So this letter is meant for God and Abel, though I don't know how to send it or if anybody else does. If anybody ever finds this letter, if you can find a way to send this to God I'll be very grateful.
It's been a little more over 30 years since The Flood. From the way people talk about it you'd think everybody died, but it couldn't have even been one in a hundred who got themselves killed. Maybe if you were closer to the Mediterranean you had more chance of dying, but people here just hiked themselves to the Zagros mountains, and a lot of people whose houses were made of mudbrick just camped out on the roof and fished.
The Flood wasn't that big an event. ...Oh it was big, but mostly because it made us shelter in place for two years. It was just a pre-echo of the real event that came for us within the flood's cause.
We thought The Flood focused everything, solved everything, clarified everything, and obliterated from our minds all the trivial drek. The generation before the flood was a generation of partisanship and violence. We were the generation of unity and love. We all experienced the same loss, the same fears, the same meshiggas, the same boredom, the same rage.
Everybody knew who was at fault. Everybody knew what they had to do. It was right around the flood that everyone had the sense that to make a flood this big, there must be a god so powerful that no other god can be much of a god, and it could only be Ea, this water god. There was even a movement to rename him Y'Ea because he was so willing to use his power. But just about everybody agreed: if one god can really be that powerful, we need a war on him before he kills the rest of us.
Though not everybody believed this, Ea had a bunch of loud partisans on Earth who were violent and dangerously powerful, but the partisans of the other six gods had an unbeatable coalition. Any system in which the partisans of Ea win is a broken system, and if the system was really this broken, the only option left was to go up to heaven and fix the system. It was one of those few moments in every lifetime when everybody seems to speak the same language.
Nobody actually wanted the responsibility of a god, at least not if they thought about it. But they did want the right to be free of him. They fulfilled every commandment of Ea's in good faith, they obeyed every obligation to sacrifice, they prayed to him whenever they were afraid, they talked to him when they were lonely, and only crazy people ever thought he answered.
As for me? I knew that Ea was just an old wives' tale. I just had a thought that maybe the Holy One BBH didn't think of, that all that kvetching he does about heavenly schpritz was because there's a leak in heaven, so I wanted to go up there to point out the leak and help him fill it.
I was there as a scribe in Uruk as the leaders of every major city convened: Eridu, Ur, Nippur, Ubaid, Lagash, Elam, Banesh, Kish, Babel, Erech, Accad, Calneh, Farsa, Ansha, Susa, Irsin, Larsa, Keddesh, Megido, Kass, Hurrain, Malatya, Armenia, Kizzuwatna, Luwia, Melid, Carshemesh, Mitanni, Washukani, Qatna, Armenia, Aramea, Cyprus, Hatti, Hattusas, Mycarae, and Ugarit.
Every one of these cities experienced the flood, and it was just large enough that every one of them believed another flood from Ea was imminent. All of these cities, all of these representatives, all of them speaking barely comprehensible dialects to each other, and it took only ten minutes for everyone to agree what needed to be done:
A tower to heaven. An elite force of soldiers climbs to the top, does battle with Ea and his rain, defeats the water god, redistributes the rain to its proper season, and if possible, allots the rain more justly throughout the seasons so there is no drought. The tower doesn't need to last forever, it just as long as it takes climbed up and down once with a 20 minute battle in between.
They even agreed on a place: a flattest part on the Valley of Shinar. Personally, nobody asked me, but I thought that was unnecessarily cautious to build in a valley rather than a mountain. That's ten thousand cubits more of material everybody needs to buy and build.
The only problem was the contention what we'd do once we get to heaven. It's one thing to say you'll do battle with a god, but not everybody was clear on how this god does battle, so everybody came up with their own plans based on what they believed Ea was. Every city entered a drawing of what they believed Ea looked like, but it was decided that any drawing of Ea could see and hear what his opponents were planning, so we burned the artworks along with the artists.
The first day was met with an opening speech by the King of Uruk, who entered his idea to build a water basin in the sky which would drain all the water in heaven so that Ea wouldn't be able to cause another flood. With a detachable pipe, men should be able control how much rain falls to the ground. Everyone agreed to convene for a second meeting in three days, during which time each city could form coalitions with other cities to convene a proposal.
As I was appointed recording secretary, here follow the minutes of the second meeting:
Uruk's idea moves immediately into debate. The motion does not carry on account of widespread suspicions that wealthier cities would venture to use the pipe more often than poorer ones. The motion does not carry.
The Coalition of Eriddu ventures much more modest proposal than Uruk. If Ea floods us again, everybody just climbs the tower to stay above water. The proposal moves into debate and leads to widespread discussion of how the people of the world would reach the tower, and how this plan necessitates the construction of boats around the world and maps with directions to the tower - which itself creates further discussion because all landmarks would be subsumed by water. The motion does not carry.
The Coalition of Lagash asks to be called upon later. As does the Coalition of Babel.
The Coalition of Ur proposes that since Ea is so powerful, he could come back and flood us again, so as such a tower could only be a divine miracle, the tower is its own god, and their solution is to put faith in the tower as a new god to worship that might defeat Ea. The proposal moves into debate, but leads to objections that if we give the tower powers of a god, Ea might offer the tower new powers and the tower would work with Ea rather than for us. The motion does not carry.
The Coalition of Nippur proposes that since Ea is so powerful, he must be proportionally enormous, so their solution is to build a proportionally large bow so that once we climb the tower, the tower can be used as an arrow, pulled out of Ea, then put back into its place to climb back down to the Valley of Shinar. The motion moves into debate. This motion does not carry because Ea might be able to move out of the way of the tower.
The Coalition of Lagash asked to be called upon later. As did the Coalition of Babel.
