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. It seemed I could still hear the echo of their voices in the halls. But it couldn’t be. 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 honorary charge.

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. Their faces bore an aspect of contempt for the living.

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 even 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 told me many things, some of which were beyond comprehension. Described the cosmos. Explained the blueprint for life. But he had also confided in me. When the weight of the yolk he carried rested heavy on his shoulders. He had said, “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 merchants 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. The hairs of the beard on his chin were like a camel’s. 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. Like this was nothing. 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. It kneaded into the crook of my neck and the sweat fell forward from my shoulders down across my breasts.

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 drew 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, aloing the kingless plains. I was alone.

***

The camel uttered a motor-like 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. The ornate carvings betrayed his hand.

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

“My world is ending,” I whispered. I think he understood.

I stepped down from the camel and looked for an entrance. Finding one with its threshold blocked by a lump of sand. I had no flame or torch 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 felt close to him. The entire structure was a living thing, taking deep breaths as the desert rearranged itself. I could almost hear a heartbeat within the stones.