31:Te07,CHORUS
Inanna stops at a roadside bar.
Throws open the door, the regulars
are gone.
Sweat-stained and streaked with her victory
she looks around, serves herself a beer.
Then another, coming back to herself
from the rush and surge of fight.
There’s something open in the back, it comes to her. There’s something
open. INANNA
Bartender? CHORUS
Ereshkigal, Inanna’s sister,
Goddess of the underworld. ERESHKIGAL
Nope. INANNA
How are you here. ERESHKIGAL
You sent a mountain to the underworld. INANNA
I killed the mountain Ebih. I was victorious. ERESHKIGAL
Why? INANNA
They did not bow. They reached up to heaven. ERESHKIGAL
You killed it because you wanted to. Because you could. Did you talk to An about it? INANNA
I examined it and knew its length, I went out on my holy campaign and knew its depth. ERESHKIGAL
You killed it because it was beautiful. INANNA
I am the destroyer of worlds! ERESHKIGAL
The world is the destroyer of worlds. INANNA
What? ERESHKIGAL
It’s just one cataclysm after another. Bacterial waste creates oxygen. Waves of lichen and fungi flow over the land. INANNA
You’ve been listening to the Forager. ERESHKIGAL
You haven’t been listening at all. INANNA
Listening? Always with the listening. ERESHKIGAL
This is too late. The world had already ended. Didn’t you notice? INANNA
Notice what? ERESHKIGAL
The pipes under the mountain? The ghosts in the land? The way the impulse in you was the next step to what the machines were doing? INANNA
The machines… ERESHKIGAL
It’s that motorbike of yours. All that fuel in your nostrils, you couldn’t even smell the prey. INANNA
Can’t smell it either way. There’s too much plastic in everything. ERESHKIGAL
So you’re happy being the unintended consequences? INANNA
I’m progress. ERESHKIGAL
You’re poor impulse control. INANNA
What is this. You’re mad about the mountain? They’re taking up space in the underworld? Let me out of here. ERESHKIGAL
It’s not me that’s holding you.
Here. ERESHKIGAL is holding clay. She hands INANNA a chunk. INANNA doesn’t want it.
Waves of sound are building under them. INANNA
No. It is bitter dust. ERESHKIGAL
It is the clay you loved. INANNA
Ruin? ERESHKIGAL
Ruin is right. INANNA
They were - already - dead? ERESHKIGAL
Leaking death. Ruins aren’t buried palaces any more. Ruins are - this bar - the dirty water staining the ceiling tiles - see this drop ceiling? Ruins are flooded and moldering and rusting. INANNA
You’re saying that breaking apart a mountain is just another layer - ERESHKIGAL
They’ve been living in the devastation this whole time. Thousands of years of subjugation. Never surrendering. Thousands of years of wearing the soil thin, of polluting. A ruin that rings with ghosts that were produced by the same progress you claim. INANNA
Why should humans be the only species that does not try to survive? You think they should renounce their place in this world? Progress lets them live! These ruins you see are the story of a species’ survival. You think they have a choice? ERESHKIGAL
Do you see? Do you hear? It’s not rejoicing. That sound. Can you listen? INANNA
The wasteland where none would go, that devastation? ERESHKIGAL
Alone in starlight it sows itself with living hope. Their conversation is drowned out in sound. 32:[] 2f:{"title":"Scene 12","cells":[{"id":0,"value":"# Scene 12","pinned":false,"hidden":false,"mode":"md"},{"id":20,"value":"$31","pinned":false,"hidden":false,"mode":"md"},{"id":3,"value":"[NEXT SCENE](https://observablehq.com/@florencewallis/ei13)","pinned":false,"hidden":false,"mode":"md"}],"files":"$W32","stdlib":"1","titling":"auto"}