31:T753,Character List:
ERESHKIGAL              Goddess of the Underworld.
(𒀭𒊩𒌆𒆠𒃲)             Serious, academic, speaks as though lecturing. Ageless.
EBIH (𒂗𒋾)             A Mountain, slow
INANNA (𒈹)             Goddess of Love and War - Explosive, pumped up, metal
FORAGER                    Playful, sad, has a kind of sweet absent-mindedness,
                                        only really pays attention to the natural world and so feels a
                                        little outside of normal human interaction.
FRIEND                       Also playful. A little more from 'normal' world.
KATHARINE               (Dead) Archeologist,Charming and disrespectful.
AN (𒀭)                         Voice on telephone. INANNA's old friend, a deity.
CHORUS (fluid)32:T5d1,PROLOGUE ERESHKIGAL
Under the surface of the Earth that you walk on, there are three things: magma, mycelium, and what we have forgotten. Let us start with forgetting. The action of forgetting is an obscuring action, but it is not opaque. It is veiled. As what is forgotten becomes buried, it can begin one of several processes that trouble categorization:
Leaking - regardless of coffins, black bin bags, leaving soil poisoned and slick, hot: plastic stretched too tight over pulsating biomes. Oozy.
It can form stratified layers, become metamorphic.
Under pressure it can become coal or oil or natural gas, as ancient forests did before fungi developed the enzymes to digest lignin.
And so on. Forgetting is human. You become unconscious of what you remember. Then - panic - how could I have forgotten? My aunt who loved me’s name? What I did this morning? Under your feet: past oceans, civilizations, bones, compounded and forgotten. What would happen if you could remember everything? Would you be saved? Perhaps it is now too late. You live in a country that has obliterated memory. For thousands of years, you forgot Sumerians. Akkadians. The peoples that began farming, invented writing, joked about bars and accents and fish. The peoples who birthed the first author, Enheduanna. You went around not sure what it was that had happened before Socrates. Before Diana. But of course some people knew. And some things were never buried. Listen. 33:[] 2f:{"title":"","cells":[{"id":0,"value":"Inanna and Ebih","pinned":false,"hidden":false,"mode":"md"},{"id":220,"value":"$31","pinned":false,"hidden":false,"mode":"md"},{"id":189,"value":"$32","pinned":false,"hidden":false,"mode":"md"},{"id":93,"value":"[NEXT SCENE](https://observablehq.com/@florencewallis/ei1)","pinned":false,"hidden":false,"mode":"md"}],"files":"$W33","stdlib":"1","titling":"auto"}