go south to Eria, meet Dumuzid the camel herder, provide him the water of the Abzu, in return for which he will guide you to the first ziggurat, by the basin of the Euphrates. Enki was always demanding. Never revealing. Even now, every action was a character lesson. Why obey? What for? Without Enki to explain the point of the exercise, it was an insult. An insult disguised as an honor.

That is the thing about Eridu. It is a land of contrasting forces. Rivers running through the arid desert plains. Gods cohabitating with men. Ships that traverse the cosmos. Sun-dried mud brick houses in the sand. Freshwater springs bubbling up in the great hall. Festering pits of refuse drying in the Arabian sun.

In the House of Joy, the visages of the gods still stared down at us, with indifferent foreheads of white alabaster. Their lazurite eyes, starry and vacant. Enki’s great throne sat empty at the back of the great hall. The stones remarked on their absence.

They had named me for my station. Lede. Meaning ‘joyful employment.’ It had been my joy to tend to Enki as his temple priestess. There had once been a promise of a higher calling, something one is chosen for and not bred into—but, that promise was now broken.

Who would draft his astronomical charts and monitor his projects? How could I be jealous of whomever this deserter chose next? Was I that pathetic? I was.

Since I was a child, I had done their bidding. Day and night, in their presence. Enki himself confided in me. "The stars are just grand fictions until someone touches them with his hands," Enki once told me as we charted the heavens together. And I believe he had touched them.

He spoke to me of the stars, the making of life, and mysteries beyond my grasp. But it was the quieter moments I cherished. When the weight of the yoke he carried rested heavy on his shoulders. One night he complained, “Man is too noisy, like a child’s rattle. There is no end to his meddling and fretting. I tire of the commotion.” I would implore him, “Don’t be bad.” And he always laughed. I also saw his joy when the sacrifices to his name were sweet when they reached his lips. “Lede, the savor of the offerings is heavenly tonight.” I enjoyed nothing more than being by his side. Being his comforter gave me purpose. And now I was alone. Just a girl. In these kingless halls.

They had scarcely left on their fiery chariots when the trouble began. As the lights of their ships faded from view, the streets of Eridu were packed, every last citizen looking up into the heavens—looking at the past passing into memory.

Mumblings intensified, growing into a nervous frenzy, and then the tension erupted and some unruly teens started tearing down a fruit merchant’s stall.

It took mere minutes before the relentless order they had presided over since time immemorial dissipated into smoke and dispersed forever.

***

The camel herder walked the dunes with a train of dromedary one-hump camels stretched out behind him. When I caught up to him, the camels were grazing among some shrubs, a handful or prickly pears, and a smattering of dry grasses.

When I reached Dumuzid, he was sitting cross-legged on a rug, preparing his coffee, and chewing on some biscuits. He had a shade canopy of goat and camel hair strung to some poles he had anchored into the desert sands. His beard seemed borrowed from a camel. Even the way he chewed mimicked them. The stubborn mien. The troubled forehead. It was as if a camel had stepped into the skin of a man.

Legend had it that Dumuzid was an Igigi hybrid who had already lived thousands of years, and with each passing year lost his humanity, and took on the aspect of the camels he tended to.

As I approached, I made my rehearsed speech: “May the father Enki, lord of the Abzu, fill our irrigation canals with sweet waters. Let us lay pure bricks at the ziggurat and praise the dark-headed people! And Enlil grant us days of long life.”

“Nuzu,” he grunted. Waiving his free hand to shoo me away, as he poured his coffee into a clay mug.

“Dumuzid?” I asked.

He looked up, his lip hanging awkwardly. Took a tiny sip of his coffee, while inspecting me. Then looked back down.

“They said to find you… if…”

There was no response.

“… the gods left.”

He simply nodded. As if I had said the dry season is upon us.

“I miss them,” I said. “I miss him.”

He grunted and turned back to his coffee.

I sat down, cross-legged on his rug, and waited. Already the heat of the sun in the exposed plains of the desert sands was bearing down like a heavy blanket, pressing on my shoulders. Sweat gathered beneath my robes and ran down my back.

I took the pendant flask with Enki’s amulet, and handed it over to Dumuzid slowly, letting it rest in my palm so that the crystalline container and the blue water within gleamed in the noontime sun.

