The Tablet of Destinies by Roberto Calasso

And whispered one of her spells, for she had once been a sorceress. She began to knead the clay, streaked with blood. “Mami went into the chamber of destiny, together with Ea. From then on, the spirit remembered the god he had belonged to. A spirit penetrated the clay with Geshtue’s blood. The other gods would purify themselves, three times in a month, immersed in water. Mami, the midwife, could mix some clay with the blood of the god called Geshtue. But how? For them to be truly alive, a god must die. “Then the gods realized they must create substitutes for themselves: men. Their lives were too hard, their outcry could be heard in the highest heaven. They begged help of Anu, who had power over the heavens, and from Ea, deep in the fresh subterranean waters. What could they do but take arms, attack the sky? Enlil the warrior, the counselor, was roused from his bed. They grumbled among the heaps of earth they had turned up. They had left the Igigi to struggle on earth. The Anunnaki had withdrawn to the heavens. “In the beginning the gods walked the earth. But ancient custom has it that everything begins with the gods.” “I’ve been silent so long I don’t know where to start. Utnapishtim was still sitting on the stool. When he woke again he had an impression of great clarity.

Then everything grew muddled for Sindbad. If you want to listen to me, I’ll be here.” Utnapishtim sat on a stool beside him and said: In came a blade of light that lay beside Sindbad. Utnapishtim got up and parted the flaps of the tent. “This is the home of Utnapishtim, in Dilmun.” Then the other woke, looked at him, and said: He had slept, but for how long? Days? Years? In the darkness he recognized a shape. He knew nothing of what happened next, until the moment when he opened his eyes in a tent. Not only had he lost his course, the compass points themselves had disappeared. Far from dismayed, what he felt was a strange, drunken recklessness, relief almost. A certain event had happened before the third shipwreck, another after the fifth. This storm was like no other he had known.

The Tablet of Destinies by Roberto Calasso