The Bluest Man in Babylon

“If walls could talk…,” is what they say. Even back before The BlueTime, people would imagine that the partitions of their domiciles, if they had merely mouths, would be impartial observers, eager to give up their secrets in gossipy torrents. That was long, long ago and I am eager. Let me tell you a story.

As a young man, I passed desperate beggars dragging themselves on stumps along the road to Babylon, as I made my way to find my own fortune in the greatest city in the world. I was a greedy, conceitful youth, but I was driven, and credit that with both my successes and my downfall. I grew wealthy, but always wanting more, set upon a path of acquisition. I thought I knew what was needed to fulfill the aches and quench the needs of my soul, just as you do now.

Through my ordeals I have learned much about the human condition, though what use is any of it? These days, I am rich with nothing but questions and irony, though it took me millennia to appreciate the humor inherent to my predicament. This is a story about desires. Here is some of the knowledge I have acquired, but beware, each revelation is ringed by a halo of queries I am helpless to investigate. If all this leaves you frustrated, imagine how I must feel.

Time is the first resource everyone believes they can never have enough of. Many think it impossible to acquire more, but the wealthy and clever have often managed to do so. Ignorant of my ignorances at the time, I considered myself both, and so hired the wisest scribes and most skilled prognosticators to helm my businesses, the crux of which was trading barley, wool, and metals, those these dealings obscured my true intentions. Their wisdom drove my success and freed up my time to study and scheme for more. Now, I wish I could give it all back.

Additionally, many wish to be greatly desired. No different, I hosted lavish galas at my stately home, attended by other property owners and merchants. Priests and priestesses rubbed shoulders with nobles, and we would all drink well into the night. By eliciting jealousy and covetousness I was able to form connections through which I could acquire more. Kindness can form bonds as well, but my way was quicker. I was, for a short time, the richest man in Babylon. Let me tell you what I bought.

Everyone desires knowledge. I was able to leverage my wealth and social standing to obtain information. Like stepping stones set across a canal I was able to hop from one contact to another until I acquired the lamp, which had been my goal all along. Just knowing of certain things can be dangerous, though I did not know it then.

When I say lamp you may think of some shining thing, wrought by craftsmen, but this little cup with a slight lip, meant to burn a small blob of animal fat, was made of stone and far older than Babylon or the art of metal smithing. When I say djinn you may think of some turbaned prankster genie from another realm, but this being was made of darkness with bright blue eyes and is older than Time itself, so I will call it a devil, for that is what it is.

I was alone in my chambers when I summoned the being forth, and despite all the time that has elapsed since, I still struggle to recall its form, other than its terrible, beautiful eyes. Regardless, it bid me to recite my wishes, which I listed as: immortality, to be desired, and to know the secrets of men. It is important to be unambiguous when dealing with these powerful entities, and I thought I had chosen my words carefully enough to avoid any trickery, but pride was my downfall, as it has been for so many others. I had not thought my cunning plan through.

The devil repeated my request and grunted an acknowledgment of understanding. What happened next I cannot express in a way that will make sense to you, but I was whisked into the sky in its embrace. I could see the whole city and all the farmlands surrounding it below me. We soared higher than birds, and as we flew, it changed me, squeezing and compacting my body and soul. The rivers looked like scratches in the sand.

When the process was done, the devil admired its work and placed me in the dirt. Two of my wishes had been granted and the third would be soon. It then flew away, having transformed me into a chunk of lapis lazuli the size of a baby’s fist and as blue as its own eyes. For two years I sat in darkness in the dirt and it nearly drove me mad. At the time I did not know how brief a span two years truly was, but I would learn, here in The BlueTime.

The lapis mine I was in was ancient even when Babylon was founded. I believe this relevant, as it speaks to the nature of human desires. In those primitive times, before the first cities, predating written language, people were compelled to dig blue rocks out of the dirt. Is it beauty that drives us, or something else? What is it that fuels our desires?

There was sunlight as I was carried to the surface. This was before the splitting-in-half agonized me in ways unimaginable, followed by the torment of polishing, but that night was when my third wish came true. From within a sheepskin bag, nestled among the other bits of blue stone, I heard the overseer and his lover conspiring. They were planning to flee west, funding their escape with the finest pieces from the mine, which they had secreted away for themselves.

I traded hands for the next year. During this time I was cut and polished into my current form, a perfect deep azure sphere, flecked with flakes of pyrite. I am a brilliant, otherworldly globe, cosmic in my beauty. The process felt like my soul was being shredded, but when it was over I was undeniably desirable. My wishes were coming ever truer. Eventually I was carried by a craftsman to a temple under construction where he placed me in a mosaic on the wall, to be the eye of a now-forgotten goddess in a scene of creation that wrapped around the space like a tapestry, telling the story of Everything, Everywhere, from Beginning to End.

There I remained for centuries, free from hunger, thirst, or tiredness, but trapped and immobile, listening to the prayers of the pilgrims. Instead of religious devotion, I heard primarily petty pleas for money, love, power, or vengeance. Some spoke of dark desires, believing themselves alone, but for whatever power they thought shared their confessional. The irony of my situation was not lost on me, I had acquired exactly what I had asked for. The hearts and minds of men were an open book to me, and therein I found little of value.

