Babel
Author : Robert Niescier
We didn’t know what to think when we first saw it. The case, shiny as a mirror, surviving down in the bottom of the ocean God only knows how long, resting in the shadow of some strange underwater mountain. We had never seen anything like it.
I caressed the rectangular box gently, searching for a button, a clip, any sort of seam that might signify a way to reveal the contents inside. Finding nothing, I placed it back down onto my desk and sighed. Three days, and still no luck. Our submergible had only a few days worth of fuel left, and it would be months before we’d be able to return.
I looked out at the inky blackness of the ocean floor, at the ominous jagged mountain reaching up towards the deep blue ocean sky, and placed my palm flat on the case, expecting to feel the chill of metal on flesh but instead a very warm tingle began to crawl through my fingers. My eyes shot down at the case and found that it had begun to glow red, like heated metal. I struggled to move my hand away but only succeeded in sinking it deeper into the mercurial shimmer of the red-hot case, the heat rising farther and farther up my arm, sinking behind my eyes and into my brain. I blacked out.
Cheers exclaimed in a foreign tongue rang out all around me, and I opened my eyes to find myself in the midst of a vast celebration. People dancing, laughing, screaming, pointing. A grand tower stretched towards the sky in front of them, so high it seemed to touch the heavens above.
Their cries abated as a vibration shook the ground beneath their feet. All stood still, their eyes transfixed on the bottom layer of the tower as it began to radiate a sky-blue glow; climbing story after story until the whole structure was ablaze, shining like the sun against a pale sky.
A loud BOOM echoed through the air as the light rose to the top of the tower, a pinpoint barely visible from the ground. Fervent cheers rose, then fell as winged men exploded like fireworks out from the top and poured down onto the crowd. No one ran, not until the first round of innocents was slaughtered by the angelic warriors.
I turned and dashed away, and found myself face-to-face with an old man, holding a shiny metal case like a refugee mother holding her child.
The history of our world.
Thirty years have passed since the history, the knowledge of our true ancestors was implanted into my mind. Into all of our minds. Conflicts have ceased. Cities have prospered, and risen up like leaves of grass on an open field. We are a people of one flag, one language, one ideal.
We are going to build the tower again, but this time things will be different. The weapons from the wars still work. We will be ready for Him this time.
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