"Return, and we return. Keep faith, and so do we."

Prior to the exploits of Gilgamesh, all of the best advisers for civil or civic affairs washed up on the shores of the sea. Mermen, maybe. Maybe just lost fishermen. According to the old reliefs, perhaps just bearded guys in fish-cloaks. Evacuees from the demise of Atlantis. Wise old catfish from the East who learned to breathe and walk like people. Children of Dagon.

Tell me, O Fish. Why ... why civil service? Did you lose a bet? Is this penance? Or is it just natural experience -- the massed knowledge of the schools, of the colonial life of medusae and coelenterates, of the micro-ecosystems of the thermal vents, the design and operation of the cityscapes that were the first encapsulated cells, the aggregation of those cells together into cooperating eukaryotic multicellular life, the invention and perfection of the me that are the scripts for division of labor on the tissue level, for resolution of disputes over resources, for the destruction of traitors and the punishment of the disobedient? Is that what you brought to Akkadia?

Tell me, O Fish. Are there any more sages, or are you spent?

We have nothing but counterfeits now, wearing suits of sharkskin and boots made from stingray leather, teaching how to deceive and betray and gorge and slaughter and how to get away with it all. Pull their teeth and more teeth grow to join the ranks. Is this the new script, the new me, the new DNA of the new ruling class? Or are they predators or parasites or traitors?

O Fish, art thou constant to the old covenant? If I give you a gift, will you take our shark-men and replace them with a new sage? Or will the shark-men, cut into chum, be a suitable gift on its own?

"Return, and we return. Keep faith, and so do we."

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Posted by Laszlo Q. V. St-J. Xalieri