Having clearly not learned my lesson, I began wishing for a change. I could no longer bear to hear another farmer pray for rain or another cuckold pray for revenge. I found their desires to be frivolous, their wishes to be boring, and their lives to be small and insignificant. Maybe, the difference between prayers and wishes is in who hears them. Mine came true when the storm began.

Perhaps it was some farmer’s call for rain that brought the rains, or maybe prayers are just wind, gods are just dreams made of hope and Everything truly is random. Devils are real, though, and wishes do come true. To that, I can attest. Regardless, there was a flood and mud covered the temple for a thousand years.

Have you ever known loneliness? How long have you spent alone? A few years in the dirt at the beginning of my ordeal was torture, so to say that these were trying times is an understatement. I do not sleep, but I dream, and these were times of nightmares. The devil returned, or I believed it did, and I tried to bargain with it again and again, but I have nothing to offer, I am nothing. It was in this that I found my strength, and how I would need it later.

At first I thought the sounds of digging were another fantasy, but then I heard voices in an unfamiliar language that I somehow understood. Bright sunlight eventually fell on me, and as the mud was gradually cleared away I found myself surrounded and inspected by men in loose-fitting robes, who made many notes and did many drawings of what they saw. When the cataloging was done, the process of carefully disassembling the temple began.

Most of the work was done by captives, and two who conspired to pry me from the wall with a stolen blade each had one of their hands cut off in front of the others. As they sought for purchase with the knife I screamed at them to stop, that I was affixed with cursed sorcery and their efforts were futile, but they heard nothing. Sometimes I wonder if I even exist.

The whole operation was overseen by men in shining breastplates with plumed helmets. They were mostly indifferent, but took glee in doling out punishments, which happened often enough. I tried to forgive them their boredom, though. The tedious process took many months and there was little entertainment to be had, though I took no pleasure in seeing their casual wickedness.

I had been a greedy and capricious soul, but I was never a cruel man and never took pleasure when my machinations caused suffering. I did not find enough pity to stop, but I offer that there are many far more deserving of my fate than I. Are acts of inhumanity and barbarism excused? Is mine the fate of the indifferent? Could there be torments worse than this?

Dissembled, I was placed on a cart, and taken to the sea. Millennia on earth, and yet this was the first time I had seen the ocean. It filled me with dread. The ship seemed well made and was larger by far than the riverboats I was accustomed to, but the thought of it going down in a storm, resigning me to an eternity in the oceanic depths, was a fate it terrified me to consider. Now I wish it had so come to pass, for at least if that had become my final resting place there might still be fish to look at. It has been a long while since I have seen a living thing.

I was brought to a grand city. There were no hanging gardens, but a more magnificent expanse of civilization I could scarcely imagine. The walls of our temple were re-erected in an elegant villa. I wish I could say that seeing such a place did not inflame my envies, that after so much time I had passed beyond such petty feelings, but no. The grandeur made my former home seem a hovel. The wealth and ostentation of even those of modest means painted the king of Babylon as a savage by comparison. I was jealous of their lives.

At the same time, I saw that they were no better than us. The first time wine sloshed across my azure face I realized I was no longer an object of faith. Reduced to being merely art, I no longer commanded devotion, merely some measure of appreciation. I was admired, of course. Most people were awestruck upon their first visit to the chamber. Carefully placed skylights illuminated the scene, and seeing the mosaic in sunlight for the first time impressed even me.

Sconces were lit at night, and I bore witness to extravagant dinners of opulence beyond imagination, as well as bacchanalian orgies of excess, the likes of which the morals of my time would never have allowed. I am an eternal eye that cannot close, but I am still a man with hungers and desires. Those times were as difficult as eons in the dark.

Conspirators met there, too, plotting around tables to unseat emperors and influence guilds. The wine flowed then, as well. The clanking of their lead cups still echoes in my ears, and what I would have given for a taste of it. Alas I have nothing to offer, not even for a drop of wine.

As always, though, it is a race to the bottom, and after some time the place fell into ruin. Many tiles and precious inlays fell off the walls, or were pried off by actual barbarians or looters, though the cursed magic held me in place. The mosaic tells the Universe’s story from beginning to end, according to a minor faith remembered only by me, though it was not my own. I was never a religious man, and I do not see how I could be now, but I strive to find some comfort in the tale it tells.

I am the blazing blue eye of a creator Goddess whose name you are undeserving of. She forever exhales the Breath of Life into existence, a stream of jade issuing from her mouth. Though her white agate hair and her viridescent exhalations fell away or were taken, I remained. To my horror, it dawned on me that each stone so firmly affixed might contain another soul trapped by the lamp’s magic. I lost sight of them after the ceiling caved in, but I wondered what we had done to deserve such a fate?

