For a long while, Nimrod hung helplessly from the newel post in the madly pulsating Tower. He shouted orders – after all, that was his job, right, to give orders? But nobody paid any attention. The stupid guards were too busy firing arrows that went nowhere.

Well, not exactly nowhere: as soon as they lost velocity the arrows dropped like…something that drops, he guessed, and fell down. Mostly on him. He got several scratches.

'Idiots,' he muttered as he concentrated on the main task before him, which was to extricate his robe from the newel post so that he could deal with the crisis. The agenda appeared in his mind's eye, pressed into fresh clay, as

1. Free self.
2. Assess situation vis-à-vis populace.
3. Round up guards.
4. Fire half of them, put the other half to work.

Nimrod lived by plans and schedules. He'd always been organised: even as a toddler, he'd astonished his nannies by announcing that he, and not they, would henceforth be in charge of his daily routine. He had made charts with his own homemade symbols.

'Sunup, I get up. I eat breakfast. I go poop. We go walkies. I say hi to Mama and her new boyfriend.'

There was always a new boyfriend. Nimrod's Mama was a 'power behind the throne' type of woman, adept at using her personal charm and considerable skill at insider politics to navigate the Sumerian power scene. Princess Enheduanna was a mover and a shaker, and Nimrod was mostly an inconvenience to her, as her late husband had been. Nimrod knew this. It would have been an understatement to say that his childhood had influenced the direction of his life. His first experience of his mother's indifference had engendered in Nimrod a howling rage so deep that it encompassed the whole planet – and reached to heaven itself. Nobody would ever reject Nimrod again, he vowed, because nobody would ever get the chance. He'd control the narrative. And he'd organise his life. Organisation was one of his two great strengths.

The other was boldness. In Nimrod's view, everybody on Earth was a coward and a hypocrite except him. They knew what they wanted, only they didn't go after it. They played by the rules. They were afraid to seize the moment, grab the limelight, push themselves forward. Not him, not Nimrod: he had the nerve to do what others only dreamed of.

Want that vineyard? Who do I have to bribe? Want to build here, and not there? Who do I know on the zoning board, and what's his weakness?

See that attractive woman? What's her price? Everybody has one. Anything can be bought, sold, negotiated: anyone can be persuaded. You just have to find their pressure points. Nimrod was good at pressure points. He never had to fight – let's face it, in spite of all that 'mighty hunter before Marduk' stuff, he didn't even hunt. He had people for things like that.

Tired of worrying about the approval of the gods? He'd figured out where they lived – and led the charge up there. Now, finally, relief was in his grasp: relief from the gnawing sense of being unloved that he'd had all his life. If he owned the gods, he owned the world, right? He could give people things. Lovely, shiny things. And everybody would love him, forever…the plan was working nicely, too: look at this magnificent Tower, look at all the people doing what he wanted them to…look at…

'Hey, where did everybody go?' His voice echoed in the cavernous stairwell. Nimrod looked around: the place was completely empty…almost.

'They've all gone to the places they will be from.' Who was that?

Oh, no, that smartass emissary from the Annunaki, the council of the gods. Didn't wait for him to come to them, showing up to interfere. Must be responsible for all this.

'Who the hell are you, angel? And what do you want from me?'

The angel smiled a crooked smile. It was unnerving, that smile: it started out sweet and then went sad and wistful, only to leave the observer with an aftertaste of vague menace. Nimrod disliked it and fiercely envied it in equal measure. 'I don't want anything from you,' shrugged the celestial being. 'You've already done everything nicely, as far as I can tell.'

'What is that supposed to mean? I wasn't doing this for you lot!' The truth slipped out before Nimrod could catch himself. No: he did this for himself. How dare they lay claim to his great act of rebellion?

The angel chuckled wrily. 'There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will. And,' the gesture took in the vastness of their mad surroundings, 'you've been doing some interesting rough-hewing, I'd say.'

Nimrod was tired of being jerked around. 'I'm tired of being jerked around!' he shouted, pointing his finger imperiously at the heavenly messenger. 'I want a straight answer! Where did everybody go?'

The god looked pensively into imaginary distances, blue eyes unfocused as if seeing scenes that weren't there. 'Some here, some there. They all went wherever they most desired to go. Don't worry,' again that smile, 'they'll be okay. Once they work it out. They've chosen their paths: the rest will sort itself.'

Nimrod practically exploded. 'They aren't supposed to be somewhere else! They're supposed to be in your living room! And I'm supposed to be with them! Why am I here? And why are they there?' And what am I going to do about it all? Nimrod's brain was working feverishly, as usual, calculating angles. And wondering where his very expensive guards had got to. Guards he was going to fire if they didn't deliver the goods.

The angel sighed. 'It's like this. You've opened rather a lot of spacetime portals here. Everybody just…went. To wherever looked most attractive to them. A metaphysical scholar somewhere out there…' again the encompassing gesture…'will one day refer to it as 'jumping in the direction of your predilection.' Nobody's predilection included being in a crazy room full of staircases and no falafel stands, so nobody's here now.'

'Except you,' the being added helpfully. 'I mean, it was your idea to build this, so you're invested in it.'