The Coalition of Ubaid is more skeptical. They believe that Ea is too powerful to be fought, so they propose the tower ought purely to be used as a symbol of protest; that we should simply use the tower so that a messenger can shout to him daily our dissatisfaction with his treatment. This motion does not carry because Ea's a water god and many things said on land cannot be heard through water.
The Coalition of Elam believes that the flood was dictated by Ea's mood, which itself was dictated by the position of the stars. So if the tower was big enough, we could make more precise astrological calculations about when Ea was most wroth. This motion is debated for many hours, is voted upon five times, but does not summon the requisite votes because many cities wish for their own astrologer to have the honor of doing Ea's official horoscope, each of which might pepper their findings with advice to favor their own city over other cities. The motion eventually does not carry.
The Coalition of Banesh's solution is not unlike the Coalition of Ur's: to worship the tower as a god. But since Ea is so powerful to subordinate all other gods to his will, Banesh proposes to worship only the tower as a god and no other god, so that the tower might come to life and defeat Ea. This proposal meets with immediate objections from all sides about the utility of having only one god, and becomes so volatile that discussion is tabled until a potential third meeting.
The Coalition of Lagash asked to be called upon later. As did the Coalition of Babel.
The Coalition of Elam proposes that the tower itself is enough and no further contingency plan is needed. People would be able see it from all sides of the world, and when the waters begin to flood again, could journey immediately in the direction of the tower by foot, for which they would have enough time to reach the tower and climb to safety. A dissenting sub-coalition within the Coalition of Elam proposed that the entire peoples of the should be moved within hiking distance of the tower. This is met with immediate objections and voted against by unanimous consent. The original motion however is met with by no official objections, and moves into debate. In debate the original proposal is met by the objection that while the tower should be visible from across the world, the rain itself could obscure vision of the tower. The motion does not carry.
The Coalition of Kish suggests that as the flood was accompanied by lightning, the tower should be used to serve as a lightning rod to send the electricity back to heaven, which would stop the rain before flooding. This lead to immediate questions from all sides about what electricity was, and the Royal Vizier of Kish explains that electricity is energy that can be used to provide light and heat for their subjects and could perpetually be renewed. This leads to objections from all sides that renewable energy would be too expensive. The motion does not carry.
The Coalition of Lagash asks to be called upon later. As does the Coalition of Babel. But there were no coalitions further to enter their proposals.
The Coalition of Lagash ventures, and specifies that this must be entered into the record with great reluctance, that the tower is so ambitious that it is fated to be a failed venture. While the Coalition of Lagash does not dare use its vote to prohibit a project that inspired the unity of all cities, the Coalition of Lagash proposes that the tower be constructed as a monument to this moment of worldwide unity, brotherhood, and peace, so that future generations would know that the state of worldwide brotherhood of nations was possible. This measure immediately voted against by unanimous consent.
The Coalition of Babel enters the final proposal. The Master Builder of Babel believe that rain happens because clouds become so full of moisture that the moisture turns to drops of water, which erupts from the clouds and falls to the earth. When the clouds are heavier, they become darker and fall further toward the earth, and then erupt with great force. The Royal Vizere further posited that certain temperatures and qualities of air were more conducive to greater intensity of rain, and that the direction of the wind would indicate to which direction the rain was advancing. Babel therefore proposed that the tower be used as a weather station to record the distance, color, and amount of precipitation from each rain cloud, and further record the temperatures, the humidity of the air, and the direction and speed of the wind. This would lead the world to better predict when floods would happen, and to respond accordingly. At the time this motion carried and was approved by unanimous consent...
but... well... it was the last bit of unanimity the world had. The world thought it wanted better, but it didn't, and You know that don't you...
The whole world came to reach the tower, and we built as one all the way to the heavens. More people died while building the tower than ever died in the flood. And verily, when we reached the top, there was no Ea; just invisible light, and cloud, and cold, and occasional thunder that killed still more of us. But so unanimous was the agreement of the tower's necessity that everyone saw it necessary, every man willing to die, every woman willing to live a widow, every child ready to take his father's place.
And when there was no Ea, the whole world breathed one last sigh of relief. And lo, there was a great seven month celebration of all the world: a world's fair of bonfires, sex, golden idols, silver coins, dancing, music, raiment of wool, linen, and silk; circles in a thousand different camps, each playing a different music listened to lovingly by all, each teaching the dances of all to one another, every tribe and nation conceiving children of the other, men wearing the raiment of women from halfway around the world, women fornicating with distant men - dressed as men, even women fornicating as men and men fornicating as women, all tribes mingled with all tribes. And for all the world, minimal humans sacrificed, minimal children abducted, seemingly all partaking of festivities with nothing but joy.
And then we all returned home, except for the city of Babel in the Valley of Shinar, who measured every rainfall, every wind, every cloud, every thunder, with trust placed in every city that the Edicts of Babel would ensure no new flood. And there was a veritable harvest of new babies, the Children of Babel, each born of fathers they knew not whom.
And in the first year, only one new edict came from Babel: "Verily, the rain passeth from November to April, therefore let us make a law to save half our harvest for the dry months." A few complaints passed from farmer to farmer, but the cities were bounteous and less men starved.
But the edicts did
...................
And in the second year came two new edicts: "Lo, the wind showeth there shall be floods in Adar. Let us all abscond to mountains." And lo, the entire world did abscond to nearby mountains, and many peoples did journey a month to mountains, but flood only did come to Shinar, and in all the world around there was neither rain nor flood, and they did return and were wroth with Babel. "Truly, Babel can only predict weather for itself"
Therefore Babel did issue a second edict for the year "Let each city construct its own tower so that they may predict the weather for themselves."
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