By John Leatherman
“Phraxy, when are you going to marry me like you promised?”
Determined not to let Bilhah’s childish pout sway him, chief architect Aphraxad kissed her forehead and caressed her ebony hair. “Oh, my feisty desert bloom, I beg for your patience.” He gestured out the window of the earthen hut serving as his office. “King Nimrod’s construction project consumes our lives right now.”
She turned toward the twenty-story ziggurat of sunbaked brick and tar looming above Babel, topped with ladders, platforms, and busy construction workers. “What about when the tower is finished?”
Aphraxad smiled. “Yes, then I will have time for a wedding.” Even as he said it, the thought disturbed him. As Nimrod’s chief architect, he could never publicly declare love for a common woman.
He gestured toward the door. “Hurry back to your post. Your break’s almost over. I should know, I made the schedule myself.”
Bilhah sighed. “I suppose the faster I gather straw, the more bricks the workers can make, and the sooner the tower will be done.”
“Exactly, my love.”
After a parting hug, Bilhah left for the straw fields. Aphraxad smiled after her, confident that he’d promised nothing.
The tower would never be complete. It would never be tall enough to satisfy Nimrod’s limitless ego. And as the royally stationed designer of every cubit of its grandeur, Aphraxad would never be without Babel’s unending admiration and respect.
Aphraxad climbed the steep steps to the seventeenth-level terrace, which served as the base for the scaffolds to complete the top levels. Panting, he wiped his brow and summoned Kittim-Tubal, his principal taskmaster. “Your crew’s work has been barely passable so far, but today you have a glorious opportunity to prove yourselves anew—”
A sudden rumbling interrupted Aphraxad. He braced himself against a support beam.
The tremors subsided a moment later, and the structure stood intact. Aphraxad sighed with relief. The earth would have to send more than that to stop this tower from reaching the heavens.
Aphraxad straightened his tunic and resumed his officious stance. “As I was saying, King Nimrod wants three more levels. And that means strengthening every level below for the extra weight. His Excellency will conduct his daily inspection soon. He’ll want to see scaffolds on the ground to widen the first two levels. Understand? Go forth!”
Kittim-Tubal responded with a wide, unblinking stare. “Wha tar eyous aYing?Talkn orMal.”
Aphraxad scowled. “Huh? Didn’t you hear me say King Nimrod and inspection? If I don’t see ground-level scaffolds soon, you’re—”
A massive beam of acacia wood slammed down, landing less than a cubit from Aphraxad’s toes. He glared up. “Who dropped that? You almost killed me!”
On the platform above, two workers exchanged unintelligible shouts.
“yOU clUMsy !creTIn!”
“I.t.old y.ou t.o t.ake i.t, i.d.i.ot!”
More gibberish echoed from the workers on the higher levels.
“uSe rEAl wORDs!”
“St-op tal-king cr-azy!”
“II caan’t uundeerstaand aanyy oof yoouu!”
“heLp,mE! IT’s,tOo,hEavY!”
That last came from a man struggling with the rope-and-pulley system to raise a pallet of bricks to the twentieth level. The rope slipped from his hands, and the bricks smashed to a platform on the nineteenth level, rattling the levels below. The rickety wooden support poles splintered, and the structure tottered toward the adjacent one.
As the scaffolds toppled, workers leapt off. Aphraxad scrambled down the stairs to escape an avalanche of timbers, bricks, and other debris. He reached the safety of the ground—where King Nimrod’s chariot had arrived for the daily inspection.
Nimrod’s face reddened to a hue Aphraxad hadn’t seen since the beheading of his predecessor, Lamech-Put.
Aphraxad fell to his knees and bowed. “Your Excellency! A thousand pardons, these workers have gone mad!”
Nimrod shook his fists. “Howd areyo uspe aksu chnons ensetome!”
Whatever Nimrod said, Aphraxad gathered it was not praise.
Nimrod turned to the two guards flanking the chariot. “Sei zehim!”
The guards looked at each other, brows creased in confusion.
“Wha` tdi` dyo` usa` y?”
“I; do;n’t un;der;stand an;y o;f yo;u!”
Taking advantage of the guards’ inaction, Aphraxad fled. He charged into the narrow, clay-walled streets of the city, pleading for anyone to explain what was going on. Men and women who once respected him replied with blank looks, angry frowns, or worse—along with more gibberish.
Near the city walls, Aphraxad ducked into a stable and hid behind some hay sheaves. Exhausted from the run, he collapsed into an uneasy sleep.
Sometime later, when he stirred, an angry voice shouted, “Who goes there? Show yourself!”
Quivering, Aphraxad emerged to confront the speaker, one of his neighbors. “Enos-Cush? D-do you understand me?”
Enos-Cush gasped. “Aphraxad? Do you understand me?”
They stared at each other a moment; then Enos-Cush spread his arms. “Welcome, friend.”
Aphraxad joined the embrace.
Actually, they had never been especially friendly, not since they had competed years ago for a foreman position on the tower. That didn’t seem to matter now.
Enos-Cush began loading sheaves into a wagon heavy with provisions. “You’re just in time. I’ve found a few others who still speak like us. We’ve organized a caravan to go northwest.”
“What’s northwest?”
“Nobody knows. But other groups that don’t talk like us are going other directions, and we don’t want to run into them. Are you coming?”
Aphraxad hesitated. He had never been outside the city before. Whatever lay northwest would be a life unlike anything he’d ever known, but a life nonetheless.
Surely there wasn’t a city in the northwest.
So, they’d need someone who could help build one.
Aphraxad loaded the last sheaves. “Go forth!”
Following the wagon toward the caravan, Aphraxad passed through the city gates. For the first time in his memory, he had no idea what to do next.
A familiar voice called out. “So, Phraxy, does this mean the tower is finished?”
Aphraxad took Bilhah’s hand and pressed it to his heart. “Yes, my feisty desert bloom.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Very clever use of punctuation. I’m glad the feisty desert bloom spoke the same language.
I’m glad you enjoyed it!
clever way to show the difficulty in communication, but we still know what’s going on ! makes the story come alive…
Thought about using real languages, but then I’d have had to waste words on translations. Glad you liked it!
Hi John,
This is the first story of yours that isn’t about Gus so it took me a minute to get in touch with the characters. It is a very interesting setting that you picked for your story. I really got into it when the beams started to fall. That part got my attention immediately. I am not so crazy about the language. That is you John, always trying to see how intelligent your audience is. For me it slowed down my reading speed and I really didn’t take the time to figure out what it all meant. Maybe do a little less of it. But I do want to know how the different languages were spoken in different areas. You said he was moving to an area where they spoke the same language. That left me hanging to want to read more. Good job John.
Unfortunately, that’s all there is… it’s flash fiction! But I’m glad you wanted to see more.
You picked a very creative way to show different languages that still was somewhat recognizable. Excellent story! The Tower of Babek is one of those stories we never contemplate on how it must have turned out. Loved it!
Thank you! Glad you liked it!
Love this. The confusion of languages is a great myth, and you portray it well. I like how you show the personal side of the event.
Thank you! It is a difficult POV to write from.
Love the Leatherman take on the Tower of Babel. Strangely enough, it’s actually fairly credible. Good job. :-)
Thank you , Linda!
Really good job!
Great version of the Tower of Babel!