Adjacent to me, conjoined back to back with my Goddess was Her twin-sister wrought in obsidian, The Un-Creator, who consumes All of Everything at The End of Time. Her eye is my other half, split from me so long ago. I dare not think too long about another me trapped likewise in stone. It represents a horror beyond my comprehension. In this story I find my hope. Looking behind Us, at Us, I wait for the rebirth implied.

That time in the rubble was long, long ago, but I will tell you what happened next, because if walls could talk this is what they would speak of. The secrets you long to hear are but flitting memories to them. The private words and conspiratorial affairs that unfold in their embrace, which weave the very fabrics of your lives become dreams of loves and crimes indistinguishable from our own. We are your silent memory, etched in vibrations on everything around you, a record of the past lost to your inadequate sensitivities. I know what you would give for a stylus fine enough to hear its secrets, but I bid you: Do not wish for such things.

How long passed, I cannot say, but in time, finely dressed men with drooping mustaches came and the clearing away began again. Some discussion was had about the value of the excavation and much pointing was done. The adhesive remaining on the walls retained a respectable outline of the scene, and finally it was decided that the temple or parlor, or whatever we had become, was worth saving.

Much of the mosaic had been made of semi-precious stones and these were left behind, so every bit of agate and obsidian was then collected from it had fallen into the dirt. The carting up followed, and then terrifying voyage by sea again. This reverie causes me to curse my current place in the world and wonder again if there are still fish beneath the waves. The new city I was taken to was grander than the last one. I was taken into a country with rolling hillsides to a place where the temple was rebuilt and restored with minerals imported from around the world until it was more magnificent than in its original form. I take some pride in the transformation, and in some proof that things could still change for the better.

The glorious restoration occurred in the basement of a grandiose and towering estate the innards of which I glimpsed as I was carried in. At one time, the sight of such opulence and amazing objects would have filled my heart with covetousness, but by then I had learned that just as these lords’ and ladies’ clockworks would wind down, so would their time come to an end. I still argue with myself whether or not the times with people around or the times alone are better.

If I have one regret, it is that, except for the few years at the end, I never truly got to know the common ones. I beg forgiveness by saying that during my human life, I saw those of lower stations than myself as either tools or annoyances, but at that time, I saw the king and high priests that way as well. Looking up or down, I had little compassion, and saw others as merely a way to ascend the ladder. Even then, I knew I was not alone in this way. If this is the punishment for that, let my curse be a warning to consider your ways.

Again, I found myself surrounded by the echelons of society, though I know longer know what that word means. If I ever knew, I have forgotten by now. As their lives played out in front of me, I witnessed passions and excesses unfold in the same ways I had seen before. The function of the place changed, sometimes twice in the span of a day. As a parlor, the walls were a curiosity, whose acquisition spoke of a wealth beyond the ken of even those elevated enough to gain access to the place, but as a temple again, the walls were used as tools in the casting of black magick spells. The warlocks who gathered in its embrace believed it to be an unholy conduit, powered by pagan sanctity, to Hell, or at least to a place of devils. Sacrifices were made.

They were right, in a way, but which Hell was mine? How many circles of sin can one fit into? Is this a lesson I’m supposed to learn about greed? A great many objects passed through the room and I know a dear price was paid for some of them. Ruby amulets, silver blades, and books beyond count came and went. The lamp from long ago made no appearance. I wished it would, though to what end I cannot say, except to acknowledge that even then desire placed hooks in my heart.

Was this the price to pay for dealings with things best left alone? Was my torment for the glee of that thing with the blue eyes and taste for irony? Or is it so ancient that it now remembers me only in what passes for its dreams, if at all? I could not tell you, though I will say that there, amid the tapestry of creation, seeing human folly enacted before me, the same as my own or worse, forced me to admire the sense of humor behind whatever engine drives all this. Part of me thinks that if I can unlock the purpose of my torment, the truth will set me free.

Times changed, and the magicians’ descendants sold the estate, which was turned into a restaurant. The temple became a kitchen, having gone from a thing of faith to one of art, and now finding yet another purpose. The tile walls easy to wipe down. Without shame, I admit that this brief period was the happiest of my incarceration. The cooks and servers laughed and argued as they worked, but the mood was light. I no longer cared to hear what secrets they carried in the depths of their hearts. I was happy merely to listen to them sing as they cooked. This proved to be my last respite from loneliness.

Fewer and fewer guests came as the world grew hotter and dustier. Eventually people stopped coming altogether. I wallowed in the darkness, again, until a fire consumed the mansion above me. With the roof and upper floors burned away I have an unfettered view of the ochre sky, which often rages with storms. I feel freer now.

On clear nights I gaze at the twinkling lights of the cities on the moon. There must still be humans on earth, as I see crafts descend from the lunar surface now and again, but most of the departures leave in the other direction, headed to Mars, or perhaps more distant destinations by now. No one comes here. It has been eons since I heard a voice or even birdsong. There is only the wind. I wonder if they will ever come for me again. I think not.

If walls could talk, what would they say? They might tell you how they long for The End of Everything and its possible promise of rebirth. They might ask if you know if there are still fish in the sea.