“All the ports I’ve seen, the dives, the taverns, markets and brothels and palaces … yet never anything like this Dilmun, a name I never came across on any nautical chart. Everything here could easily be found elsewhere, were it not for the brightness of the light. And the feeling that it might all melt away from one moment to the next.”

Utnapishtim resumed his tale:

“The Flood didn’t come suddenly as a big surprise. It came at the end of a long, tormented story. Men just went on multiplying and the noise they made was ever more irksome. The Anunnaki summoned Namtar, who governs the things of death. ‘Quieten down that noise,’ they told him. And they asked him to send a plague upon the earth. It was then that Ea told me something I didn’t believe at first. At the four corners of the earth, the heralds were to whip men up, to have them make even more noise, stop showing the gods any reverence at all. Ea was the only god capable of speaking against the gods. But the Anunnaki were incensed. If the plague wasn’t enough, they would send a famine. The rain ceased to fall. Everything dried up. The land seemed like it was covered in salt. People started to look daggers at one another. Spied on one another. Some mothers ate their daughters. And there were daughters who ate their mothers. I remember days of desperation. I spoke for hours, down by the bamboo, to Ea. And got no answer. So I took my bed to the riverbank. I waited for that time of night when everything would fall silent and the only sound was the water. Ea’s voice would come from there.

“You’re wondering: how did I talk to Ea? They said I had an ear for him, as if others found this path blocked. I heard his words as distinctly as I hear yours, and recognized at once that it was him. His voice was like no other. What about when it was my turn to speak? I remember a time when I lived in a big hut with bamboo walls. Close-woven, thick. I would sit facing one of these walls and talk in a low voice, like an idiot. Often there was no response. But sometimes Ea would answer, I heard him right there in front of me. It’s the same now when we talk together. Ea never used my name. He spoke to the wall. He said: ‘Bamboo! Bamboo! Listen up!’ I was on the other side, in the dark, and I listened.

“Where I’m from, to say watch out we would say listen. We had the habit of listening more than seeing. I don’t know if that’s still the case. Our heads were empty thrones where voices, shapes, and vibrations thronged together. Only when Ea brought me here, to Dilmun, did I discover the marvel of something that lets itself be seen, but makes no sound. There was nothing else to keep me company.