It begins with the voice. Most of the time the voice communicates to him in a rumbling bass, as though the ground itself emits gales of sound through earthquake, but occasionally the voice is a child's, or an animal's, or a tree rustle or water babble if we're not in the Jordan Valley, occasionally it's not even a voice, just a feeling, an intuition, through which he knows the wind of Yahweh has passed through. Often it's accompanied by images. Sometimes the images are horrific and Abram begs for them to cease, but they continue until such time as our Lord and King bursts through the horror like a torn piece of giant paper and announces his will, at which point the spirit settles, Abram's nerves calm, and for a few hours he lays about in twilight consciousness.
Once he wakes up, the real work begins. What follows is a farce of obedience: no matter how difficult, no matter how absurd, we are all at Abram's mercy, and we will accomplish the impossible tasks he's set out for us. Are the projects truly Yahweh's will? I choose to believe they are, even if the rational voice in me tells me these are delusions of a mind intoxicated by the idea of chosenness, but had Abram not set out for these projects, would Canaan have ever been the same? We've built altars in every valley and wadi, we've gathered stones and cast stones away, we've built wooden shelters in terrain where there is no wood, we've set fire to cities only to build them again from the ground, we've declared war on our friends and made peace with our foes, it is all the voice, all which the voice dictates, and even my husband himself is powerless before it, and our ministrations only cease when the voice speaks again, for he speaks very often.
Abram bar-Terakh is my partner, my dodi, my husband joined in something we call holy matrimony, but it has very little matrimonious about it--this marriage was not my doing. People say we're half-siblings, but that's not quite true. I was the wife of Haran before he died, when Haran died, I became the daughter of Terakh--a sort of daughter-in-law-in-law, and he wasted no time giving me over to his weird son: the one with alternative beliefs, the drug pusher, the manic we charitably call 'ecstatic', the 'prophet'... whatever that is... so consumed by odd ideas that he couldn't even focus on a single task of running a store on which our livelihood depended on him. Working for him and minding the store during his hashish hours was Amraphel, the future Sumerian Emperor Hammurabi VI! The first elected emperor in Sumerian history, the general who defeated ten thousand Amorites and five thousand Hurrain at Kush; but by then Abram had long since ceased relations. The problem? Amraphel finally told Terakh that Abram was smoking hash in the office. Abram got so angry he broke half the statues in the store and still insisted Amraphel get fired. The one man who could have made Abram a success beyond all these blessings from Yahweh is apparently still Abram's lifelong enemy.
All the same, he's my husband, my Eesh, my Abe. We've shared beds and cold and hunger, we started homeless and now we're listed among the 20 richest millionaires in Canaan. We have thousands on our payroll and an entire tribe follows my husband like he's a cult leader. He's not the greatest lover (and I've had a few...), but he's given me adventures past all the women in Ur. He's risked our lives so many times, but only a man so full of life could be so cheap with it.
Do I love him? I guess, does anybody really love their husband? But we've had a life together, and in certain ways, it's been a fun life. My husband is this unique mixture of madman, priest, entrepreneur, general, professional grudge holder, and a man who feels joy and suffering like no one I've ever met. Not a single person's ever met him and come away not thinking 'There is only one Abram.'
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