Dumuzid snatched the pendant from my hand in one swift movement. He held it from the chain, dangling the swinging pendant. Squinting with one eye, he studied the blue waters within. The aquamarine inside was brighter than the sky.

“Hmpph,” he said, placing it down next to his coffee. Then looked up again. “Sooner than you think,” he said, “the desert will swallow Eridu and it will be no more.” Then he pointed to the North at the line of the Euphrates River. “The river moves away. It is all that holds back the sands. The Abzu will dry out. In a year, Eridu will be no more.”

“What can I do?” I asked.

“Do?” he asked.

“How do I stop it?”

He burst into a deep belly laugh. It went on a long time. Then he looked up with a smile and said, “Who do you think you are, Enki? The time of Eridu is passed.”

“It can’t be. If I can just reach Enki.”

“Travel to the basin of the Euphrates, to the abandoned ziggurat from the old city. Find the ruins.”

“Is Enki there?”

“Enki?” he said, “That charlatan? He used you, my dear. You fell under his spell.”

I slapped him across his camel-like mouth, spittle launching into the wind. Dumuzid could have drawn his scimitar and dispatched me. He did nothing. Just nodded.

Then I said, “Come with me. Show me the way.”

He pointed to his camels. “The camels are my charge. I stay here. You can have one camel. And this.”

He handed me a clay circle with metal on the back and a pin that turned on the front, with lines representing four directions.

“What is it?”

“You follow the N and head Northwest. It is three days journey. Don’t die of thirst. Stay alive. You will see it from miles away.”

“Why won’t you help me?”

“There is no help.”

“Eridu must survive!”

“What is it to me, my dear? Eridu. No Eridu. It is all the same. They say Eridu is the first city. Just a story. Cities come. Cities go. I sell my camels. That is what Dumuzid does. That is who Dumuzid is.”

He began praying as he sipped his coffee.

“I’ll take this one,” I said, and began heading in the direction Dumuzid pointed.

I was alone again. Within the kingless halls. Under the kingless skies, along the kingless plains. I was alone.

***

The camel uttered a low droning hum as we jogged toward the ziggurat. The ziggurat wore garments of sand, but the step-like layers of its pyramidal shape were unmistakable. The giant stones bore the mark of Enki.

I urged the camel on faster. The camel began gurgling as he increased the pace, turning his head back to give me an eyeful.

“My world is ending,” I whispered.

I stepped down from the camel and looked for an entrance. When I found it, its threshold was blocked by a lump of sand. I had no flame to cut the darkness, so I stood in the entryway, feeling the air of the inner chambers rushing out toward me. I inspected Enki's handiwork and—for the first time since he left—felt close to him. The entire structure was a living thing, taking deep breaths as the desert shifted around it. I could almost hear a heartbeat within the stones.

Using a technique Enki taught me, I struck a piece of brass-colored marcasite with a piece of flint, catching the sparks in a small tinder bundle of dry straw. I pulled out a piece of cedar wood from my pack and used a hemp rope to bind some oil-soaked cotton and finish my torch. I then placed the smoldering bundle onto the tip and it lit, brightly illuminating the chamber.

As I descended a staircase, Sumerian symbols were scratched on the head and molding of the door leading into the next chamber, which was named the Gallery of Skulls. I shuddered as the breath of the inner rooms passed by me, cooling the sweat already drying into salt on my brow. I caught my breath as I held out the torch.

The room was cylindrical. Specimen jars ringed the chamber, each resting upon its own pedestal. Each contained a different kind of skull. There must have been two dozen. Giant skulls. Deformed skulls. Skulls that looked more ape than man. I shivered in the chill of the inner chamber and walked through the corridor into the next room.

This room was filled with scrolls and unrolled parchments. Some hung from different walls and others were pinned on drawing desks at opposite ends of the room. There were thousands of clay tablets stored on shelves all around the room from floor to ceiling. As I began reading the different parchments, my body recoiled.

This was Enki's study. Edits to the blueprints of human life covered every surface. As I read, I saw the failures, the revisions, the endless attempts to get it right.

