Sindbad had a question:

“Whenever I returned from one of my seven journeys and recounted my adventures there was always someone who agreed, then with a slight shake of the head would say: ‘You can’t escape destiny.’ At first, happily ingenuous as I was, I didn’t understand. But there came the moment when I thought I had understood. And now, having reached, without even trying to, the place whence Ea, your protector god, set out one day in a ship to fix the destinies of many places, I wonder what I had understood exactly. I wonder whether those places had no destiny before Ea passed by.”

Utnapishtim answered at once:

“Yes, all that did happen. Ea’s ship was called The Apsu Goat. Each power has its origins in the waters of the Apsu. Including the power over destinies. Ea used to say he was the lord of destinies. I remember Ninagirsig, the commander of the Goat, when he raised his golden wand and the sailors’ oars, in perfect time, stirred the waters of the sacred lagoon. It was a glorious moment.

“Some of the stories I’m telling happened after I had already arrived here in Dilmun, others I’d heard even before Ea saved me on the box-shaped ship, along with the animals. Some are stories I was involved in myself. A minor player. But as time goes by, such distinctions fade and dissolve. The stories link up with one another, as if they knew their places from the start. And I move from one to another as though along a single glittering belt. In the end, they’re just stories. And you don’t ask a story to show its papers.

“Having lived here in Dilmun for a few thousand years now, I can say that the first stories you need to know are those of Ea and Ishtar. In ancient times they were called Enki and Inanna. Sometimes I still call them that. Other stories are not so intricate and don’t go so far back. But with these, I’m never sure I’ve understood their deepest meaning. Yet Ea is my protector, and he called Ishtar his daughter. I have never been so close to anyone else. As for the Anunnaki, I couldn’t really say where they’re to be found these days. A fog has come down. Ea made me like them. Now it’s they who are like me. No one visits them, as no one has visited me since Gilgamesh. Until you came along, Sindbad.”

Sindbad was eager to explore Dilmun. He disappeared on long expeditions, returning after dark. He never asked about anything. Once he came back when night was almost over, distraught. Utnapishtim was awake. Sindbad sat facing him and was silent for a while. Then he said:

“There are many who think I did nothing all my life but travel. Some just called me ‘The Sailor.’ For sure, I have seen any number of marvels and monstrosities. But today I saw something I don’t even have a name for. I went farther than usual; around me, everything was pleasantly humdrum. Suddenly I realized I was on the edge of something different. It was still light, a translucent light. Before me, in every direction, lay an expanse packed with hundreds of cone-shaped mounds, of sand and earth, all the same size and the same color, all the same distance, one from the next. There were hundreds—thousands rather, because it seemed they stretched off beyond the horizon. It wasn’t the desert, but nor did it seem a place where men ever went. There was an order, but what kind of order? It was like seeing a sequence of numbers made visible. I had the impression I was seeing time. Nothing of the kind ever happened to me before. At first, I felt terror, then a light, crazy euphoria. Then again terror.