'Yes, but I was invested in its having people in it!' spluttered Nimrod. This was really maddening. Didn't the guy get that?

The angel chuckled. 'The problem is, you can't actually control anybody else's desires but your own. Sure, you want them to be here. But they don't. So they aren't. They're wherever they chose to be. It won't be perfect there: they can't have it all their own way, any more than you can. But at least they'll be getting somewhere.'

'Don't worry, though! You can join whatever group you like.' This time the angel's smile was encouraging. Nimrod leapt to his feet. This was the best news he'd heard all day.

'Sure! I want to go with the most forward-thinking group. The ones looking for a leader to take them into the future. Let's go!' And he headed for what looked like a doorway…

…until he got there. Then, suddenly, it wasn't a doorway. It was some kind of decorative niche.

He tried another staircase. Another doorway. The same thing happened. After half a dozen futile tries, Nimrod turned and glared at the angel. 'What kind of trick is this?'

The Annunak shrugged. 'You must really want to be here and not somewhere else. After all, this situation was your doing in the first place.'

Nimrod cursed. 'You could have stopped me! You wanted this to happen!'

The angel sighed. 'I tried, remember? You wouldn't be talked out of it. Also, I'm not in charge here. I'm just the messenger.'

'Well, you tell your boss that I'm not going to take this lying down!'

With that pronouncement, Nimrod turned and ran up another staircase. This time, when he got to where the doorway should be, he tried another tack – he barreled right into it, hoping to power through.

It didn't work.

As he lay on the stone floor, rubbing a sore nose, Nimrod asked, 'What will id dake do get oud of here?'

The response was a shrug. 'I don't know, honestly. I'm not you. It could be as simple as realising what's holding you back. Or letting go of your wrong-headed desire to make the whole world pay for something that's really between you and your family.' The angel looked sober. 'On the other hand, you may have to stay here until you die and are reborn with no memory of who you were. I hope not.'

Nimrod looked around the enormous hall. Everywhere he turned, there were stairs. Stairs, and more stairs. At the top of staircases were niches with decorative statues. There were some wall sconces with lamps, and some carpet runners on the floors. The whole thing looked like a very fancy lobby, which it was.

But there was no furniture: no sofas, no beds, not even a hassock to sit on. There were no shelves of clay tablets to read. There were no braziers for cooking. Nor, for that matter, was there any food. There was no water for drinking or washing.

Nimrod had been so busy with his scheme to use sacred geometry to breach the boundaries of spacetime that he had paid no attention to the very nature of what he'd been building – which was supposed to be a place to live and work. He hadn't provided for comfort, or even the basic necessities of life. The Tower was all showy presentation on top of a structure that had one purpose: to lure anyone who entered it into working for Nimrod. It wasn't designed to reward them for it.

And now that building was all Nimrod had. His alone. Realising what this meant, the one-time dictator of Babylon threw back his head and howled.

Nimrods' wail echoed to the farthest reaches of the otherwise-silent Tower. It came back to him as the most melancholy sound in all the universe. He sobbed.

The angel stood up. 'I know what! It's awfully lonely in here, don't you think, with just you? And you might have to wait awhile until you get out…why don't we bring you some companions? Of course, they have to be in the same boat as you…'

'Oh, yes,' said Nimrod, 'that would be lovely, anybody, pleasepleaseplease only don't leave me in here by myself.'

The Annunak produced a flute – and a tune. It was a haunting sound that made the hairs on the back of Nimrod's head stand on end. He'd never heard anything like it – but then, Nimrod had never been much of a music lover. The tune ended with a long, sad note.

As the last note faded in the dry air of the Tower, the niches at the tops of the staircases opened briefly. Through each doorway a figure entered: a man or woman. They were all dressed in some kind of finery – finery from other times and places. They looked like kings and queens, or war leaders. Every one of them looked as baffled as Nimrod had been, and as angry.

One had a laurel wreath and body armour. Another wore a cloth uniform and a metal helmet, with a pearl-handled pistol hanging from his belt. Another had a similar uniform, but with wider trousers. Some wore three-piece tailored suits, others ceremonial robes. One had a pointed hat, others crowns. All looked around them with disdain for anyone who wasn't them.

'What is this?'

'Where am I?'

'Who is in charge here?'

'I demand to see the manager!' This from a very imperious-looking woman whose blonde hair resembled a helmet.

Nimrod turned to the angel for an explanation. 'Who are these people?'

'Your peers, I'm afraid. All the people throughout the spacetime who did the same thing you did: took over positions of responsibility in order to get other people to try to make it up to you for what was missing in your life.'

Nimrod swallowed. 'Did any of them succeed?' The angel replied with a shake of the head – and turned to go.

A cry went up from the assembled leaders of history. 'Wait! We have questions!'

The winged being pointed to Nimrod. 'Your host will explain.' Another long sound on the flute, and a shining silver box appeared in the space above the stairs. The angel flew to the traveling exit and turned to Nimrod one last time.

This time, Nimrod caught a brief look of compassion. 'Good luck,' the angel whispered, and vanished.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

17.04.23 Front Page

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