I walked further through the King’s chambers, into a sitting room, with scattered reed mats, and an enormous cedar couch. The backing of the couch was gilded with spirals of gold. The feet of the couch’s legs were four carved lion’s paws. The cushion was a series of woven mats with straw layered between the tiers.

I turned the torch to the far end of the chamber, and there I was on the wall, staring back at myself. The portrait was a large hemp tapestry, hung from an obsidian gallery rod that ran half the length of the room. It must have been ten feet by six feet, taking up most of the wall. I stumbled backward, caught in my own gaze. What was I to Enki that he made this?

I walked forward, where a small lectern was set below the painting. There were scattered clay tablets. I read about “Lede” in amazement. I study her ways. Unlike our own people, she is built with a capacity for wonder. I read on. Loyalty like hers is given rather than earned. She is unrelentingly loyal. I cannot decipher where this quality comes from – whether in the internal code, or of some ephemeral point of origin. If only I could discover the cause of this gladness for her calling.

My head felt like it was on fire. What was this? Why was Enki studying me? It was intrusive. All those years, I knew the sound of his footsteps, the way he cleared his throat, the look on his face that said he needed rest. I had never imagined he was studying me too.

She is my delight. My refuge and harbor. Where I hide, anchor, and moor myself. All the world worships and fears – but this one knows me – and approves of my ways. Whether the rains come or not, whether the grain sills are full or empty, and whether our enemies live or die. She is with me. In our world there is nothing like this.

I sat down on the couch, tears in my eyes. What was all of this? What was Enki doing with me? Why did he send me here?

I saw a vestibule leading into another room. The opening was covered in lapis lazuli and aquamarine gems against terra cotta. I felt the breath of air rushing from within and walked forward. The interior chamber of the arch was completely covered in a mosaic of a thousand shades of blue, a lament to the Abzu.

Within the next chamber was a reflecting pool, water from the Abzu bubbling up into a collecting pool. There were mock irrigation pathways in a maze all around the central pool. The walls were covered in gemstones. There were stone stools all around the room. Above, light from the sun was directed inward and down by mirrors and lenses, collecting and condensing the sun into a solid ray directed down into the water.

I sat on one of the stone benches, remembering a time when Enki and I had descended into the depths of the Abzu with giant water chests and an army of workers to haul water to the surface. After all the workers had ascended, we sat on benches identical to these.

He had said, “this water is the tinder of life.” Then he had pointed upward. “But the sun is the spark. The sun must curb its strength just enough for this liquid to exist—lest it consume the very thing it nurtures. All day, every day, the hammering sun bathes the world, and all day, every day, it holds back just enough to gently nurture life. So it can blaze and burn in all its glory.”

“And you are the Lord of the Abzu,” I said.

“Yes. Because the one above hammers me all day with his will, but all day, every day, he holds back just enough so that I can bear it… and I try to do the same… but one day, I will have to pull back even further so as not to smother the fruits of my work.”

“And what is your work, my life?” I asked.

“My work? Don’t you know? You are my work. All of you.”

Sitting there on the bench, remembering that day, my hand felt the edges of another clay tablet.

I picked it up and read.

Lede – If you are reading this, you must forgive me. I am gone. If the desert sun looks down forever and never averts its gaze the honeysuckle that flames the twilight of morning cannot bloom. It is important that I go. Even necessary. But know this. Watching you has been my joyful employment. I have watched you grow from a little one into the jewel of the cosmos. I boasted that I had mastered the blueprint of life. Like a master potter, I could mold the raw earth into a jar of clay. I could shape bone, quicken blood, stir thought, and ignite perception.

When I came here, I believed there was nothing in you I could not duplicate with my hands. But there is something in you I could never place there. You call it “goodness” and others call it “grace” or “mercy” or “devotion.” I only know I searched every hidden instruction written into flesh and found no mark by which it came. You stand in wonder without needing to exercise mastery. You direct yourself when you have no command to follow, charting a course out of nothing. You play in the cool of morning or the hem of the night. And while you play, you challenge, not to test, but to encourage. All of this is not something I made, but something I discovered.

Do not look upward for answers, my love. Look inward. Go now, my dear Lede. The age of gods is ending. The age of man is about to begin. The stars belong to you now.